Steps to make women feel safer on public buses in Thailand

[webfact]

Steps to make women feel safer on public buses

By KORNRAWEE PANYASUPPAKUN 
THE NATION

 

 

STATE-OWNED bus operator The Transport Company has delivered a New Year gift for female passengers taking a long bus ride home by making their buses safer for them.

 

 

The company has joined hands with the Safe Cities for Women Network on various initiatives to curb sexual harassment on its buses. 

Bus drivers and conductors are being trained and educated on how to "butt in" when passengers are sexually harassed and a video educating passengers on how to protect themselves is also being shown on the company's entire fleet of 480 buses throughout the year, starting yesterday. 

 

"This is a new year present for everyone who travels with us," said Jirasak Yaowatsakul, managing director of the Transport Company at a campaign launch at its Bangkok bus terminal in Chatuchak yesterday. 

 

Jirasak says hundreds of thousands of passengers pack into the company's buses during the New Year holiday - on its peak days, December 29 and 30, as many as 200,000 passengers are expected to travel from Bangkok to their hometowns, compared to some 80,000 passengers on usual days.

 

The company and the Safe Cities for Women network also plan to install a CCTV camera inside every one of the buses to record incidents for use as evidence by mid-2019, Jirasak said.

 

 

QR code signs will also be put inside the bus, to encourage passengers to report more often since it is considered that incidents of sexual harassment are underreported, he added.

 

Bus conductor Maychadathon Visungre told The Nation such incidents happen frequently. 

 

Maychadathon, who rides on buses between Bangkok and Mukdahan, said most of these incidents either involve a male passenger resting their head on the shoulder of a fellow passenger or a male passenger in the window seat getting in and out to the aisle to get their bags "so that their body touches that of the female passenger," she said. 

 

From her experience, most [female] passengers don't keep quiet when such incidents happen - but all they do is ask to switch seats, she said.

 

Maychadathon, who has been trained by Safe Cities for Women, said she always tells her boss when something like that happens and asks the female passenger involved to get another seat in order to prevent it happening again. If the incident gets out of hand, she asks the male driver to stop the vehicle and resolve the issue. 

 

In Bangkok 45 per cent of female passengers reported being sexually harassed, according to a 2017 survey by Safe Cities for Women Network, of which 15.4 per cent reported being touched or groped. 

 

"It is our commitment to make public transportation and public spaces safe for women and girls," said ActionAid Thailand director Tauhid Ibne Farid. The organisation is supporting 45 countries in campaigns to make it safe for women to travel in cities. 

 

 

In Thailand, the Safe Cities for Women Network comprises ActionAid Thailand, the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, Sexuality Studies Association, Women and Men Progressive Movement Foundation, and the Four Regions Slum Network.

 

The network plans to partner with other government transport agencies, including the Marine Department and Land Transport Department, said Rungtip Imrungruang, programme and policy manager at ActionAid Thailand.

 

She said they had also recruited 800 passengers to join "teampueak," meaning a "nosy" team, where its members learn how to safely protect others from sexual harassment on public transport.

 

On the Teampueak.org website, the network also educate "teampueak" and bus assistants on how to correctly deal with the incident. 

The campaign will soon extend to a further 40,000 buses, run by private companies under the contract with the Transport Company, Jirasak said.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30359121

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-11-23

[ezzra]

This is a bus, a crowded public transport mode, in order not to touch or be touched by  a male passenger either make the space on the bus bigger or with less seats, you can't fill up a rush hour bus with no one rubbing or coming into contact with others, other than that, install a security cameras to deter people from committing offences...

[Darcula]

 

When that old man with the massive dildo plonks himself next to you, you better change your seat pronto.

 

[bluesofa]

5 minutes ago, Darcula said:

 

When that old man with the massive dildo plonks himself next to you, you better change your seat pronto.

Yeah, especially if he's been "educated on how to "butt in""

[RotBenz8888]

46 minutes ago, Darcula said:

 

When that old man with the massive dildo plonks himself next to you, you better change your seat pronto.

 

Where is his other hand? 4 options..

[fantom]

A good initiative, pity about the stupid comments here.

[bluesofa]

2 minutes ago, fantom said:

A good initiative, pity about the stupid comments here.

You mean like this:

3 hours ago, webfact said:

Steps to make women feel safer on public buses

I would have thought a ramp would be better, especially for older women.

[fruitman]

Just show it on national tv how many thai males behave....they are very unmannered, uncivilized and selffish.....

[ZeVonderBearz]

Is it automatically sexual harresment if a man in a window is squeezing past a woman and accidently brushes against a her? 

[DM07]

1 hour ago, fantom said:

A good initiative, pity about the stupid comments here.

Yeah, really!

Couldn't you just shut up?

 

[connda]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Maychadathon, who rides on buses between Bangkok and Mukdahan, said most of these incidents either involve a male passenger resting their head on the shoulder of a fellow passenger or a male passenger in the window seat getting in and out to the aisle to get their bags "so that their body touches that of the female passenger," she said.

I've had people's heads loll over onto my shoulder in public transport.  It's a confined space and it happens.  You wake the person up and ask them to loll the other way, nicely.  That's not sexual harassment. 
Same for entering and exiting seats.  You need a shoe-horn to get past people sitting in seats without touching them - impossible - and not sexual harassment.  Personally, I get out of my seat an allow the other passenger to get in.  If someone stays in their seat and you have to literally climb over them, whose in the wrong? 

I use to ride using public transport a lot when I first got here.  Touching happens in confined spaces.  Sure, there are probably a few creeps out there that capitalize on the confined environment in order to be creepy, but it's not the norm.  Framing all touching as inappropriate or sexual harassment when you're packed into a bus or plane or subway like sardines in a can is silly and will simply lead to a #MeToo mentality as well as unsubstantiated allegations of wrong-doing.  And with such allegations comes lawsuits. 

You're not going to cram 10 pounds of fertilizer into a 5 pound bag without 'touching'.

Edited November 23, 2018 by connda

[connda]

2 hours ago, fantom said:

A good initiative, pity about the stupid comments here.

A good-hearted initiative with some glaring flaws.  The comments simply point out the obvious holes in the logic.  The counter arguments are far from being stupid.

[Cheops]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Steps to make women feel safer on public buses

How about:

Steps to make everybody feel safer on public buses. 

 

Regular maintenance for the buses. 

Good trained and experienced drivers WITH a special license for public transport.

Controlled driver working hours and behavior. 

Not driving like an idiot like they need to win a race. 

And the list goes on and on...

 

Oh, and an automated ticket system would help as well 555

 

[Redline]

Safety is a present-wow!  That says a lot 

[dcnx]

“In Bangkok 45 per cent of female passengers reported being sexually harassed” ????

 

 

That says a lot (though I’m not surprised) about Thai males. 

 

The average woman is an object here. Nothing more. That’s Thainess for you.

[Katia]

10 hours ago, ZeVonderBearz said:

Is it automatically sexual harresment if a man in a window is squeezing past a woman and accidently brushes against a her? 

You can tell what's an accident and what's not.

 

 

26 minutes ago, dcnx said:

The average woman is an object here. Nothing more. That’s Thainess for you.

Read around TV.  Why are most posters in the country?  What do a majority of posts revolve around?  It's not just Thai men.

[zzaa09]

50 minutes ago, dcnx said:

“In Bangkok 45 per cent of female passengers reported being sexually harassed” ????

 

 

That says a lot (though I’m not surprised) about Thai males. 

 

The average woman is an object here. Nothing more. That’s Thainess for you.

Another one that hasn't a clue about the culture. 

Make believe observations.

[chama]

On 11/22/2018 at 9:24 PM, ZeVonderBearz said:

Is it automatically sexual harresment if a man in a window is squeezing past a woman and accidently brushes against a her? 

Yep! Unfortunately it has become the assumption that there was a sexual intention.