And so it happened. Four days after Goa Tourism Development Corporation announced the launch of its taxi-hailing app GOAMILES, a 20-year-old is raped by a taxi driver working at the airport who forcibly picked her off the posh and busy airport road in Chicalim. Two weeks ago a Goa Police constable attached to Vasco DySP (one of the finest woman cops of Goa) allegedly raped a 17-year-old less than 48 hours after Goa’s Home Minister Manohar Parrikar resumed office after a 100+ days sick leave. Irony dies a painful death again and again in Goa that also boasts of the first time of three Superintendents of Police all women IPS officers. Are you safe in Goa, Bai?
Weak rulers, weaker opposition & failed governance. Days after the audacious Betalbatim gang rape, Goa BJP’s Mahila Wing president Sulakshana Sawant had underlined, “We cannot provide security to every individual”. Shocking words from the party that chose to hijack democracy and assume the role of the ruler of Goa. But what was even more shocking was her party or the ruling coalition, including MGP and Goa Forward Party, did not try to correct her. How can you trust the government to ensure the safety of your daughter, your mother, your sister, your wife when the ruling dispensation’s political arm says it cannot protect them? Are you safe in Goa, Bai?
What is becoming increasingly bizarre is that the State government during the times of Cabinet Advisory Committee and after the return of CM Parrikar has been more interested in promoting big-ticket infrastructure and development projects, whilst safety of women seems to be the last and least concerns of the government. In fact, whether it was either of the senior ministers in the state cabinet or the senior functionaries of Goa Police, nobody has till date had the basic courtesy to appear in public and make a strong pitch or resolve for the safety of women in Goa. Does this government really care for women’s security? Are you safe in Goa, Bai?
Interestingly, Goa Women’s Forum’s (GWF) month-long campaign ‘Say No to Sex Tourism in Goa’ as a protest against the trafficking of women for commercial sex is a time bomb waiting to explode. Despite being reported in many sections of the media and despite Goa’s Police force led by one of the country’s finest brains in cyber crimes, escorts service and call girls in Goa continue to be advertised through various websites. All it takes is googling the right words. Whilst Goa Tourism sells Goa, these websites sell the innuendo that gives the world outside an image of a Goa where sex sells. A visitor thereafter doesn’t see Goa and Goans as just another hardworking land and its people. Goa, between the lines for them, is a red light district. A perception that Goa Tourism does neither challenge nor cull. What happened on the busy airport road is a shape of things to come. Are you safe in Goa, Bai?
The Goan taxi driver as a rapist and a Goan cop as a rapist is not the best of image building that has happened to a State already reeling under a divided government and a complicit opposition. While the people are battling a rogue Regional Plan and ODPs, there is more coal being flagged into Vasco, Goa’s most polluted town and then there are the ministers in shining armour announcing schemes, policies and startups. Nobody is talking about women’s safety. Not even the two women MLAs one each from BJP and Congress who have remained more wax statues of women empowerment than real women of substance leading the fight for a safer Goa for women. Even the top women leaders of Congress Pratima Coutinho or Rajshree Nagarseker of Aam Admi Party find no mention amongst those who will come out on the streets for your safety. Do you still feel safe in Goa, Bai?
