Safe city: Analysis of services for gender-based violence in Bengaluru, India

Discussions about addressing gender-based violence in cities often evoke the notion of 'safety' of women on the streets but fail to recognize that violence spans the private and public spheres. Situated within the broader scholarship on gender and urban spaces, this exploratory study relies on a mapping exercise of a purposive sample of stakeholders and 87 informal interviews in Bengaluru, India, to discuss the strategies they adopt for addressing violence. Stakeholders' responses are fragmented and many services are reactiive rather than about prevention of violence. The authors attribute the lack of emphasis on prevention to scarce resources and expertise which results in agencies prioritizing working with survivors. Such prioritization reflects an international gap in thinking about the possibility of preventing violence before it occurs. The authors suggest there be concerted efforts by a consortium of agencies to develop preventive services and to ensure accountability for implementation, provision of resources for interventions, and evaluation of interventions.