‘Stay Indoors to Avoid Rape’: Posters Trigger Massive Backlash

Posters sponsored by the Ahmedabad traffic police for road safety campaign kicked up a controversy, after they raised issue with women moving out in the night. The posters suggested that women should stay at home to avoid sexual assault and rape. The posters pasted in a few localities in Ahmedabad drew criticism from the opposition, raising questions about women’s safety in the state.

Several women organisations questioned the police how could they allow such argument to be placed before the public. The women representatives felt that the police was insulting women and squarely blaming them only for the crime against women.

The posters having statements, “do not attend late night parties, you could be raped or gangraped,” and “do not go with your friend to dark, isolated areas, what if she is raped or gangraped?” were pasted on road dividers in Sola and Chandlodia areas and have since been removed.

DGP (Traffic West), Sailesh Modi said that the posters were being removed. The DCP (Traffic West), Neeta Desai, clarified that the city traffic police had sponsored posters concerning road safety but not women’s safety. An NGO, Satarkta Group, had created the controversial posters without the consent of the traffic police, she claimed. “The NGO had approached us and said they wanted to organise traffic awareness programmes in schools and colleges and wanted our staff to accompany them. We were shown posters related to traffic awareness. But such controversial posters were not shown to us and were plastered without our consent,” Desai said.

Gujarat AAP leaders took a swipe at the BJP-led government, saying the posters exposed the state of women’s safety. In the last three years, more than 6,500 incidents of rape and more than 36 gang rapes have occurred in Gujarat, with more than five rapes per day,” the AAP said in a statement.