One in three women in India who use a mobile phone receive sexual and inappropriate calls or texts on a regular basis, a survey of 2,150 women by an app has revealed.
Apart from calls with intentions of malicious harassment, the women also received unsolicited calls — that aren’t classified as harassment — from bank.
FREQUENCY OF CALLS/MESSAGES WITH INAPPROPRIATE AND SEXUAL CONTENT
More than half of the surveyed women receive
calls with such content regularly at least once a week, while 9% receive it
almost on a daily basis. However, the percentage, though still high, has
declined from the previous year, that women are possibly taking more steps
against such calls.
Not all calls were anonymous,
as some were made by persons known to the victims and some others by
stalkers.
74 % – Anonymous callers
23 % – Calls/texts by stalkers (11% last
year)
11 % – Calls/texts by known persons
PHISHING
CALLS
More than half the women (53%) received phishing calls, that is, fraudulent calls made with an intention to elicit personal information such as passwords and credit card numbers.
ARE
BLANK CALLS HARASSMENT OR NUISANCE?
A majority of the women surveyed considered
blank calls as harassment. The survey defined blank calls as “anonymous phone
calls made with the intention to threaten, harass or offend a caller, without a
sales- or phishing-related objective”
Effect of Such Calls on Women
Nearly four out of every five women said they
felt anger and irritation due to harassment calls, while about one in three
were more affected and felt troubled, worried or frightened. The number of
women affected has gone up from the previous year, indicating the effect of
such calls on mental health is getting worse.
78 % – Felt angry or irritated (65% last
year)
37 % – Felt troubled, worried or frightened (22%
last year)
THE SURVEY
The survey was carried out by Truecaller, an app
that finds details of phone numbers, and Ipsos, a market research firm. The
survey was conducted between February ..
