According to a survey of experts released in 2018,

India was considered the world's most dangerous place for women.

That report came out as India has been grappling with the issue of sexual violence against women, especially due to high-profile rape cases.

But how dangerous is India for women, really?

Do Indian women fear for their safety on a daily basis?

We wanted to know, so our Asian Boss reporter, Aksa, hit the streets of Mumbai to find out.

To be the singular perception overseas that India is not very safe for women.

In fact, according to a survey conducted by Reuters,

India came out as the most dangerous country for women, ahead of countries like Syria and Afghanistan.

As a local, what is your immediate reaction to this?

Okay, so yes, I agree with this, that India is not safe for women.

If you put it in that perspective, it's definitely funny.

Yeah, I'll say it's unsafe, but not that unsafe.

So, does this figure surprise you?

Obviously, you cannot compare India to Syria or to Afghanistan, where rape is actually a war weapon.

That's definitely not a standard comparison.

That's really silly.

I don't think India is more dangerous than Syria and Afghanistan.

So, the government of India is taking actions for the women's safety.

The Reuters survey has been questioned and criticised by the Indian government for its lack of data transparency.

But still, according to official crime statistics, a woman is raped every 13 minutes in India.

Again, as a local, how accurate does this sound to you?

Does that figure surprise you?

Yes, it's surprising to me.

Because I don't think the situation is like that.

A woman is raped every 13 minutes in India?

Yeah.

Oh God.

That's quite a news to me.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'm not very sure how accurate this data might be.

But on a daily basis, if I can read two, three articles in the newspaper regarding what all crimes happen with women, it quite seems about maybe this is like quite correct.

Why do you think the statistics are like this?

It is like male-dominant society, long-back perceptions about males are like maybe superior or whatever.

So those things, they creep in even the young boys.

I don't think it surprises me because the thing is,

India is a country with more than 130 crore, right?

So if you compare it with other states like United States, there the number of population is 30 crore.

So if you see this comparison, then I think in that country also the statistics will be the same.

There may be some incidents in India, which a lot of news reporters or some medias portray, especially the outside media.

But this is not true like in overall thing.

Like there may be some incidents in some part of India, but this is not everywhere.

So we are here in Mumbai.

It obviously doesn't represent the whole India.

But in your personal opinion, how serious do you think this issue is of rape and sexual assault for women in like entire Indian society?

Not just Mumbai.

It's really a serious issue.

I think that not everywhere the situation is that what you are thinking.

But still, you know what, I am from Kolkata and I feel that Mumbai is safer than Kolkata because in my parents, they will let me go for a night out because it's really not safe that much.

But in Mumbai, I can go safely.

In the developed cities, we may not feel that this is happening.

This may shock us.

But if you really talk about the backward areas, villages or some even small towns, there we see that this happens frequently and the women do not even report the cases.

That is just because of their reputation and etc.

In these developed cities, if a man tries to do something like that, women here can raise her voice, right?

And women knows the techniques.

We are made to learn self-defense.

We are asked to take some measures like taking a long chili spray and small knives.

We are taught since the age of teenage that you should take such measures.

Whereas women there, they do not know how to raise their voice.

They do not know how to protest against this.

They do not know how to avoid this.

And they just become the victim and they keep quiet as well.

That's what I feel.

As an Indian man, how do you feel about these reported incidents of rapes?

Very like...

I'm saying that we are below the animals.

These kind of things are done in the jungle.

Woman who is being the victim, like she will be physically or mentally, she will be whatever that...

Devastated.

Yeah, mentally devastated for over a long period of time.

It hurts me.

Because I have my friends, I have my sisters and it hinders their freedom.

They are not able to freely roam wherever they want to go at the night, at any time.

What would you do if your sister or female friends wants to go out at night by themselves?

Would you let them go?

Yeah, I would let them go.

But if they face any issues, then they can call me anytime.

Yeah, they should have male friends, they can call them.

There should be some safety precautions that should be taken by them.

If you had to be in a situation where people are not making you feel very comfortable, what kind of measures do you do at that time?

See, you have to be firm.

You have to hold on to what you really believe in.

You must know when to say no.

I also think that I should learn care at your legs, something to prevent myself.

But right now, still now I can't do.

So I think not to go alone, actually.

Do you always accompany somebody?

Yes, yes.

So do you accompany yourself with a male person or a woman somebody?

Actually, I prefer male.

I keep somebody informed that where I'm going, that I'm leaving.

It's either one of any of my friends or my parents.

Suppose I feel unsafe, maybe I'll call my parents and I'll be talking to them that I'm here, here, so and so place.

I'll keep updating, I'll send them the location.

This is something I keep doing on regular basis.

It's not only on the onus of the woman to be careful and be safe.

The fact that a woman goes outside, whether dressed completely or dressed the way she wants to, should not matter because that's not the reason behind which a person rapes a woman.

It's on the onus on the men also.

The men and the guys of the country to make sure that the women feel safe as well.

An executive order introducing the death penalty for rapists of minors under the age of 12 was passed last year.

Do you think this is a fair punishment?

Definitely, that's a very fair punishment and it should work as a deterrence.

The penalties should be so harsh.

I feel there was a huge necessity for this kind of bill to be passed because how shameless you can think of them to be raping a small child.

What has a child even done or has that child even seen life?

It's like one-year-old, two-year-old babies are getting raped.

It's very shameful on the part of the people who do that.

So a death penalty for this I feel is too harsh.

What I feel is castration is the best policy for this.

Why to even give them a next chance?

Like that's the best policy I feel and I have heard one of the countries doing this.

So why not in India?

They get bail, they are out of jail and even the duration of punishment of being in custody is not too long and all of these things they lead to extra confidence in people that okay even if they do so either she will not report or even if they get in the jail and so they will get released soon.

So the punishment needs to be severe that's what I feel.

Yes if it is not severe then the case will keep increasing.

Do you feel that even the innocent Indian guys are unfairly stereotyped for this particular?

Yeah I think it's been done because I have read one case in Delhi where the innocent person was wrongly charged for the rape case.

Some girls take advantage of that and it should be stopped.

It's a kind of personal question but have you yourself or somebody close to you ever told you about such kind of sexual assault happening to them?

I really wonder if a girl in India has not been exposed to a situation like that.

I can bet anything on it.

I have seen a lot of such cases.

So a girl she was celebrating new year's with her friend so she took her to her house and her friend was raped by this girl's father.

We get onto the train whenever we get down from the train people touch us inappropriately.

My mom always has taught me that you should always protect your body like keep your arms like this something so that people don't push you in some inappropriate ways.

People move their hands just to touch some of our body parts.

So this is like so crazy.

This incident has happened three times in local with me and since then I always prefer ladies coach and I never go in general coach because it scares me a lot.

So it just freezes my mind for some time and I'm not able to think and I'm really shook from this.

So yeah there have been instances in everyone's close family circles or a close friend circle or something where you know they somebody would have faced an assault or something even in streets of Mumbai you would have seen it's not that it's not happening.

But I think it's more important instead of discussing these things it's more important that these things are sensitized about and at the same time equal measures are taken so that these things can stop at an immediate response.

What do you think would be the most effective way to deal with such issues?

Open up, gather your guts, speak up and believe who is speaking out.

The most important problem related to rapes is that pornography so yeah so men some pornography related thing has to be done so that the impact the negative impact that has been getting built up in the men's brain so that would that should get controlled.

Firstly sensitization about women's safety is very important.

A child or a student spends most of his time at home and what he learns from home and his school is what he demonstrates outside.

So if there are certain sort of value systems and cultures that's brought upon on an on a child right at and sensitized at the grassroots level I don't think this should happen.

Did people's answers surprise you?

How safe is your country for women?

Let us know in the comments.

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Thanks for watching and as always stay curious.

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