Silenced in the Streets: The Legal and Institutional Failure to Address Street Harassment in India

Abstract Street harassment is the most common yet least acknowledged crime against women in India. It happens every single day-in full view of strangers, in packed buses, under blinking CCTV cameras-and still, it goes unpunished. From catcalling and groping to being followed, stared at, or subjected to obscene gestures, women face a brutal and exhausting battle simply to exist in public spaces. The 2025 SheShakti Suraksha Survey reveals a horrifying truth: nearly three out of four Indian women between the ages of 16 and 45 have faced harassment in public in the past year. Of them, fewer than 10% ever filed a formal complaint. This paper confronts the vast disjunction between the lived reality of Indian women and the institutional silence that surrounds it. Through a doctrinal analysis of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, this study highlights how India’s legal and enforcement frameworks fail to define, criminalize, or seriously deter street harassment. Drawing on comparative legal regimes from the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, and France, and grounded in constitutional principles of dignity, equality, and liberty, the paper argues that India is not simply failing to protect women – it is failing to recognize them as full citizens of public space.