India Scrambles to Reassure Tourists Shaken by Recent Attacks on Women
By NEHA THIRANI BAGRI and HEATHER TIMMON

MUMBAI, India — Dheeraj Dixit used to make $2 a day snapping photographs of the tourists milling around the Gateway of India, the imposing monument at the southern tip of Mumbai. But a recent series of well-publicized attacks on women in India, and the international outcry over them, have Mr. Dixit worried.

“India’s image is spoiled when incidents like this happen,” Mr. Dixit, 38, said ruefully while hustling for customers on a recent evening. “It’s unfortunate, and it isn’t good for business.”

Visits to India by female tourists dropped 35 percent in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year, according to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India. That three-month period came after the fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi in December, which brought protesters to the streets and shined a spotlight on the harassment and intimidation women face every day in India.

Although the per capita rate of rapes reported to the police in India is below that of many developed nations, some experts believe that many sexual attacks go unreported and that the actual number is far higher. The public outrage over the December attack led to the passage of a new sexual offense law in March that imposes stronger penalties for violence against women and criminalizes actions like stalking and voyeurism.

But attacks on women have continued with an alarming regularity. While Indian women are most often the targets, foreign tourists have been victims as well. A 30-year-old American woman reported being gang-raped in a northern resort town last week. She picked three men out of a lineup, and on Friday the accused were presented before a magistrate and sent to judicial custody for 14 days.

On March 15, a group of men raped a 39-year-old Swiss tourist in Madhya Pradesh and attacked her husband. Four days later, a 25-year-old British tourist jumped off the balcony of her hotel room in Agra, fearing that the hotel owner was planning to sexually assault her.

“With the most recent gang rape in Delhi on the forefront of my mind, I travel to India with more anxiety than I’m used to when traveling to a foreign country,” said Corinne Aparis, 24, of San Francisco, who is currently in the western Indian city of Udaipur as an international program coordinator with the Foundation for Sustainable Development. “It scares me to think that there’s that type of deep hatred toward women — that just being a woman is enough of a target and reason for some men to inflict such violence on me.”

India can ill afford to lose the foreign currency that tourists inject into the economy. Economic growth has slipped to 5 percent in 2012 from more than 9 percent annually in 2010, and the government needs foreign currency to offset huge payments for imported oil and coal, which cannot be paid in rupees.

A total of 6.4 million foreign tourists traveled to India last year, a smaller number than in some much smaller countries, like France, or even in cities like New York. But such visitors make an essential contribution to the country’s flagging economy, and are vital to the survival of millions of one-man operators like Mr. Dixit.

Tourism over all accounts for 6 percent of India’s gross domestic product and is responsible for about 10 percent of organized employment in the country, or some 20 million jobs. An estimated 60 million to 70 million more people, like Mr. Dixit, make their living off foreigners in an “unorganized” way. Foreign tourism specifically contributes about $18 billion, or approximately 20 percent of India’s current account deficit, according to official figures.

Mr. Dixit is not alone in his worries about India’s image among women. The Indian government and the tourism industry are scrambling to reassure would-be visitors. Indian states are forming tourism police forces, hotels have created exclusive areas for women only, and tour groups are adding features like women’s-only tours and cellphones for all customers.

For some foreign tourists, the increased fears mean extra precautions.

“When I said I was traveling to India, my friends and family asked me to be careful and were more worried about me than if I was traveling to any other foreign country,” said Nadine Herwiejer, 26, while sitting in the shade of a tree at the Gateway of India.

Ms. Herwiejer, from Foorburg in the Netherlands, said that she was “traveling in a group and would not feel comfortable traveling alone in India because of safety reasons.”

In April, the Tourism Ministry asked all state governments to create police forces just for tourist spots. Such forces are already present in the states of Goa, Rajasthan, and Jammu and Kashmir, where they wear special armbands to identify themselves.

The Tourism Ministry is also setting up a multilingual toll-free help line that will be answered by women and act as a concierge service, but will also provide telephone numbers for all the police stations in India, officials said.

Thomas Cook India has started exclusive tours for women and offers additional services, like free cellphones along with emergency contact numbers for police stations, hospitals and help-line numbers. The Imperial, a luxury hotel in New Delhi, has created a “single lady corridor” of 12 rooms, each with a security camera on the door, staffed by an all-female staff. Even the airport pickup contact is a woman.

Along with improving security, though, tourism industry officials say that India also needs to carefully rebuild its image.

“We need to tell the world that Indian cities are as safe or unsafe as any other metropolitan cities,” said Arun Varma, the chief executive at Prime Travels, a tour operator.

印度性侵案太多 女觀光客暴減

印度性侵事件頻傳，不只國家形象受傷，更重創旅遊業，導致今年首季女性遊客人數暴跌百分之卅五。目前印度官方和民間旅遊業者已採取多項對策，以免損及經濟。

紐約時報十日報導，發生在去年十二月的新德里女大學生遭集體性侵致死案，曾引發印度民眾示威抗議，也讓國會在今年三月通過立法，對女性施暴的罪犯處以更嚴厲處罰。但在印度，攻擊女性的事件仍層出不窮，且受害者還包括外籍女遊客。

上周，一名美國女遊客在印度北方一個度假小鎮遭人性侵。約三個月前的三月十五日，一名卅九歲的瑞士女遊客才在中央邦遭性侵；四天後，一名廿五歲的英國女遊客因擔心旅館老闆企圖性侵，從她下榻的阿格拉市一家旅館的陽台跳樓逃出。

這類案件已損及印度的國家形象，也讓女遊客對於赴印旅遊，多了幾分憂心。印度商工聯合會統計，今年前三個月的女遊客人數已較去年同期銳減百分之卅五。

儘管以警方接獲報案的性侵案與人口比率而言，印度的性侵事件遠比多數已開發國家少，但部分專家認為，印度許多性侵案都未報案，實際情況遠比警方的統計嚴重。

旅遊業產值約占印度國內生產毛額的百分之六，從業人口約為全國的百分之十，大約提供兩千萬個工作機會，另約有六千萬到七千萬人，靠著為遊客拍照這類非正式差事為生。去年赴印度旅遊的外國遊客約有六百四十萬人。

值此印度經濟成長放緩之際，極需觀光客提供外匯收入，因此從四月起，印度旅遊部就要求邦級政府針對各景點，新設警力。目前在果亞、拉賈斯坦、查謨及克什米爾邦，都可見到戴著特殊臂章的員警。

旅遊部還正在籌設免付費的多語言協助專線，由女性接應且扮演旅館櫃檯服務員的角色，另外，該部也將把全印度所有警察局的電話號碼，提供給旅客。一些旅館也增設監視器，或推出女性專屬行程、服務，甚至機場接送都由女性擔任

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/world/asia/rape-cases-are-making-tourists-wary-of-visiting-india.html

2013-06-12/聯合報/A14版/國際 編譯馮克芸