This land is our land

The last time this writer connected with independent filmmaker Madhureeta Anand was in 2017 when she had launched a nonfiction webseries titled Know Your Porn to bring to light issues surrounding pornography Itrsquos not about being antiporn or wanting to ban pornography she had said but to help people negotiate the legalities of what they are consuming so that they are able to shun unlawful materialThree years later Anand has trained her attention to safety in public spaces Violence and harassment against women and girls in public spaces she believes remains largely neglected with few laws or policies in place to address it Phree For Safety is her safetyrating application to engage citizens and use their contributions to make cities saferMadhureeta AnandBut Anand isnrsquot the first to use technology to begin the discourse on safety In 2013 a year after the Delhi bus gangrape researcher and gender rights activist Dr Kalpana Viswanath cofounded SafetiPin The locationbased crowdsourced mobile app collects safetyrelated information from users and posts it for the benefit of others The goal is to provide data to help city planners law enforcers and campaigners to see problem areas Viswanath has worked as a consultant with UN Women and UNHabitat on issues of gender and urban safety and spearheaded the Safe Delhi for Women initiative led by Jagori in DelhiIn a joint interview for Sunday midday they discuss the role of technology in creating freedom of movement and innovative approaches to make cities safe and sustainableKalpana ViswanathEdited excerpts from the interviewWhat makes a space safe Are there parametresKV Globally many cities have conducted safety audits so we collected enough data and zeroed in on a few parameters which were common to all the different checklists For instance is it a walkable city and conversely if you build a city for walkability then it is also a safe city The most important parameter is visibility This means if yoursquore standing on a street can you be seen Is there a balcony or a shop or cafe or tea stall which gives you eyes on the streets Mumbai has good eyes on the streets But in Delhi itrsquos lacking So even if there are CCTV cameras in every corner I still wouldnrsquot walk there at night What we want users to express is their feeling about a place because other data about lighting infrastructure can be sought using images Feelings are importantMA Safety is both personal and dynamic Therefore the parameters of safety are highly variable For example in one location bad elements hanging around makes it unsafe In another it could be thefts In a third it could be sexual abuse The review section of the app provides a way for this individuality to be expressed We will be able to see what constitutes safety in which location and for whom And since we are a real time app this can change rapidly and it will be reflected as wellSo an incident could spark a boost in ratings and reviews creating a hotspotMumbai is considered one of the safest cities in India What makes it better than other metros MA It is but letrsquos not forget what we are comparing it with Basically sexual assault is so common in some other cities that we actually consider the lack of it to be safe Actually safety means not just in onersquos own area but everywhere and at all times Having said that Mumbai is safer because the law enforcement agency means business and is therefore feared The mindset of the people here is open nonaggressive less feudal Presently the feedback we are getting is that certain areas are primarily unsafe because bad elements claim these streets after a certain time For instance the Shakti Mills compound area is perceived as highly unsafe After the rape there have been reports of women avoiding the area The Vile Parle and BandraKurla stretches are also seen as unsafe There have been reports of burglaries and rape in this areaKV Every city has pockets that are safe and notsosafe That said as a woman Irsquod be much more comfortable stepping out at midnight in Mumbai than Delhi Thatrsquos because the city has good lighting But the more important factor is that the streets are full of people and thatrsquos a big factor for us as urban safety activists You have much more life on the streets Itrsquos a cultural difference Even Ahmedabad is safe in that respect So streets where people walk eat and shop are more accessibleViswanath says the emphasis is on collecting data about what users feel about a particular placeWhat do you think is wrong with the way our cities are designed KV They are not always designed for inclusion or to be easy for everybody to use They are not neutral spaces and have often been planned and designed keeping in the mind the lsquomale worker citizen Which reflects in the kinds of infrastructure exclusions lack of opportunities thus impacting access for marginalised groups like women or transgenders So we need to make cities walkable create more parks better transport and increase last mile connectivity I feel Safetipin played a part in getting the conversation goingMA The truth is safety is a byproduct of social conditioning For example we have been told that several areas in a city like Paris are considered highly unsafe Even in Los Angeles and in an area like Santa Monica one is told not to go to certain areas after sunset Safety is highly influenced by social factors like status of women economic disparity and effective law enforcement While we can try and light areas better or improve other civic facilities nothing will change unless people do We will need to get more people from vulnerable groups to come out into spaces You know how people often say ldquoI know itrsquos a safe area because I have seen women thererdquo Well itrsquos trueHow can technology helpKV You can build an emergency app button but how many of us have actually used it If I had a second I would call 100 Itrsquos not just about creating an application itrsquos about using technology as an enabler to bring about social change The safety information and analytics that we collect are provided to stakeholders such as the police and civic authorities The goal is to influence policies and find ways to make a city more equitable For example 7400 poorlylit public areas in the city of Delhi were identified using the open data generated through our app and later many were improved by the city governmentMA The idea is to work at several levels Firstly just about anyone can access the app to see how safe or unsafe an area is thereby giving them a preemptive tool for safety Secondly law enforcement will have access to the app where they will not only be able to keep track of what areasstreetsestablishments are being marked safe or unsafe but will also have access to why it is considered so This will act as pressure on them to rectify the problem Lastly we will publish and share information and statistics about safety globally to help tailor policies In essence we hope to shift the onus of safety from vulnerable groups to society where it belongsKeep scrolling to read more newsCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and a complete guide from food to things to do and events across Mumbai Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest news