kochi on april 27 a woman was on her way to ponjassery from edappally toll as she had reached the city from vishakhapatnam the woman had more luggage than she could carry on her own and to add to that she had her kid accompanying herat aluva the cab driver told her that he needed more than the amount suggested through the cab aggregators app the woman denied this and the cab driver started to behave rudely with her and verbally harassed her the woman was forced into a point of discomfort that she asked the driver to let her out at aluva without feeling any guilt over his irresponsibility the man let her out of the cab with her child and all the luggageregular commuting is becoming more of a misadventure in the commercial capital of gods own country recent experiences of women commuters point towards thisbe it a cab an autorickshaw or a bus commuters say that they have been facing untoward experiencesthis is what happened with a few women who hired an autorickshaw back home from the city a few weeks ago after boarding they asked the driver to stop at a nearby shop to make an urgent purchase and told him to wait for a couple of minutes one of the women went inside while others waited inside the vehicle on returning she found the auto driver verbally harassing her copassengers apart from hurling the choicest of abuses at them he demanded the basic charge so that he can leavemeanwhile another woman shared her ordeal when she got flashed while travelling in a ksrtc bus a space that is expected to be comparatively safe when there is no crowdingsuch instances are not merely oneoff cases as women confront similar experiences dailypreetha k k a lawyer with the human rights law network said that women face such attacks very often most women have faced verbal or visual harassment in their life stalking and flashing is another kind of sexual harassment that women face a lot she saidaccording to statistics with the district crime records bureau in the first two months of 2019 as many as 11 cases of rape 25 cases of molestation and three cases of eve teasing were reported the numbers in 2018 were 88 rape cases 256 molestation cases and 67 cases of eve teasing preetha however said the reportage is minimal compared to the actual number of incidents that occurmany women face unsolicited touches while walking through a footpath such incidents are a crime under the ipc women are forced to ignore such crimes thinking of the social stigma they have to face if they go to a police station procedures at the police station and courts also prevent women from reporting most cases said preethashe added that long term plans should be implemented to bring about a change conductors and drivers of public transport should be given compulsory awareness classes on how to behave with women when they are given a licence