A report curated and published by Truecaller finds out that 1 out of 3 (36%) women in India receives sexual and inappropriate calls or text messages, and of these women, 78% claimed to receive harassment calls with inappropriate and sexual content at least once a week, and 82% claimed to receive unsolicited videos and pictures with inappropriate and sexual content at least once a week. On average, 50% of these calls and texts were anonymous, 11% were made by stalkers, and 3% were from a person known to them. The survey also finds out that only 10% of all women filed a complaint to the police, and only 7% of them named and shamed the spammer on social media (7%). While most women viewed cold calls from telemarketers, salespeople and fraudsters as a ‘nuisance’, 81% of women surveyed said that blank calls were ‘harassment’. Blank calls in the survey were defined as an anonymous phone call made with the intention to threaten, harass or offend a caller, without a sales-or phishing-related objective. In fact, blank calls were the one type of spam call overwhelmingly felt to be harassment as opposed to nuisance. What you can do to report stalkers? Note that in India, stalking-physical or electronic like phone calls, messages, emails etc, is a criminal offence, and is punishable with up to three years of imprisonment. One can file a complaint against the stalkers online. National Commission for Women (NCW) allows citizen to file complaints online here, whether for themselves or on behalf…
