31 Dec 2012

Can cellphones, GPS and good men SaveHer?

Update 2

While we sit figuring if this is a good idea or not, how hard or easy it is, a group of 40 Indian women programmers participated in a Hackathon (Progamming / Hacking Marathon) and made a program for this already.
And we call Indian women inferior  - what the Govt of India, the various cellphone companies, the various software industry giants like TCS, Infosys, Wipro have not done, has been done by a group of volunteering women programmers!

All we need is this :


  • One office (maybe a Delhi branch too, to "talk" to the politicians)
  • One committed team of about a dozen people – including computer programmers, lawyers, media men.
  • A few servers from some Indian server company - we cannot use American / European / Singapore / Japan servers because our sensitive private data should not go out of our national boundaries.
  • Lot of internet bandwidth
  • A few experts from women’s NGOs on the advisory board
  • One famous person at the top who wants this to happen – either an industrialist or a celebrity - My opinion is that it is better if a woman sponsored this entire system - there are enough rich lady celebrities in India who already do campaigns promoting women's welfare, progress and self-respect.
  • Volunteers - both men and women to help spread awareness through various new and old media channels
  • Sponsors - mobile companies like Airtel, Vodafone, Idea!, all would be happy to participate and get more subscribers in the name of women's safety - we have to ensure that they just sponsor, not dictate terms.
In short, we need a few dozen good women (and maybe men) to come together and work. 

We should not just sit and blame the Govt - this is a democracy, we own India, and if they are bad servants, we should show them how it is done right.

If they cannot make laws by themselves, they cannot stop us from making systems for our own protection. 

When those systems start working and issues start to arise, they will be forced to look into the laws and rewrite them.

We also have to be watchful when they rewrite those laws.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Background:
While discussing on Twitter, SC lawyer Haresh Raichura brought up an idea of using a central private website for registering complaints of sexual assault.

This makes perfect sense. In my previous post, I argued that rape complaints must not be made at police stations at all, instead they must be made at private medical centres of the rape survivor's choice.

Someone replied to Mr Raichura's idea on Twitter that this private website must automatically send an FIR to the police.

I suggested yesterday that women should be allowed to record cops taking down their complaint or be accompanied by a cameraman with a video camera because many cops many times simply refuse to register a rape case.
( Why this is so, is a sociology topic, related with the cops complete absense of humanity or understanding of rape, social circles, bribery, political power, drinking friends etc, but that is another topic. )

I searched a bit on the internet to see if something was already done for emergency management and came up with 2 popular and real-world-tested free software: Ushahidi and Sahana.
Both are free and easy to install for technical people.

Finally I stumbled upon Random Hacks of Kindness and this entry by Sreemukta Acharya.

Now, I have known for some time about Hollaback which is a global movement that has many branches (Delhi, Chandigarh, Chennai as well) made of men and women who want to fight street harassment.

All guys should check out iHollaback

They say that you should record / click photos of sexual assaulters and post them online - twitpic or videos to youtube or any media-sharing site.

They also have made smartphone (iPhone and Android) apps to fight street harassment.

Reading about those smartphone apps and Sreemukta's website idea, and Mr. Raichura's idea of a website, I thought why not merge the three into one:

Idea:

* Make a website for registering sexual assault, molestation, and even eve-teasing complaints.
* Allow women (or men, they get raped too, by other men) to upload any media - lewd emails / pictures / photographs / videos from both computer browser and cellphones.
* Even allow SMS, voice calls, and IVR, or Press-1-Press-2-Press-3 to enter new complaints.
* Make a new standard 1 / 2 / 3-digit code for sex crimes - this means that the girl just has to press one button for a short dial number, then another button for a single digit code.

* Once a complaint or threat ticket is received by the system, the system locates in a database, all registered users in the geographic proximity of the woman.

* And alerts all users in that area with a ring or an SMS or a phone call.

* Users can choose what level and type of alerts they want to receive:
- some users might be able to and want to help only in potential situations of rape.
- some might be able to help every single street harassment request

* Some users might want to enable GPS tracking as potential victims or as potential saviours / protectors.

* Further on, in an ideal situation,
we can have mobile phones with smart apps or even dedicated Bluetooth or some other short distance communication circuitry, which enables any and all phones in the vicinity to receive help requests from women.

All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing - Edward Burke - More here

This can be prevented.

This system can be called "SaveHer" ( no copyrights / trademarks please! )

If you sign up with SaveHer, even you get its benefit.

Lets consider various scenarios:
1.
Street Harassment (Don't call it eve-teasing! )

A SaveHer girl is taunted by a group of men on a road where there is no one in sight.
She presses a button.
All people signed up with SaveHer in the buildings surrounding that road get a message.
Suddenly people start looking and shouting out of the window:
Who is threatening a lady here?

How's that for impact?

2.
Sexual assault by known person in vehicle
Girl is in a car with your family / friend / relative / boss /office worker
Girl is attacked, but she is a SaveHer subscriber and she knows that her hand must be on the SaveMe button all the time.
Man starts groping or pushing or touching her.
She cannot stop the car.
Real problem.
But she presses SaveMe button and her GPS tracking system tells SaveHer where she is.
All cars in the lane on the road behind and in front of the girl who are SaveHer subscribers get the message.
They do start beeping their horns together.
Even the rapists car will beep to hide from attention.
Everyone knows that one of the cars is crooked.
Anyone outside could stop the car and check.
If GPS is integrated with all cars, or if SaveHer is integrated with all cars, the cars is always identified.
Make SaveHer mandatory for all public cars / vehicles including buses.

3.
Sexual assault in a residential area:

Along similar lines as case 1 above, in the home, it's easy for neighbours to intervene.
This intervention must happen before the girl is forced to keep quiet by her own family members "for the sake of the honour of the house".

4.
Sexual assault in office:

Along similar lines as case 1 above, in the office, it is easy for other offices to intervene.

Finally, when you want to get a boyfriend, if your boyfriend does not have SaveHer subscription, it means he is not able or willing to protect women.

So don't choose a boyfriend or marry a man who doesn't help on SaveHer!

Financials:
We need mobile phone companies and service providers to come forward and do this.

They should provide SaveHer-enabled packages / SIm cards / mobile phones / apps for either free or something low like Rs.10 per month - only to cover the operating and infrastructure expenses of the system.

Capitalists, industrialists, beancounters, profiteers, and bosses, please note:

If you make even 2 levels of security, one normal and one premium service, it means that for you, some women are more important than others and harassing / molesting / raping poorer women is OK while harassing / molesting / raping rich women is not.

This is not done because then you will force the saviours / protectors to choose between saving a poor woman and saving a rich woman.

That will be horrible.

Don't do that.

Make money if you want but dont get greedy on this topic.

So, can we SaveHer using technology?

What do you think?


Update 1
Reader Anindya (thanks!) has brought up some very nice points. Please follow our discussion below and see if any questions you might have are already answered.
If not, ask, suggest and discuss.
Only by pointing out mistakes (be civil, of course) and then fixing them will the idea become better !
You might know some simple solutions that make my elaborate workarounds completely unnecessary.

7 comments:

ethereal_kayaker said...

madam, so well thought out. detailed, sequential, comprehensive. thanks for devoting time for this.

we need to take this to its logical conclusion.

MS said...

> madam, so well ...

I'm a guy! :D
Don't rob my manhood from me ;)

Indian said...

Quite thought provoking...however its pretty impractical and biased.
First of all...who told you ALL girls are from Raja Harishchandra's family ? Why do you take it for granted that EVERY women is always saying the truth and such an 'unrealistic' system wont be misused by educated urban women ?
Secondly...what kind of punishment should be metted out on the women who creates a false ticket ?? Should she be hanged or put behind bars for life ?
Thirdly, with 90% either uneducated or living below poverty line, using smartphones is only a wishful thinking. Come out of your cozy homes and appreciate the real India.

Now heres some news for you with facts and logic.
http://zodiac498.blogspot.in/2012/10/misuse-of-dv498a-myth-or-reality.html

Love to hear your comments.

MS said...

@Anindya: Good points!

> Why do you take it for granted that EVERY women is always saying the truth and such an 'unrealistic' system wont be misused by educated urban women ?

Since it will be recorded in the central SaveHer database system for posterity that she is a false accuser, she would not try to do this.

This can be fixed / avoided in multiple ways.

> what kind of punishment should be metted out on the women who creates a false ticket

It could be based on a suspicion, or it could be intentional too.

But we are not immediately hanging anyone based on her ticket are we?

We are simply arranging that other people around her arrive at the scene and if there is an attacker, he backs off.

Isn't that part obvious?

Since this isn't a police register, filing a case and falsely dragging a man to court is not the central issue here(i.e. wont happen in 90% cases) and will only happen if the girl has not thought out the consequences properly.

All this will obviously be told in proper detail with videos and messages when anyone signs up for the service.

> Thirdly, with 90% either uneducated or living below poverty line, using smartphones is only a wishful thinking

Isn't that covered by the SMS, IVR, single-button standard for sexual assault?

Rs.10 is affordable to most, comes with the mobile talktime package does not need a smartphone!

Those who cannot afford even Rs.10 are plenty, yes, and that is a good point.

They don't have cellphones and they are in rural India in the millions.

That is a far bigger problem than we can solve with a few changes.

For that we have to seek help of the law.

Indian said...

conceptually and technology wise its a great idea...but any idea which can be misused (and historically has been misused), shouldnt be promoted, lest invested upon.
Have you seen a real mob fury against a man ? Woman slaps a Man coz he accidentally tripped over her...Man slaps her back in anger...woman clicks your one-touch number....mob lynches the man.
Dont try to introduce and provide frustated mob and women a weapon to settle scores with men.
Thus as per me, the idea is not only very novice but highly dangerous.
Dont let every man become social police and mob fury the law of the land.

@gennietwit said...

This is a good proposal, especially to those who can afford a phone that can obtain such application. The thing is not every one can afford a smart phone or such gps device for this. And one conflicting cons that I think will inevitably be a little problem is, when it's been used wether accidentally or intentionally there would be an equivalent fine or consequence I reckon?? It's quite arguable and I think a little premature for this. But on the other hand having it lessens such incident for those whom I hope will use it responsively for the sake of security. On the long run, getting one of this app system, if available, wouldn't be that bad for me to have. I do hope we can sort out of something else that is more suitable for most women who works in the rank and file positions and the less fortunate ones. They're the most abused and harrassed when it comes to these and human rights matters. Thanks though. - @gennietwit

MS said...

> but any idea which can be misused (and historically has been misused), shouldnt be promoted, lest invested upon.

All of technology is like that - you can use it or abuse it. That's what necessitates constantly updating the law and being watchful and thoughtful all the time, about possibilities.

However, we can reduce the abuse potential of this particular idea quite dramatically, in many ways:

1. Since everyone who has signed up, has his/her records stored at the SaveHer Database, they are pretty easily identifiable.

If they were in a mob and violence happened, they cannot run away because the system knows that so-and-so was there when the violence happened.
So, lesser chance of people abusing it because they know that SaveHer knows

I think I need to clarify again what this works on:
It does not work on some authority / power being deployed anywhere.
It works on volunteers wanting to save women from predators. It gives the good men a way and a structure to interfere in such a way that the good men don't get hurt.

There is simply no need to raise your hand - we can make a simple set of rules - SaveHer saviour's manifesto:
* If you dont need to raise your hand to save her, don't!
* If verbal warning or gathering suffices, stick to just that.
* If force is needed, use only blunt weapons that do not cause lasting damage - you can go to jail if you permanently harm someone.
* If lethal force is needed make sure you have a method of collecting proof before-hand - like a video camera to show that you are not at fault.

Can this not be thought out properly, consulting Supreme Court lawyers, judicial experts, sociological experts, etc?

Why, even the Govt itself can do something like they did for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Hum Do Hamare Do, Pulse Polio, etc.

Awareness creation is easy if the basic step of committing to the task is done.

In principle, and in majority practice, it is not a bad idea at all.

In implementation, there are alway fringe cases and problems to be solved.

We need Indian men to be good to others and feel good about themselves and protect the womenfolk, no?

In very brief, SaveHer is the antidote to apathy - positive participation with reward.

Let me tell you another danger that you have not foreseen:
Soon, everyone starts signing up to SaveHer and then the SaveHer database becomes the most powerful database apart from Facebook, Google, Foursquare, Twitter etc.

SaveHer knows everything about your whereabouts and what if they cheat?

A reasonable doubt for a woman newly joining SaveHer.

That is where regulation comes in. When 90% of rape cases are by known people, 50% by family members, SaveHer is the least dangerous betrayal for a woman.

The key is to understand that.

SaveHer does not distinguish between men and women. So men are saved too - elderly and children too.

Framing / putting false charges is a very different crime from all other crimes.

It is not just another crime. In my opinion, framing deserves the punishment that was intended by the framer for the framing victim.

That can happen anywhere.
------------------------------
Keep your doubts coming, you're helping this more than anyone else.