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Context:
Collecting data about sexual violence is a crucial step towards breaking the culture of silence
Statistics
Difference in perceptions about the prevalence of sexual harassment:
- When the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) asked men and women in over 40,000 households about how often young women in their neighbourhoods were harassed, 20% of women and 14% of men said this occurred ‘at least sometimes’ in 2005.
- In 2012, when the same households were interviewed again, 31% of women and 21% of men reported that harassment was prevalent in the same neighbourhoods.
What does this imply?
- This suggests that women are far more likely to feel harassment is pervasive in their neighbourhoods than men.
- moreover, for both men and women, perceptions of sexual harassment increased by almost 10 percentage points between 2005 and 2012 in the same neighbourhoods.
Actual Experiences:
- Lok surveys, asked women about their actual experiences of sexual harassment to nearly 78,000 women.
- When asked, how often you have experienced unwanted groping/touching by men, nearly 10% said often and an additional 7.5% said very often.
- Since personal experiences of this nature is generally expected to be underreported, over 17% women claiming they experience unwanted groping often or very often is striking.
- Of the 15.67% of women who reported experiencing groping/touching only ‘rarely,’ a fair number might have been under-reporting.
- When both men and women were asked whether “women should tolerate eve-teasing as a normal part of life” only about 50% disagreed with this statement
- Others either agreed to some extent or had no opinion. The acceptance of sexual harassment is striking
National Family Health Survey (NFHS) – IV
- NFHS asked questions about women’s experiences of sexual violence.
- About 5.5% of the women surveyed say they have experienced sexual violence;
- Over 80% of these instances of violence are perpetrated by husbands.
What is the problem with NHFS results?
- These results direct attention to the home as the primary site for violence, away from public spaces and workplaces.
- This is misleading and largely reflects problems in survey design and execution.
- NFHS-IV is: “Has anyone ever forced you in any way to have sexual intercourse or perform any other sexual acts when you did not want to?”
- It then goes on to ask the identity of the perpetrator.
- The question which is most likely asked in semi-public settings, in the absence of lead-up and sensitivity, elicits largely negative responses.
- It, moreover, asks about non-consensual sexual acts; it does not account for sexual coercion tactics
What is missing in all the data mentioned above?
- There is no mention of sexual harassment and violence against women in the workplace.
- There is minimal data on workplace harassment in India.
Why is data collection on sexual harassment extremely challenging?
- It is difficult to define sexual harassment
- It is even more difficult to collect information about painful and stigmatising experiences.
Way ahead:
- There should be privacy, safety and guard against further stigmatising survivors of sexual harassment and violence.
- Data must be collected and interpreted with sensitivity in order to do justice to the struggles women encounter in the face of gendered and sexual violence.
- However, collecting and disseminating data about sexual violence is the first step towards breaking the culture of silence and finding ways of combating violence against women.
