New ‘anti-rape’ jeans to combat abuse crisis in India

Two Indian women have designed a new line of “anti-rape” jeans which send distress signals to local police in the event of a sexual assault, the British daily the Daily Mail reported Thursday.

The collection, which was created by Siksha Pathak and Anjali Srivastava, aims to help in the fight against the growing number of sexual harassment incidents in the world’s largest democracy.

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“We have been thinking of making this device for a long time,” said Pathak, a science student and daughter of a cab driver.

“These terrible gang rapes of women that we have heard so much about recently shocked me and my colleague to the very core. Hopefully no other women will have to suffer if they are wearing our clothing,” she added.

Each pair of jeans in the collection, which costs around $4 in India, includes a small electronic device that sends a signal to the closest police station when activated.

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The signal also acts as a tracker so that police can rush straight to the victim’s location.

Almost 200 police stations in India's northern Varanasi city, from where the girls are from, have the equipment to receive the alert.

If successful, the “anti-rape” system will be expanded nationwide.

A rape occurs every 22 minutes in India, according to government figures.

India has been struggling to overcome its reputation for sexual violence since the fatal gang-rape of a student in New Delhi in 2012.