One out of three women in India receives sexual harassment or inappropriate calls: Truecaller.
Shubhangi Mathur
Bangalore, April 17, 2020
India stands fifth in global spam ranking, a report by Truecaller, a company that offers caller ID, spam detection and messaging services says. The number of spam calls has increased to 25.6 calls per user per month which is a 15 percent increase from the previous year.
The report also pointed out that one of three women in India receives sexual harassment or inappropriate calls. Parul Jindal, who had to change her number due to spam calls, said, “I used to get calls every day from a person. Even if I blocked one number, I would get calls from another number, so I finally had to change my phone number.”
Brinda Adhige, women’s activist, explained the impact spam calls have on a woman’s mental health. “Women, generally, do not pay much attention to such spam calls in the beginning. Over time, though, the same spam calls become a reason for their mental tension and torture. The callers start by admiring the women and soon start torturing them,” she said.
“To keep the situation in control, it is quite necessary that the government send a message that strict action will be taken against such people. Also, the police need to be a bit sensitive in such cases and not make women, who are complaining about these calls, uncomfortable. It would be quite convenient if they (the police) start accepting complaints online,” she added.
Telecom operators continue to be the top spammers with 67 percent of spam calls received for upselling of various offers and reminders. The list of spammers continues with telemarketing and financial services at 17 percent and 10 percent respectively. Of the total number of spam calls, six percent of calls are scam calls as well.
Not just calls, Indian user receives 61 spam text messages per month.
A Reliance employee said, “With the rise of mobile payments and a growing middle class in India, we have seen banks and outsourced telemarketing services as big spammers. In an urge to promote and sell their packages, they often spam their users to an undesirable extent. To stop such spam calls, customers can use Do Not Disturb (DND) services.”
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has previously asked telecom operators to ensure that commercial communication takes place only through registered senders. The violators would be charged with a penalty ranging from Rs. 1000 to Rs. 500000, depending on the severity of the offence.
