The helpline 181 for women in distress, set up after the outrage over the Nirbhaya case in 2012, has been witnessing a sharp decline in the number of calls being received from women ever since the AAP formed the Government in the national Capital in February this year, according to sources.
What’s quite surprising is the fact that the number of calls received from men in distress had reportedly increased tenfold. The helpline had received as many as 94 calls from men in distress. Generally, the helpline used to receive about 10 calls from men in distress every month.
The data accessed The Pioneer shows that the helpline had received 34,113 calls from September 1 till September 28. The number of calls received by the helpline in September last year was as high as 59,502.
Of the calls received by the helpline in September this year, about 80 per cent were attended to by 181. Of the total calls received by the helpline, only 2,589 were related to women in distress. The number of obscene calls received by 181 too has gone down. Though the average number of obscene calls received every month by 181 was about 15,000, the helpline received just 2,373 calls in September. Also, there were as many as 8,081 people who had called up seeking advice on different issues.
Statistics show that the number of calls received every month by the helpline had gone down between 10,000 to 20,000 in comparison to the previous year.