İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality has introduced a new regulation on public busses to ensure women’s safety at night.
Accordingly, women will be able to get off the busses at any point they want regardless of whether there is a bus stop around after 22:00. Drivers have been instructed to make sure women passengers are let disembark at the closest point that will not cause any threat for traffic flow or pose any danger for the well-being of the passenger and environment. The new regulation has been in effect as of November 17.
However, it seems to have brought about different reactions from now.
A woman passenger, Ceyda Ada, noted that the new regulation would be useful saying, ‘‘This is a nice regulation at least in terms of getting to home at a certain hour considering the desolate places.’’
On the other hand, some women passengers have stated a critical point of view. Göksu Bulut, a woman passenger who emphasised the sexist side to the regulation, said, ‘’This new regulation gives the message that men have the right to abuse women after 22:00. What needs to be done is not that we be dropped off at somewhere close to home but that men be educated.’’
It is yet to be seen whether this new regulation will have any impact on the issue of women’s harassment.
I am a literature major at Boğaziçi University in İstanbul. I hate İstanbul, yet I am in love with it.