India: Smart Phone App Helps Prevent Sexual Violence
Friday, April 12, 2013 3:45 PM
In a recent speech, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred to “a culture of rape” in India. She said that India “will rise or fall with its women.”
Circle of 6, a new application for smart phones, may help Indian women avoid the risk of sexual assault. Nancy Schwartzman, a New York-based app developer, and her team released the app which assists women to get help from trusted friends when they are in difficult situations “from risky sexual encounters to actual assaults.”
The application was first created in the United States in 2011 and has received several awards. Recently, especially after
brutal rape crimes in India, developers noticed great interest in the app among Indian women. “Basically, we saw the number of downloads in India increase by 1,000 percent after the gang rape in New Delhi – making India the No. 2 spot outside the U.S. for downloads,” said Schwartzman. “We were motivated to translate to Hindi and find the best on-the-ground resources in New Delhi we could find for women in need.”