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JAKARTA
POST, 06 Juli 2013
Recently
an SMP 1 Bogor junior high school student, Hibar Syahrul Gafur, won a gold
medal at the 2013 International Exhibition for Young Investors in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia. The 14-year-old boy won the award for his innovation — anti-sexual
harassment shoes.
When asked about his motives for creating such shoes, Gafur said he was touched by stories of female rape survivors on TV and designed a device to protect them. Gafur’s shoes can emit 450 watts of electricity when needed. Similar creations of anti-rape apparel have been invented in India. An anti-molestation jacket that unleashes 110 volts of electricity was invented in 2004 but is still awaiting a patent.
After the New Delhi gang rape at the end of 2012, phone apps have also gained popularity. Phone apps such as Circle of 6, OnWatch and bSafe alarm the next of kin when a stress button is pressed, call police stations nearby, as well as share the GPS location of the phone when the distress button was triggered.
Taxi Seguro app shares the GPS route of a taxi and taxi identifiers (number, license plate and driver’s credential) to selected user contacts, but the app is only available in Colombia, Mexico, Spain, Canada, Australia and the US.
Technology such as this is not only utilized in advanced Western countries but also in rural parts of Africa. Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), an armed and dangerous group that loot villages, rape women and kidnap kids for its future soldiers, are operating across border of Uganda, Sudan, Congo and Central African Republic since 2005.
Due to the wide span of LRA operations, security forces found it difficult to track them and villagers found it difficult to keep watch on their village. In 2010, a small not-for-profit organization named Invisible Children started to install high-frequency radios as an early-warning system.
This technology might be an old-style military tool, but has proven efficient to report the LRA movement, thus, allowing villagers to seek safety before armed groups arrive and for security forces to act more timely.
Comparable position tracking mechanisms also exists in Egypt. A volunteer-based initiative created HarassMap where people can post harassment they witness or experience to a website harassmap.org (in Arabic and English). The website indicates on a map where harassment — from catcalls, indecent exposure, stalking, touching to rape — occurred and reports it to the authorities so action can be taken.
HarassMap also created an outreach program that goes to those neighborhoods to ask people to be more watchful. Besides outreach programs, volunteers also conduct Internet crowdsourcing research to produce national statistics report for sexual-harassment crime. Not surprisingly, these volunteers were also gathered and mobilized through technology.
Any government adopting technology for the protection of women against violence will directly increase safety and security for its people. An example of this is the government of Victoria, Australia, which has funded and helped launch a phone app to report rape and other sexual attacks. Rape crisis center SECASA was behind this idea and they offer confidential free 24-hour emergency care for victims of sexual assault.
The phone app, named Sexual Assault Report Anonymously (SARA), enables users to submit location, date and time of the attack, type of assault, as well as details of the attacker(s) and even submit evidence, such as audio and video files.
SECASA works with the Department of Human Services and Department of Justice to investigate the report. The government hopes that with the program, victims of assault will not be too ashamed to report the incident. The development of this app cost around US$20,800.
Technology is fertile ground for increasing capability when the government is overwhelmed and people are left to organize safety themselves. Luckily, international organizations, such as the United Nations (UN), help to advocate the issue. In Brazil last year, the UN led a movement to providing internet-based education for the poor, specifically women. This is done to cut government bureaucracy, providing victims faster and cheaper access to help.
Not only big organizations, small gathering of people can also use technology for advocacy. In May 2013, Facebook had agreed to the demand of three women joined in the organization named themselves “Women, Action and the Media” to shut down Facebook groups and take down photos and posts that are supporting violence against women, including rape and abuse.
The government and society at large might be able to adopt similar ways to harness the power of technology to increase security and safety, specially — but not exclusively — for women, just like Gafur from Bogor. Small actions such as more street lights in high-crime areas or replacing broken ones, a dedicated hotline for violence against women at police stations might one day grow into an interactive web map for crime reporting and online training website to support victims and their family members.
The police force is adept in technology; its active Facebook account team at Divisi Humas Mabes Polri and its local police stations’ teams, like @TMCPoldaMetro on Twitter could be forerunners of this activity. ●
When asked about his motives for creating such shoes, Gafur said he was touched by stories of female rape survivors on TV and designed a device to protect them. Gafur’s shoes can emit 450 watts of electricity when needed. Similar creations of anti-rape apparel have been invented in India. An anti-molestation jacket that unleashes 110 volts of electricity was invented in 2004 but is still awaiting a patent.
After the New Delhi gang rape at the end of 2012, phone apps have also gained popularity. Phone apps such as Circle of 6, OnWatch and bSafe alarm the next of kin when a stress button is pressed, call police stations nearby, as well as share the GPS location of the phone when the distress button was triggered.
Taxi Seguro app shares the GPS route of a taxi and taxi identifiers (number, license plate and driver’s credential) to selected user contacts, but the app is only available in Colombia, Mexico, Spain, Canada, Australia and the US.
Technology such as this is not only utilized in advanced Western countries but also in rural parts of Africa. Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), an armed and dangerous group that loot villages, rape women and kidnap kids for its future soldiers, are operating across border of Uganda, Sudan, Congo and Central African Republic since 2005.
Due to the wide span of LRA operations, security forces found it difficult to track them and villagers found it difficult to keep watch on their village. In 2010, a small not-for-profit organization named Invisible Children started to install high-frequency radios as an early-warning system.
This technology might be an old-style military tool, but has proven efficient to report the LRA movement, thus, allowing villagers to seek safety before armed groups arrive and for security forces to act more timely.
Comparable position tracking mechanisms also exists in Egypt. A volunteer-based initiative created HarassMap where people can post harassment they witness or experience to a website harassmap.org (in Arabic and English). The website indicates on a map where harassment — from catcalls, indecent exposure, stalking, touching to rape — occurred and reports it to the authorities so action can be taken.
HarassMap also created an outreach program that goes to those neighborhoods to ask people to be more watchful. Besides outreach programs, volunteers also conduct Internet crowdsourcing research to produce national statistics report for sexual-harassment crime. Not surprisingly, these volunteers were also gathered and mobilized through technology.
Any government adopting technology for the protection of women against violence will directly increase safety and security for its people. An example of this is the government of Victoria, Australia, which has funded and helped launch a phone app to report rape and other sexual attacks. Rape crisis center SECASA was behind this idea and they offer confidential free 24-hour emergency care for victims of sexual assault.
The phone app, named Sexual Assault Report Anonymously (SARA), enables users to submit location, date and time of the attack, type of assault, as well as details of the attacker(s) and even submit evidence, such as audio and video files.
SECASA works with the Department of Human Services and Department of Justice to investigate the report. The government hopes that with the program, victims of assault will not be too ashamed to report the incident. The development of this app cost around US$20,800.
Technology is fertile ground for increasing capability when the government is overwhelmed and people are left to organize safety themselves. Luckily, international organizations, such as the United Nations (UN), help to advocate the issue. In Brazil last year, the UN led a movement to providing internet-based education for the poor, specifically women. This is done to cut government bureaucracy, providing victims faster and cheaper access to help.
Not only big organizations, small gathering of people can also use technology for advocacy. In May 2013, Facebook had agreed to the demand of three women joined in the organization named themselves “Women, Action and the Media” to shut down Facebook groups and take down photos and posts that are supporting violence against women, including rape and abuse.
The government and society at large might be able to adopt similar ways to harness the power of technology to increase security and safety, specially — but not exclusively — for women, just like Gafur from Bogor. Small actions such as more street lights in high-crime areas or replacing broken ones, a dedicated hotline for violence against women at police stations might one day grow into an interactive web map for crime reporting and online training website to support victims and their family members.
The police force is adept in technology; its active Facebook account team at Divisi Humas Mabes Polri and its local police stations’ teams, like @TMCPoldaMetro on Twitter could be forerunners of this activity. ●
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