Three Indian Students Invent Anti-Rape Undergarment to Shock Attackers

After the brutal gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student in Southern Delhi, India in December 2012, and last month's gang rape of a Swiss tourist in Datia, women in the country are feeling more vulnerable than ever. The Telegraph reports that the number of women applying for gun licenses since December have doubled, tourism has dropped, and international groups have called for the Indian government to provide more security for women in the country. Not content to wait for this change, three college students have invented "anti-rape" lingerie to shock attackers.

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The technology called the Society Harnessing Equipment (SHE) was created by Manisha Mohan, Niladri Basu Bal, Rimpi Tripathi of SRM—India's top private engineering university—and is a system of sensors with an electronic shock circuit board attached to a camisole worn under clothes. The device has the power to shock an attacker 82 times, and is also equipped with a GPS monitoring system to send text alerts to parents and police.

In their proposal, Mohan and Tripathi explained how they came up with the idea:

Studying in a convent girls school, we were always taught to be good to everyone around and bear a cheerful smile. After stepping into the real, cruel world we realized that our smile could not last for long as the threat to our purity and integrity always lingered on. [Lawmakers] take ages to come up with just laws and even after that, women are unsafe. Hence, we have initiated the idea of self?defense which protects the women from domestic, social and workplace harassment. We came across many such incidents of harassment during our survey [of] women’s hostels. So we decided to make this project which can be implemented easily. We have used technologies which are being used in day to day life (GPS, GSM, pressure sensors) in our innovation to bring a simple solution to this serious problem existing in our society.

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The concept won the Gandhian Young Technology Innovation Award, and mass production of this shocking lingerie begins this month. It will be amazing to see an innovation like this reach a global market to help women and girls around the world fight back against violent perpetrators.

Niladri Basu Bal, Manisha Mohan, and Rimpi Tripathi

What do you think—will this technology have an impact? Is this something you would wear under your clothes?

Images courtesy of Techpedia