Indian women donate clothes to protest harassment

CHENNAI: Yamini Karunagaran was on the bus to work in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru when a man sat in a women-only seat where he leered at her, and then followed her when she disembarked. Almost as disturbing as the incident itself were reactions from many of those she related it to. “It angered me that so many people later asked me what I was wearing,” Karunagaran told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. That attitude is almost as common as harassment and assault, which affect almost four out of every five women in India, according to a 2016 survey by non-profit ActionAid UK. Rather than hold perpetrators accountable, many people shift blame to the victim, accusing her of inviting attention by wearing revealing clothes or laughing too loudly. In protest, Karunagaran decided to donate the clothes she was wearing at the time to Blank Noise. The advocacy group started the “I never ask for it” campaign, which has become part of a nationwide conversation about harassment.