Bengaluru: The city police have launched another toll-free number – 10928 – exclusively for women victims of sexual assault in Bengaluru.
The new helpline, which is currently accessible only to users of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), will soon be extended to users of other mobile service providers, said Joint Commissioner, Crime, East, B. Dayananda.
“The call received on 10928 will get diverted to Dial 100 – the police helpline and will be received by women constables, who have been trained in soft skills by Infosys and counsellors of Vanitha Sahay Vani. They will attend to the caller and alert the nearest available mobile police patrol ‘Hoysala’ or ‘Cheetah,’ which will reach the spot of crime immediately and offer appropriate help to the victim. If the caller is in a critical condition, the woman constable, who is attending to her call, will alert the jurisdictional police inspector and other senior police officers for timely action and help. Dial 10928 is a 24x7 helpline. It is being streamlined for effective use,” said Mr. Dayananda.
The police along with the Department of Women and Child Development are already running a toll-free helpline – Dial 1091 – for women victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. Vanitha Sahay Vani is a voluntary organisation for women, which is functioning under the city police.
City schools seek help of NGOs
Following cases of rape that are being reported from across the country, school authorities seem to have woken up to the issue. NGOs working for child rights are getting more calls from school authorities to conduct sessions on gender sensitisation, abuse prevention and related issues.
Two days after the Delhi gang-rape of a young woman in a bus, a case of rape was reported from Hassan district in Karnataka and following that seven cases were reported from Bengaluru as well as other districts of Karnataka.
Enfold Trust works with a network of organisations such as Childline, Bosco, CRY and APSA. Dr Shaibya Saldanha, a gynaecologist and counsellor by profession, and founder of Enfold Trust, says schools are showing much more concern about gender related issues and have been calling for help.
“We make them follow the ‘no’, ‘go’, ‘tell’ mantra, wherein if the girls feel unsafe they should say no, should not go for it, and should tell others about it”, Ms Saldanha said.
The Association for Promoting Social Action (APSA) has been getting calls from both schools and parents. Says P. Lakshapathi, executive director, APSA, “In the past one week, we have conducted gender sensitisation sessions with both girls and boys of six different government schools around K R Puram and Mahadevpura. We now have to conduct similar session for 15 more schools”.
The session is conducted for one hour, once a week, for students in the age group of 10-15 years of both sexes. “We have also developed a tool kit for the sessions to make it easy for students to understand. With the help of this kit our volunteers will explain what exactly is meant by sexual abuse, what is good touch and what is bad touch. In addition, they also demonstrate through presentations how one develops HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases”, Mr Lakshapathi said.