India’s Ministry of Tourism has launched a mass awareness campaign, ‘I Respect Women’, by issuing metal badges in English and Hindi and nine foreign languages.
The objective of the campaign is to ensure safety for tourists, especially women, and to show that Indians respect females.
All state tourism ministers and officials, including Union tourism minister K Chiranjeevi, will wear the badges.
India has been plagued with bad publicity over rape and molestation targeting women tourists which is having a negative impact on the country’s tourism industry.
The Indian government will encourage people involved in the tourism sector to wear the "I Respect Women" badges.
The badges will be in English and other languages, including Korean, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin, German and Spanish.
The aim, tourism ministry officials say, is to show that the majority does not support crime against women and to instill confidence among foreign tourists.
"People involved in the tourism sector, including tour operators, guides, taxi and auto drivers, hoteliers and other stakeholders, will be asked to wear ‘I Respect Women’ badges," said a senior tourism ministry official.
