JAGRITI: Advocacy by Public Figures for Fighting Sexual Harassment

by Sutapa Sanyal

The Issue

In various national and State surveys, nearly 90% of women have admitted to experiencing sexual harassment in public spaces in some form. It is a very pernicious problem, having far-reaching consequences and negatively impacting a woman in more ways than one.

The Program

The efforts of Mahila Samman Prakoshth are directed towards making public spaces safe for women so that they can move about freely and fearlessly and enjoy the freedom of movement in the true spirit of the Indian Constitution and basic human rights.

Celebrity actor and anchor of the program “Savdhan India” Sushant Singh kick-started the MSP campaign on 18th August 2015, aimed at bringing down sexual harassment in public spaces in U.P. This event was organized in collaboration with Breakthrough India.

The campaign started work on making Lucknow’s busiest bus stop at Charbagh, a sexual harassment free zone with the setting up of a Mahila Help Desk at the bus station, which is monitored regularly by the Prakoshth and any complaint is forwarded to the local thana concerned for further action.

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Sutapa Sanyal is Director General of Police in Uttar Pradesh, where she is the highest-ranking woman I.P.S. officer. She is dedicated to fighting violence against women and children. In U.P., she has lead Mahila Samman Prakoshth (MSP), a police department for women empowerment, where she has developed state-wide programs for empowering 13 Crore+ women and children beneficiaries. At MSP, she also championed the launch of India's first police portal exclusively for reporting crimes against women, VIKALP. She also heads the anti-human trafficking efforts of the most populous state in the country, under the guidance of MHA (Govt. of India). Additionally, she has also been instrumental in setting up child-friendly police stations and Special Juvenile Police Units across U.P., in a joint initiative with UNICEF, the RML National Law University and local NGOs. She also serves as Director General of Police, State Human Rights Commission and Civil Defence, and has had a stint as Advisor Security at GAIL India Ltd. for five years. At the country level, she serves as a member of the Government of India's Micro Mission 07 where she has helped devise policy recommendations for gender equality. She has been awarded the President's Police Medal for Distinguished Services, Police Medal for Long and Meritorious Service, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore Award by H.E. Governor of U.P. Shri Ram Naik, Hindustan Times "International Women's Day Award 2017," FICCI-FLO Outstanding Police Women Award and the National Foundation for Entrepreneurship Development (NFED) "Lifetime Achievement" Award. Her work for UPP Mahila Samman Prakoshth has been awarded the Manthan Award (South Asia) and One Globe Forum Award. She serves on the Advisory Executive Council of the Women Economic Forum and as advisor to FICCI FLO (Lucknow Chapter). Her work for women and child empowerment has been highly appreciated by the Govt. of India, the Govt. of UK, INTERPOL, the US Department of State and has been featured in international as well as national media. She was invited by the British High Commission as a gender expert on an Indian women leaders delegation to the UK to help develop strategies to prevent Violence Against Women (VAW). She has also represented India at the INTERPOL Specialists Group on the Protection of Children in France. Sutapa Sanyal has been invited as keynote speaker by industry bodies including FICCI, PHDCC and universities like IIM and TISS. For promoting women and child rights, Sanyal has collaborated with different stakeholders across international agencies, ministries and regions, and has forged key agreements and partnerships with international agencies like UNICEF, Plan International, Oxfam and Action Aid. She is specially dedicated to developing strong strategies to end Violence Against Women (VAW), gender sensitization of the public, gender equality dialogues with civil society actors and Public-Private Partnerships for inclusive development.

The Issue

The Program

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