The conductor, blinded by the prospect of collecting a large sum in fares, grabs each girl by the waist and forcibly pushes them inside, despite the girls’ efforts to safely board the bus themselves.The girls utter a few sentences in annoyance as they are jostled onto the bus, but the conductor merely smiles bluntly, putting the matter to rest.
Commuting in congested public transport vehicles is an ordeal in itself. Being subjected to sexual harassment at the same time makes the whole process an unbearable and unavoidable chore for the fairer sex; particularly those of such a young age.
Pushing and shoving is a common sight in buses and microbuses during morning and evening rush hours, and the intensity increases if there is a young lady around. The conversations of surrounding men begin to take on vulgar connotations.
While light-hearted flirting may add some spice to an otherwise unpleasant journey, getting physical crosses the line of decency, taking the fun out of it altogether.
"We regularly face harassment while using public transport," says Pratima, a twelfth-grader at VS Niketan. "We don´t mind some friendly flirting, but they (boys) don´t stop at that and start to talk nonsense."
"We dread crowded buses, but we have to board them. We cannot miss our college, can we?" her classmate Anita adds. "The khalasis (helpers/conductors) are always on a lookout for excuse to get their hands on us."
Most working women and college-going girls experience harassment of varying degrees at one point or another, and have sadly had to accept it as one of life’s many ugly realities. They feel they don´t have any choice.
"It is useless to retaliate," Pratima reasons. "They have routine answers, like ‘why don´t you use a taxi if you don´t want anybody near you’. And if you try to take it further, they will bombard you with obscenities."
The saddest part of the whole situation is that even civilized bystanders don´t intervene, preferring to remain silent spectators rather than picking up an unnecessary fight. "I don´t try to take advantage while traveling in buses and think doing so is not right. But I also cannot afford to pick up quarrels every day," Suren Thapa, a student at the Public Youth Campus explains.
Lack of legal remedy doesn´t help matters. "There is no separate law to handle the issue. One can complain about such harassments under the Public Offense Act, but nothing much can be done as it is very difficult to provide concrete evidence of such offenses," says Rita Mainali, assistant professor in Human Rights and Gender Justice at the Kathmandu School of Law.
"The Supreme Court had issued a directive to formulate a separate law for the issue, but nothing has been done yet," she laments.
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