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Journalism of Courage
The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), which operates public bus services in the Karnataka capital, has decided to offer self-defence training to its women staff in a bid to empower them to be “custodians of their own safety.”
As per a BMTC statement, practical training will be given to its women employees in karate, judo, and martial arts while the entire employee force will be offered classes on gender sensitisation, self-assertiveness, legal knowledge, counselling skills, and public speaking.
“There are instances where women staff of BMTC who work as conductors and security personnel are also at the receiving end of such unacceptable behaviour from commuters as well as from their male colleagues,” the statement read.
An official said the courses will be tailored in a way that women of all age groups will get to learn the techniques. “The course content will be based on typical threatening scenarios that they may encounter in everyday life and easy techniques to extricate themselves out of such situations using simple defensive and offensive moves,” the official said.
According to the plan chalked out by BMTC, the course will be of 42-hours duration and will be taught over 21 days in 120-minute sessions.
Over 3000 women bus conductors are part of the BMTC force operating in hundreds of routes across Bengaluru.
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