Sakhi – friend, companion, confidante and much more.
On International Women’s day, when the world celebrates womanhood and felicitates women from different fields,there have been innumerable cases of crimes against women on day today basis in every corner of our country. To change the mindset or to severe the rules, nothing seems to work when it comes to women harassment. Although there are organizations that help aware the people about the same,some preventive measures are also needed to be taken in this matter.
Idea and Vodaphone jointly came up with a launch of unique service,a safety related alert service for its women subscribers named SAKHI.
This service is currently available in few states.
Women Customers can register and activate Idea Sakhi in two simple steps:
Step1: Call on a multi-lingual toll-free number 1800-123-100
Step2: Register Emergency Contacts (Friends & Family). Up to 10 mobile numbers can be saved as Emergency Contacts.
A registered Idea Sakhi customer will:
• Receive a 10-digit proxy number, with which she can recharge her connection at any retail store without revealing her actual mobile number.
• Receive 10 minutes of free local/STD calls, 10 SMS and 100MB data when her balance reaches < Re. 1 or if she exhausts her data pack.
To send an Emergency or a Safe Alert, the Sakhi user will need to:
● Give a missed call to 55100 to send an Emergency Alert. A call, flash and SMS with the location and time details of the Sakhi user will be sent to the Emergency Contacts, alerting them.
● Call 55100 and press 2 to send a Safe Alert. SMS with the location and time details of the Sakhi user will be sent to the Emergency Contacts, for assistance.
Although there have been diffreent kind of app and services available in case of alert and also mapping, one of them being the SAFECITY which is a platform that crowdsources stories of abuse and maps the location of places and areas in city that has higher rates of crime, violence, harassment. It works cohesively with the Mumbai Police Dept and helps in providing info about such places. This map on the link helps SAFECITY to create an alert and also marks the place as UNSAFE .
It says ,”If you have been sexually harassed or abused in public spaces anywhere in the world, please share your story with us on this crowdmap. You can report anonymously in under 2 minutes.”
Alternatively you can download the app from google store or go to the website.
How to Report
By sending an email:
info@safecity.in
By sending a tweet with the hashtag/s:
#SafecityIndia