Dear Women, now men are taking videos of you on buses and posting them on porn sites- Beware, don't become Click Bait. Now besides the unnecessary pushing, shoving and groping, women have to worry about getting their videos taken without consent.
Are you one of those people who is annoyed with all those #MeToo statuses and complaints about how unsafe our streets are? Do you also think women don't deserve those reserved seats on buses? Well, you cannot be more wrong.
If you're a woman who has ever been used public transport, molestation on buses and trains is not news to you. You take all the precautionary measures you can, cover yourself, distract yourself from prying eyes, ignore the purposeful brushes, mutter under your breath because you're too scared to yell at the molester. But well, looks like you're still not doing enough. Now, men on buses are taking videos of you and posting them on pornographic websites.
No. We kid you not. It is enough if you are just sitting and doing absolutely nothing, these men are taking videos and posting them online. Can it get more horrific? Yes, it can. It also seems like the people involved are orchestrating this whole video without your knowledge. In these videos, men can be seen shoving their crotches into the women standing in front of them during rush hour- you can see the woman squirm but you can see that she can't complain because it is 'rush-hour'.
From the way that the video is shot, it doesn't seem like it was caught by chance and neither does it seem like it was shot by a person sitting down. The video has been captured from the top, so the person shooting it has been holding the phone above his head. So now women have to be on the watch-out for people holding phones in strange angles or if they have their phone up for unusually long times. It's not enough to just try and balance yourself in an overcrowded bus or just stiffly sit till you reach your destination.
"Men trying to take pictures of me has happened twice as far as I have noticed. Once on the bus and once on a train. Both times I have threatened to take pictures of them in return. They made faces and turned away. A great spectrum of harassment has happened to me in the public transport and the roads. From stalking to masturbating," said Samyukta PC, a Chennai resident.
According to the Metropolitan Transport Corporation, a total of 3,688 buses run through 833 routes in the city. The Corporation states that an average of 48 lakh people travel in these buses, at least half or even less than half of the passengers are women so it is safe to assume that at least 20 lakh women take the bus. Out of the 3688 buses, 200 are women-only buses which means only about 18 percent of buses are completely for women.
But women have registered cases in the past and the police have taken action under a few sections that are connected to the offence. Helplines are available to women and if you do find your pictures on porn sites, it is mandatory for sites to take them down within an hour.
However, the tragic part of this issue is that most times women don't know that there are being photographed or videotaped. There seems to be no concept of consent whatsoever in these cases. But if women do find out they are being photographed, do they immediately take them to the police? How do they register the complaint if the person escaped and no one has his details? Handling the incident when it happens is one thing but it seems almost impossible to prevent such videos from finding their way online.
How can women be aware that this is happening to them? How can they prevent it? Can they report it? Who do they report it too? How can they get their videos removed from a pornographic site? Can they sue?
We investigate, research, gather similar accounts, speak to experts, the police and the MTC officials to answer these very questions. Follow the #IAmNotClickBait campaign and work with us to make public spaces safer for women.
