Chikan and Eve Teasing

Terms describing the sexual harassment of women in Japan and India.

Police in Japan have instigated a clampdown against the “scourge of groping” which plagues women traveling on Tokyo’s rail and metro network, Justin McCurry reported recently for The Guardian:

Undercover police officers have been dispatched to notorious train lines across Tokyo in a new offensive against chikan, a catch-all term that covers groping, sexual rubbing and surreptitious mobile phone photography.

According to McCurry, the problem of chikan is so widespread that almost two-thirds of young women in Tokyo say they have been “touched inappropriately” while commuting. McCurry noted:

The crackdown came in response to a recent jump in cases involving groups of men who use online chat rooms to arrange where and when to target women. At least 100 websites list prime groping locations, offering hints on how to fondle undetected and, if that does not work, evade arrest.

One site advises would-be gropers to select carriages with doors that open near platform escalators or staircases – perfect escape routes.

Several men arrested in recent months have admitted being encouraged by the websites and emboldened by the prospect of working as part of a group. A typical tactic is to position two men in front and behind a victim, while as many as six other men block the view of other passengers.

Meanwhile, in India, The Times’s Jim Yardley revealed:

The problems of taunting and harassment, known as eve teasing, are so persistent that in recent months the government has decided to simply remove men altogether. In a pilot program, eight new commuter trains exclusively for female passengers have been introduced in India’s four largest cities: New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Calcutta.

The trains, Yardley said, “are known as Ladies Specials.” Indian trains have long had ladies-only carriages but over-crowding often means that men make use of these carriages. See also: Super-Dense Crushload