Since safety concerns among women in India who take a cab, especially during the nights, are quite high, a 35-year old entrepreneur decided to open a company who only hires women drivers and will solely take female customers. Not only are they getting more demands they can actually face, but the service has slowly become famous in the whole country.
It’s not the first time we hear about a taxi service designated for women only, but it’s quite interesting it exists in India, since a Uber driver was just imprisoned for allegedly raping a customer, in New Delhi. The man was arrested, with protests against sexual violence subsequently breaking out in the country’s capital.
And that is exactly why entrepreneur and social activist Preeti Sharma Menon created Viira Cabs, “an answer to the demand for door-to-door, safe, reliable and eco-friendly transport service in Mumbai”. The company is run by women, for women and drivers are not only taught how to act in risky situation, but are even trained in deadly karate and armed with knives and pepper spray.
Rape and treatment of women has become a big problem in India, especially since the gang rape and murder of a medical student bus happened, in 2012. Menon says the service is rather a social one since it provides a safe transport system for women and, more significantly, provides an employment opportunity for women from low economic backgrounds.
It would seem taxi services designed only for women are reaching a bigger scale. We recently wrote about a new livery service created for customers who desire exclusively female drivers who started in September in New York City, Westchester County and Long Island. Then there is London’s Pink Ladies, a company formed in 2005 after a girl was muredered by someone posing as a taxi driver.
In 2006, a Pink Ladies branch opened in Moscow and similar ventures have been making headlines in countries such as Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
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