We've reached a point where the issue cannot be overlooked at any cost. 

4.4 lakh a year
80-85 per day
1 EVERY 18 MINUTES
And we still call her a goddess, 'DEVI'

Women's rights can no longer be put on the back burner, violence being accepted as 'part of our culture' and something we cannot change. Because half of the population of this country deserves better than being POLICED FOR A CRIME IT DID NOT COMMIT. Articles 19-22 guarantee freedom to ALL CITIZENS OF THIS NATION, and we demand the same.

Let’s actually do what we need to so that we can MAKE THIS REAL.

Project S.H.E., a youth-led, registered NGO (@projectshe.ngo) dedicated to empowering women and enhancing women's safety across the nation, has compiled solutions to spread awareness, help survivors, and prevent gender-based violence. While we understand these issues cannot be solved in a day, we hope to see these solutions implemented in society to ensure that women are safe and treated as equals. 

Please do sign and share the petition with everyone you know so that the Government of India can see these solutions and build upon them further. Each signature is extremely valuable and is a step further toward bringing the change that we’ve been talking about.

Here are the solutions, summarised:

• Setting up more fast-track special courts (FTSCs) and improving frameworks in existing courts to ensure that the right to a speedy trial is implemented and to prevent further backlog of over 2.45 lakh currently pending rape cases in India. Courts must be required to provide formal justification if the verdict is delayed, and it may be appealed.
• Modifying current definitions and exceptions of Section 63 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including exception 2 stating that non-consensual intercourse between a husband and wife is not legally considered rape, as well as changing the legal definition of rape to include male victims and intersex/transgender victims. 
• Integrating weekly civic sense classes into the education system and curriculum of all boards throughout India and providing civic sense workshops, seminars, and classes for people across India regardless of age and gender, focusing on unlearning biases, treating others with respect, and acting as a responsible citizen. This aims to teach the younger generation what being a good citizen really means and help older generations unlearn their prejudice from previous eras. This can serve as a nationwide campaign, reaching all corners of the country.
• Conducting thorough background checks on citizens before allowing them to contest in elections as candidates to ensure that a person with a criminal history of sexual abuse and violence does not hold any political power, in reference to 151 MPs and MLAs who have previously been charged with crimes against women, 16 of which are classified as rape. 
• Improving surveillance systems such as CCTV cameras and facial recognition technology, and street lighting in public areas, particularly in rural areas, without violating a citizen’s right to privacy. 
• Proper investigation and recording of cases with district-level data that measures the number of gender-based violence cases that have occurred, including domestic abuse, sexual violence, harassment, dowry, etc. The data should record the number of women who have faced such crimes, as well as the number of men accused and convicted of such crimes. 
• Urging and training law enforcement to refrain from dismissing cases against women and provide necessary support for victims and proper investigations so that more women feel comfortable enough to speak out about their experiences. 
• Raising awareness of helplines for women and working to overcome barriers such as language barriers, lack of digital literacy or shortage of resources through proper funding. This can be done through the classes aforementioned or seminars and campaigns throughout India.

National Emergency Helpline for Women - 1091

• Usage of Cryptographic Watermarks for the identification and tracing of   synthetically generated content, including sexual or pornographic material and deepfakes of women
• Using visual and contextual trained models based on an AES-256 encryption-protected database of false positives and the previously verified abuse cases to strengthen pre-facto Safety by Design, and strengthening reporting and review mechanisms
• Establishing the human-in-the-loop system, where a team of psychologically trained and supported human evaluators sort through detected violations from hash-matching and make the requisite decisions, and the qualifications required for such evaluators to do so would include having a background in various fields such as Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences, Criminology, etc
• Implementing the imposition of heavy restrictions on deep-fake technology, limiting it to genuine use in arts, education, entertainment and corporate requirements such as customer service by:
• Granting services only after legal registration of the requirement
• Requiring government-issued Identity Documents to post deep-fakes that Artificial Intelligence has flagged as having a risk factor or inappropriate phrases in prompts
• Upon verification of harmful content, the information collected about the user, victim, and other elements of the prompt is sent to the local state authorities.

WE NEED YOU, PEOPLE OF INDIA to fight for what’s right, and to speak up against what’s wrong. Please help us push this forward by spreading the message and sharing the petition. We need things to change, and we need them to change now. Enough is enough. 

For any inquiries, reach us at @projectshe.ngo or at projectshengo@gmail.com. Thank you so much.