Safeband: A Wearable Device For The Safety Of Women In Bangladesh

Even in the twenty-first century, while people are debating over various reasons of assault, women from all walks of life are continuously being harassed and violated in the streets, public transportation and public spaces. The safety of women has become a progressively emphasized concern in Bangladesh also. Though a number of initiatives have been introduced by the government to keep the women safe, there is no or little Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based solution exist to ensure the woman's safety in the context of Bangladesh. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to design and develop a safety device called 'SafeBand' for women to fight against physical harassment. The 'SafeBand' system is comprised of a wearable band to be used by the victim, and two mobile applications to be used by the victim and by the police. Women can wear the device as a wristband or locket which will comprise of a button and a light. When the user (victim) presses the button, it identifies the location of the user through Global Positioning System (GPS) and sends a message incorporating the location to the nearest police station and previously saved contacts (number of relatives). An empirical study was carried out to evaluate the 'SafeBand' system, which was replicated with 15 participants. The study results show that the developed system is effective, efficient, useful and acceptable to all users.