Safecity’s primary goal is to establish a society where women and children feel secure and confident when moving through public spaces. Safecity serves as a platform where people can share their personal experiences of sexual harassment and abuse. The information collected is presented on a map as hotspots, capturing the location and severity of incidents.
In a One-on-one interaction with MI, Supreet K Singh, Co-Founder of Safecity talks about the mission of the platform, its reach, and future plans. Supreet opens up about the problems that lie in our country related to gender based violence. She also underlines the shortage of funds and their allocation which is also a problem for the platform. “We haven’t received any government support in terms of funds to date”, Supreet says while responding about government support to the cause.
Excerpts here:
Q) Tell us more about you. How did you start Safecity?
Supreet: Hailing from an army background, I practically grew up embracing different communities and cultures. Later I did my MBA in International marketing and business. I started off my career as a sales and marketing in Beer brand. I was the first Indian woman in a managerial position for an alcohol and liquor company. Hence, my career was always under scrutiny by a lot of people. Later I was promoted a marketing manager and transferred to London. Soon after, I faced sexual harassment by the CEO of the company. I reported but the company didn’t have an SH policy so there was no redressal. So I decided to give up the position as I wasn’t very comfortable working there. Then the company offered me a job in their subsidiaries. I chose to come back to Mumbai, India, where I joined their airline segment as a Trade Marketing Manager. Here I met, Elsa Marie de Silva. Soon we became best friends partnering on a lot of initiatives together. I left my aviation job after sometime because I felt a little shortchanged by the company. But I was still connected to Elsa. It was then in 2012, we heard the news of Nirbhaya, the brutal rape incident that shook the nation.
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We had already started speaking to a lot of people to understand the reason behind public transport being still a place for sexual abuse. Surprisingly, after talking to many friends and relatives, we realized that all women had a story to share. They just don’t share it openly, or report it to the authorities, which contributes to the the lack of attention to the problem. And when the problem is not visible, the authorities don’t really have any data set to work with to resolve the problem. Then, Elsa came up with the idea of Safecity and we registered in 2014. So, Red Dot Foundation is the NGO name and Safe City is our flagship program.
The idea behind Safecity is to bridge the gap between the reality of the cases of sexual harassment or violence and the cases that are actually being reported to the authorities. We didn’t want to create a parallel system. The data we receive from Safecity is here to strengthen the system that was already there, and to share it with the authorities.
Q) How does Safecity work?
Supreet: We realized that people don’t report violence for two reasons. One, they don’t know about sexual harassment and violence and its criminal charges under the law in the land. Two, because of victim blaming in the country. Family, police, and society, all put a whole lot of pressure on the victim.
We decided to invite people to report any form of sexual violence in public spaces with us anonymously. We asked them to report every detail of the incident without disclosing their identity. So, people came forward with each detail of the incident including, time, place, date, etc. As and when people started reporting to us, the incident got pinned onto a Google map. So you start seeing the incidents as a balloons markings on the map.
Once we receive these reports, we share them with authorities and communities. We also share it on our website and mobile application. It has helped the police authorities immensely. In some cases, in order to increase surveillance in hot spots, the police adjusted the beat patrol timings.
Currently, we use it with police authorities in Delhi, Goa, Hyderabad, Patna, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, and Bangalore using the data from the website. Safecity in a way made women realize that they are not alone in experiencing harassment.
We believe the most integral part of finding a solution to this issue is involving men and other genders from the communities. Because if half of the population is facing harassment issues due to the other half, we can only find a sustainable solution if all the stakeholders are involved.
Q) What kind of work are you doing with Red Dot Foundation and Safecity?
Supreet: Our mission is to work towards ending gender based violence. We work on gender justice, equality, and safety. We want to create a space where girls and women are free to move around and live their lives to their full potential. Ending violence against women and girls using crowdsourced data, community engagement, and institutional accountability, is the mission of Red Dot Foundation.
So far, we have 55,000 reports. We are present in 17 countries including India, where we partnered with local NGOs and organizations. We have a lot of impact stories. We are working towards ending gender-based violence through education, and advocacy by using crowd-sourced data.
We are also working for the prevention of Sexual Harassment Against Women in the workplace. We are constantly working on DEIA which is Diversity, Equality, Inclusivity, and Accessibility. We also work on projects with the LGBTQIA+ community.
We also conduct bystander intervention training, because a lot of times we have noticed people losing lives while somebody is just filming an act of violence or is not aware of how they can intervene in such situations. We believe we need to create ways to help people to become active bystanders.
Q) What kind of associations are you doing?
Supreet: We collaborated with UN Habitat on the Urban Thinkers Campus, where we have been hosting the event for almost five years now. We invite the stakeholders to talk about sustainable cities and the theme this year is youth-led inclusive and safe cities.
We have also written a book series named, She Is. This book series is based on non-fictional stories of women who have achieved something in areas where usually they’re under shadows.
The first book was about women working on sustainable development. The second was She Is – Women in STEAM. The book honors 75 women from the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics. Third is She Is – Water Sheroes. Here we worked with PSA, the Canadian consulate, and the Canadian scientist advisor to the Prime Minister of Canada. This book is about 21 women scientists and 8 community leaders in water from India and Canada. Now we are working on our 4th book, She Is – 75 Women in Chemistry. For this, we are working with PSA and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Other than this, we believe art is a very non-confrontational way of opening conversations, which are otherwise taboo. We also work with theatre artists. Misogyny, and casual sexism, are some of the acts that are done by these artists.
We also created a film last year with O&M Singapore, on how Bollywood glorifies toxic relationships in the garb of love. The youth actually gobbles it up and behaves in a way that is actually a violation of law. The film brought us a nomination for the Glass Lion for Change at Cannes.
Q) Has the world changed since you started?
Supreet: We have seen the change in the sense that people are at least opening up to conversations. People are now noticing these issues. Honestly, the violence was happening before also but we couldn’t hear them enough. I think we will never know how much of that gap we have filled to date. But we are doing our bit.
For example, we have trained more than 2,50,000 people so far. We hope these people will take this forward to their family and friends. Indirectly, we have touched more than a million people.
Q) What is the scenario in smaller cities? Do you have a presence in Tier 2 or 3 cities?
Supreet: Currently, we are present in Delhi, Hyderabad, Patna, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Goa, Bangalore and rural Maharashtra. We want to upscale and go to tier 2 and tier 3 cities and that is in the plans. We did a project with SDA Delhi where we worked in 3 villages near Patna Bihar, empowering women with information on sexual harassment, the law and their rights and how the Safecity app works.
Q) How do you educate people about, the Safecity app?
Supreet: We are on the web and on mobile apps. We educate people about the Safecity app when we meet people doing on-ground activities, and projects. These are the people who go out and meet bigger communities. We invite them to download the app. We don’t have a marketing budget, but we have been using the social media.
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Q) Do you think education somehow can help women to grab that confidence to stand up against violence, of any sort?
Supreet: Absolutely! Unless women know their rights and are economically independent, they will not be able to fight for themselves. With education comes the ability to keep yourself safe and lead a desired life. However, educating women can’t end gender-based violence. For that, we need to educate boys. They should learn to understand the meaning of consent. They need to understand the Indian law pertaining to these actions. While the boys need to be educated about this, girls need to be told that they have a voice and can say no, whenever they are not comfortable.
Q) What kind of support you’re getting from the government?
Supreet: We aren’t a government-funded organisation. Having said that, of course, our She-Is book series are being supported by the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India. We haven’t been able to find a way of getting any part of the fund that is meant for organizations working in this space. I think the problem is more about the dissemination of information to NGOs on how they can partake in that fund. So to utilize it for the right cause. However, we have been getting help from certain police officers, such as the Commissioner of Police, Maharashtra, Mumbai. We also work with Western Railways.
Q) Are you planning any campaigns around education?
Supreet: We are planning to create a learning hub where we are going to have e-learning sessions. People can simply log in and learn about things that are admissible in the eye of the law. It can expand our reach towards people at large.
Q) Would you like to give some suggestions to young girls?
Supreet: I want to tell little girls that know you’re important, unique, and a creator. So paint your life in the way you want. Fight for your education, don’t ever fall back. Make sure to have a dream and aspire to reach there. Finish your education and get economically independent. Last but not the least, support other women in regard to work, school, college, and everywhere. As a society, we need to support each woman out there. There is no companionship compared to the woman constantly correcting your tiara and pushing you to achieve more.
