India’s women are left to fend for themselves — at the country’ economic peril
More than 20-million women have left the Indian workforce since 2004 — not for better jobs, but to feel that they, and their children, are safer
New Delhi/Bengaluru/Mumbai — There are two things New Delhi marketing executive Khyati Malhotra never leaves home without: her taser and pepper spray. It’s just part of the investment she makes to stay safe in a country where crimes reported against women have surged over 80% in a decade and deadly cases of sexual violence often roil cities and villages. So a chunk of Malhotra’s salary goes into a car and driver to avoid the dangers of public transport, where women are cat-called, groped and assaulted. In Bangalore, Vidya Laxman, an executive at a multinational in India, pays for a battalion of household help and security cameras to keep her children safe. Sajna Nair of Delhi figures she’s lost almost $200,000 in earnings after quitting a bank job because she couldn’t find safe childcare for her daughter. In recent months, the rape, torture and murder of an eight-year-old girl in the state of Jammu, an 11-year-old in Gujarat and the rape of 16-year-old in Uttar Pradesh have laid bar...
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