AGRA: A member of the UP State Women’s Commission has said that girls should not be given cell phones as it leads to rapes while appealing to parents to keep the devices away from their daughters.
“Girls talk on phones and later run away with boys…,” said Meena Kumari during a Mahila Jansunwai (public hearing of women related complaints) in Aligarh on Wednesday when she was asked by a reporter about an alleged increase in rape cases in UP.
Kumari also added that parents, especially mothers, should monitor their daughters as crime against women was a result of “their carelessness”.
The state commission has distanced itself from Kumari’s statement.
Anju Chaudhary, vice chairperson of the commission, said that Kumari’s statement was wrong and that taking away cellphones was not a solution to sexual violence.
“Instead of saying that we should not give mobile phones to girls, we should be teaching them not to chat with strangers and educate them on safe use of cellphones,” she told TOI.
Asked about her statement, Kumari told TOI that she meant that minors and girls from villages don’t “know how to use phones in the right manner”.
“They use phones to make male friends and later run away with them,” she said, adding that smartphones were also being used to watch inappropriate content.
When further pressed on how rapes were linked to mobile phones, Kumari, who was elected twice as a zila panchayat member from Aligarh, said, “I listen to grievances of 20 women on average daily and at least five to seven cases are related to friendships over cellphones and their after effects.
In many cases, girls were lured to a certain place and then sexually assaulted,” she said.
In the past as well, authorities have blamed just about anything — from chowmein to jeans — for rising incidences of rapes in the country.
In January, National Commission for Women member Chandramukhi Devi had stoked controversy with her comment that the gangrape and murder of a 50-year-old woman in Badaun, UP, could have been avoided if she hadn’t gone out alone in the evening.
She later withdrew her statement.