Mapping the System to address sexual assault in New Delhi

Mapping the System to address sexual assault in New Delhi

On Sunday, 9 June 2019, the Skoll Centre’s Map the System Competition held its Global Final in Oxford for another year. Making it to the final six teams out of 20 overall finalists, the University of Oxford team, No Means No, took 2nd place, winning £3,000 in cash prize money. But the money and the prestige of being in the top three winners only came 2nd to the incredible journey of learning and discovery this team of five Indian students, four of which were Oxford MBAs.
Oxford MBA 2018-19, Prerna Choudhury and teammate and Duke University Sandford School of Public Policy alumna, Tanmayata Bansal, tell us how they mapped the system of gender-based violence in New Delhi, India.

In early January, we came together as a team with a common thread that is unfortunately part of the lived narrative of most Indian women—we all had either been victims of sexual assault or known someone close to us who had. In 2012, the brutal gang rape and death of 23-year-old Jyoti Singh brought the city of New Delhi to the forefront. Seven years later, Jyoti’s parents, who have now turned activists feel that change has not occurred and that justice in India has failed Jyoti and women like her.

Not only were we frustrated by the lack of progress made to address the problem in our country, but we were also passionate about wanting to be a part of the change. Map the System offered a public platform for us to break the societal taboo we had dealt with our whole lives, using the lens of systems thinking, which was particularly relevant to a problem as complex as ours that involved a diverse range of stakeholders and was multi-faceted in its contributing causes and solutions.

We conducted extensive primary and secondary research to help us map stakeholders and develop a narrative illustrating the interplay between these stakeholders. This ongoing interplay contributes to perpetuating sexual assault against women in New Delhi. We read news articles, op-eds, reports, and academic literature to help us understand the history and quantify the extent of the issue. We identified 20 distinct stakeholders that were either experiencing, contributing to, or trying to prevent the problem.

The second phase included primary research which included 31 interviews across our stakeholder spectrum. We started by reaching out to our internal network and gradually progressed to sending out cold emails. We received an overwhelming response to our cold emails, which further strengthened our belief that the issue needs to be discussed on a visible platform.

These interviews further tied to our secondary research and gave us nuanced perspectives on the issue. The process also contributed to our final systems map which underwent multiple iterations – from a linear process map, to a rather convoluted and more accurate depiction of the problem and aspects related to it.

So what were our findings? We’ve outlined and synthesized our research and findings:

Solutions

Widespread change can only be achieved if the city of New Delhi implements a concerted city-level strategy that targets solutions in education, policy, law, technology, and infrastructure:

  • Education: All our interviewees advocated for education as key to fostering long-term change in mindset. Solutions targeting education taking the longest to make an impact but yield the highest probability of bringing about a paradigm shift.
  • Policy: Implementation and enforcement of policies takes time and is key to success.
  • Law: A comprehensive legal structure already exists in India to deal with crimes of sexual assault. Reform should focus on expedition, reduction of errors, and placing the victim at the center of the case.
  • Technology: Use of mobile phone apps and SOS emergency lines have provided women with an avenue to report sexual harassment. Social media campaigns have also enabled stigma reduction.
  • Infrastructure: Physical infrastructure such as lighting, or social infrastructure such as networks help reduce the incidence of sexual assault.
Oxford finalists presenting at the Map the System event

Tanmayata Bansal presenting with her teammates at the Global Final of the Map the System competition on Sunday, 9 June.

Gaps & Levers of Change

  • A lack of prioritization and implementation can be addressed by prioritizing gender equality as part of the national agenda through policy changes such as reducing investigation times or portraying women in empowered roles in Bollywood movies.
  • A lack of sensitivity and support is mitigated through the creation of a safe and reliable place for women to fight against assault, achieved through repeated gender sensitization trainings and the building of strong social networks and cohesion among female professionals.
  • Shortfalls in staffing and representation are countered by increasing the agency and representation of women across sectors.
  • A lack of knowledge, awareness and accessibility can be addressed by increasing educators’ awareness of the importance of developing emotional intelligence in students.

Systems Map

Our systems map was divided into three parts:

  • A system that promotes gender equality: A map tracing the way in which gender inequality is deeply entrenched in Indian society and promoted from birth.
  • A system that normalizes sexual assault: A map analyzing the ways society, the political and legal system engage in victim blaming and shaming and enable the attacker through his ability to exercise control through power and bribery.
  • The mental models and underlying structures that support the system such as a deeply entrenched patriarchy, an outdated and rigid educational system, caste system, religious and cultural traditions, weak institutional support, and social stigma.

Download our map here

five oxford map the system finalists

From left to right: Tanmayata Bansal, Prerna Choudhury, Sahl Abdus Salam, Neha Sethi and Mridula Vasudevamurthy

Map the System empowered us to speak about a topic that was deeply personal to all of us. Ever since the competition, we noticed programs and campaigns happening in the city of New Delhi increasing awareness on the issue. Most notably, a leading radio station has started a campaign to make Delhi safe, especially at night by creating a sense of responsibility among its residents and urging them to be more vocal and actionable if they witness sexual harassment. We look forward to collaborating with such efforts and disseminate our findings and report among our stakeholders and organizations to take our efforts forward.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/54Co7Si2WGs

Authors: Prerna Choudhury Oxford MBA 2018-19 and Tanmayata Bansal Masters in Public Policy Analysis at Duke University.