India is outraged by the rape and murder of a young doctor. We have been here too many times | Nilanjana Bhowmick in Delhi

BViolence is one of the biggest deterrents for working women in India, who suffer a rape every 16 minutes. On the eve of India's Independence Day on August 14, tens of thousands of women took to the streets in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal for a “Reclaim the Night” march after a doctor-in-training was brutally raped and murdered in Calcutta.

But we have seen this before – too often. Especially in 2012, when we protested against the murder of a young paramedic in Delhi. Jyoti Singh was raped by several men in a moving bus and left to die on the street.

The incident prompted hundreds of thousands of women to protest, demanding a safer environment and pressuring the central government to tighten laws, including criminalizing stalking.

It was a turning point in many ways, or so we thought. But the statistics continue to be horrifying, like the rapes reported every 16 minutes in 2022. And here we are again – another turning point?

Has anything changed since 2012? I covered the protests in Delhi extensively for Time magazine, as a reporter but also as a woman working under the ever-present fear of violence, especially in public spaces. The collective emotions at these marches were a heady mix of fear, anxiety and disappointment.

Over the past few years, many other incidents have tested our patience. There have been some protests and more government commitment to women's safety – and yet here we are again. Women are still angry, scared, worried and disappointed. We are still demanding justice. We are still protesting against this culture of violence that so restricts our lives.

Is it this fear that keeps Indian women away from regular work? I have felt fear throughout my career in predominantly male-dominated areas: on the streets, in the fields, in shops and offices.

It followed me from the pornographic jokes that my male colleagues in the editorial office thought they shared to the sexual advances of my boss. Of course I complained. Of course nothing was done. Of course I was the one who had to quit.

Did this impact my ability to reach my full potential? Of course. Not only was my complaint ignored, but no other media house would hire someone who would come forward as a whistleblower to expose the misogynistic nature of Indian newsrooms. But I had just returned from a posting with the BBC World Service in the UK and saw things differently.

I had immense hope for my life in India as a journalist and as a woman. I was ready to fight alone, but I was young and stupid. My perspective had changed, but the country's had not.

I could have quit my career at any time during this time, but I didn't.

Was I harassed again? Every time I went back to work in a newsroom. That's why I do more freelance work than full-time jobs in my career.

I survived not because of any institutional measures that provided me with a safe environment, but because of my personal courage, determination and – undoubtedly – ​​my social privilege and a lot of luck.

But every trip I took, every night I worked late, was accompanied by a deep sense of unease and vulnerability. This constant fight-or-flight instinct is exhausting and women often choose to stay home rather than make the effort to find a secure job.

Is it any wonder that women's participation in the workforce in India is so shockingly low? As I discuss in my book Lies Our Mothers Told Us, gender-neutral infrastructure is a major factor keeping women out of the formal labor market.

TToday, India has an increasing number of girls in school and the highest number of female graduates in STEM fields in the world, but the transition from education to work remains dismal. By 2023, women will make up just 19% of scientists and 27% of the STEM workforce – a huge disparity in a field that is critical to innovation and progress.

Women are more likely to choose informal but flexible home working, where they have some control over their environment.

At just under 33 percent in 2023, the share of women in India's workforce is well below the global average of 47 percent. If India really wants to achieve its ambitious target of 8 percent GDP growth, it needs to increase the share of women in the workforce to 43.4 percent by 2030.

Deloitte’s Women@Work 2024 report found that 46% of Indian women are concerned about safety at work or on the way to work.

A 2021 report examining the role of safety in women's decision to work found that “one additional crime per 1,000 women in a district reduces the expected probability of working by 6.3 percentage points among women in the 21-64 age group. According to the 2011 census, about 50% of India's 586 million women belong to this working-age category. This means that for every additional crime per 1,000 women in a district, about 32 women are prevented from entering the workforce.”

The public space and work culture in India are geared towards the needs of men, while women are doomed to failure at every turn.

In Kolkata, the victim was taking a nap after a strenuous shift. Government hospitals in India are often overcrowded and understaffed, so she had to sleep in a seminar room. Why were there no proper rest areas for women working night shifts?

This is not special treatment. The least a country can do is create jobs that meet the different needs of both genders.

Every time a woman is attacked or murdered, the story revolves around what she was wearing, why she was out and who she was with. But women are not the problem. Redesign existing workplace structures and make them work for both genders.

India has a number of laws to protect women: the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, the Prevention, Stop and Redressal of Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013 and the Child Marriage Prohibition Act, 2006. These laws loudly proclaim that India is a society that cares for its women. Amendments have been made to strengthen the fight against sexual crimes and to impose harsher penalties, including the death penalty, for rape of a child under 12 years of age.

There are other response mechanisms too. There are safe city projects, forensic labs, cybercrime portals, DNA analysis units – all in the name of women's safety. And yet here we are. The violence continues unabated.

Reducing crimes against women requires not only laws and crisis centres – important as these are – but also tackling the deep-rooted misogyny in a patriarchal society like India. To bring about social change, we need to invest in women's organisations as they play a key role in communities.

Efforts to get women back to work have focused on maternity and childcare services. These need to be addressed, as does the burden of unpaid care on women. But if we do not address violence against women in public spaces, all these other efforts will be ineffective.