November 18, 2018: Female police officers in India are changing the way violence against women is reported.

Opening all-woman police stations (WPS) increased crime reportage by a significant 22% in the world’s most dangerous country for women, according to a June 2018 study. This is because women are more comfortable approaching these stations.

In areas with an all-woman police station, there was a 21.4% rise in the reports of violence committed against women, a city-level analysis revealed. At the state-level, too, the results were consistent, posting a 22.5% jump.

“This, in turn, led to a rise in arrests of crimes whose reports increased,” researchers Sofia Amaral and Sonia Bhalotra of University of Essex in the UK, and Nishith Prakash from University of Connecticut, US, wrote in their paper.

Read more: India’s all-female police stations are encouraging women to report crimes, finds study (https://scroll.in)

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