Olakh’s action based Safe City Campaign has been initiated with the aim to create awareness and to advocate for a Gender Inclusive City and the rights of wo_men to access public spaces – free from fear of sexual violence. Encouraging the active participation of youth/Vadodara’s citizens, it has been shaped collectively by Olakh, our volunteers and several professional architects and urban planners.
Bringing the struggle against violence to a local level, we have decided to first address the issue of sexual violence – especially street harassment as one of the most underestimated forms of sexual violence – in places of public use. In fact, sexual harassment in public places is often taken for granted. We live in a society where it is such a wide spread experience that most don’t even consider it unusual – it simply is part of being a woman. It perpetrates daily life to such an extent that women modify their behaviour, often unconsciously, to avoid it.
Hence, fear of violence has the power to structure people’s lives, it influences their ability to go out, to move around, to work, to live. This is especially true for women and children, who have always been limited in their access and right to public spaces in the city. Violence poses a barrier to women’s participation in public life and is a hindrance to community development.
Our vision is therefore to make places of public use free of sexual violence. We define sexual violence as any unwanted or unwelcome verbal, non-verbal, visual or physical conduct and we define safety as life without fear – the ability of the women and girls to move freely without fear of sexual violence no matter where, when or how.
For details on our activities and other useful information, please take a look at our brochure.
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