These staggering numbers have elicited certain responses from the government at all levels but most of the governmental efforts have failed. For example, putting up CCTV cameras in public spaces has been a popular response. But there is a substantial body of work to show that CCTV cameras do not increase a feeling of security in women [3]. It has been found that such a lack of trust is due to a lack of follow-up protocols. If the images/videos captured in CCTVs are not monitored and do not help in preventing crime in real-time, then it becomes more of an assistive tool post-incident than a preventive tool. Given the lack of data, most governmental responses are not evidence-based but extract ideas from other contexts which might or might not be applicable to their particular case.

The failures in achieving a substantial shift in how women face and perceive their personal safety intersects with how prevalent culture makes women feel safe or unsafe. Actions like teasing, groping, etc. have sadly become an integral part of the way many men behave in public spaces in a wide range of countries including both high- and low-income countries. Gendered norms, values, and consequently women’s presence in social spaces (inside vs. outside) are socially constructed and propagated. Such social environments have unfortunately sanctioned victimisation of women who are ‘outside’, and consequently, perceptions of safety and decisions on where and when to travel have been affected. The social environment that enables GBVAH cannot be addressed through transport planning and urban design alone, but the physicality of urban and transport structures plays a dominant role in encouraging or challenging the incidences of GBVAH. The simple act of ‘stepping outside’ the residential quarters is often linked to fear – from a young age, girls are taught to avoid walking on certain streets after certain hours; being alone in certain areas/neighbourhoods; wearing certain types of clothing, the ignoring of which might lead to incidences of GBVAH, and effectively it becoming the victim’s fault. These instructions are repeatedly reinforced in the media and from family and friends, ultimately becoming embedded into the belief system of a society.

There is an existing continuum of harassment (visual, verbal, and physical) that may be almost invisible to men. This includes leering, sexual comments, harassment, photography, intimidation, groping, threats, and other nuisances or crimes with sexual undertones [11]. These acts of harassment against women in urban transport vary in their degree, spatiality, and temporality, ranging from sexual harassment, assault, or violence on city streets, at public transport stations to inside vehicles. These perceived and actual threats of violence have constrained female mobility to a great extent which not only has social ramifications but serious economic repercussions as well3. Another lacuna is also the fact that studies undertaken on the thematic area of ‘gender and transport’ in Sub-Saharan Africa, to date, have primarily focussed on the travel of rural women and girls and the main issues have converged on lack of infrastructure and poverty [12, 13, 14]. Women’s personal security and safety concerns, tackling mechanisms, and implications remain both under-studied and under-recognised.