Ever since the second wave of covid broke out in the country, it has been left pretty much to itself to sort matters out.
Civilians are asking for help and civilians themselves are helping them out by volunteering on social media and sending out SOS messages on their Instagram stories, Twitter, Facebook – you name it.
This has helped a lot of people in the process and while nothing compares to the joy of saving a life, there is a big problem the woman volunteers are facing.
Out-of-line sexual messages and unsolicited pictures.
They shared numbers for possible plasma donors and any helpful person to reach out to them, but all they received were inquiries about sex. The same is true for women asking for help for their ailing relatives.
As one of them, Garima Bahl, says in a Brut video:
I got zero donor calls. Zero. All I got for 2 days were random messages, calls where they’d wait for me to say something…maybe to figure out if it was actually a girl on the other side. I took like a more rude tone…and they’d murmur things like “Madam, sex. Madam sex”.
She was seeking help for her grandmother, who has thankfully recovered since then, but her story resonates with many women across the country.
Another woman Shasvathi Siva, shared her story with the world a few days ago.
And so did many others.
To people who suggest that women “overreact” about their problems, we can’t even SAVE lives without getting harassed. So that’s your answer.