As part of a socially smart Bhubaneswar initiative undertaken by the Bhubaneswar Smart City limited and the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, a special public interface session was conducted with adolescent girls, Pragati Sathi peer leaders and members of mothers’ committees from eight slums of BTCD area.
Over 60 girls and women participated in the special session wherein officials of city agencies along with Women Police Station Inspector Iman Kalyani Nayak briefed the participants on various crimes against women and available legal provisions to safeguard their rights.
Mentioning about various precautions that can be taken to avert any crime in the neighbourhood, she suggested to organize "Ama Police programme" at community level for more effective redressal of the safety issues raised by the participants.
She also suggested writing down all issues raised by the participants in the meeting and submitting the same by a slum committee to the Capital Police Station or as a resolution to the DCP, Bhubaneswar, for taking this forward.
Many of the participating girls shared safety related issues they face in their everyday life both in their neighbourhood inside the slum as well as study areas. A student of Class VII from Unit I Girls High School Subhashree narrated how girls in her school feel frightened while commuting on the road on their way to and from the school due to stalking and eve teasing by boys every day. Informing that many of the girl students drop out from school after Class VI for this reason as their families don’t feel safe to send them to the school, she narrated her story on how she also stopped going to school for one month before being persuaded by a teacher to resume studies.
Another girl Rubi from Shantipalli slum in Sahid Nagar happily shared how she and her Pragati Sathi friends successfully made a common area in the slum safe by declaring it as a no drugs/alcohol zone which earlier used to be very unsafe as a hangout place for nuisance makers.