Twitter launches dedicated search prompt to help victims of domestic violence in India

The search prompt would be available in India on iOS and Android apps and Twitter web in Hindi as well as English.

Twitter on crime against women: Twitter has launched a search prompt which will redirect users searching keywords related to domestic violence to relevant information by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development and the National Commission for Women (NCW). The search prompt would be available in India on iOS and Android apps and Twitter web in Hindi as well as English.

The company in a statement said that every time a user in India would search for certain keywords related to domestic violence, a prompt would lead them to relevant information available on Twitter. The feature is an expansion of the website’s ‘There Is Help’ prompt developed specifically so that people could find credible information on critical issues.

The keywords included in this prompt are domestic violence, dowry, crime against women, gender violence, dowry death, lockdown violence, marital rape, prevention of sexual harassment (POSH) and gender based violence. The statement added that the feature would regularly be reviewed by the company so that all the relevant keywords lead to the search prompt. The company also said that it has been observed that there has been a significant spike in the number of cases of domestic violence in India and the rest of the world during the coronavirus lockdown.

According to a UN report, over the last 12 months, as many as 24.3 crore women and girls aged between 15 and 49 have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner all over the world. Twitter said that the NCW witnessed a two-fold increase in the number of domestic violence complaints during the period of lockdown.

According to NCW Chairperson Rekha Sharma, the impact of COVID-19 and the lockdown has had an adverse impact on the victims of domestic violence. She added that due to the lockdown, many victims might not have been able to contact their usual support system and this initiative by the microblogging site would help them to reach out to alternative ones.