Truecaller recently released a comprehensive Truecaller Insights report aimed at understanding the impact of harassment calls & SMS for women in Kenya, India, Brazil, Egypt and Colombia.
The report revealed that 9 out of 10 women in Kenya receive harassment and nuisance calls and SMS.
The report combines quantitative research conducted by Ipsos in each local market, to get the statistics behind the problem, with face to face interviews with local women to give context and reality to the data.
These are the key findings from the report:
Looking at the data, sexual and inappropriate calls are common among women in Nairobi, where 1 out of 5 women receive this type of communication.
47% of all the sexual harassment calls/SMS comes from inmates in Kenya, and 53% come from unknown people. The fact that the harassers are selecting women at random to harass is perplexing and irritating, especially in a country like Kenya where that level is high.
Despite it being common for women to receive sexual or inappropriate calls and SMS, there’s a concerningly low percentage of women who think these types of calls constitute harassment. Only 11% of all women who have received sexual harassment calls/SMS consider it as harassment.
Women in urban areas are being the most affected by sexual harassment calls/SMS. These are the most affected areas: Nairobi, Mombasa, Kiambu and Nakuru.
The research reveals that harassment elicits strong reactions from women. Anger and irritation are the most common feelings towards sexual and inappropriate calls and SMS. Fear and worry are also common feelings that arise when women receive these types of calls.
Another shocking finding from this study is that only 2 out of 10 women in Kenya have taken action against harassment calls, and very few ever report this to the authority (6%.) For Kenyan women, with little support from authorities and local attitudes, harassment often has to be severe before women speak out. Here are the most common actions against harassment calls:
49% blocked the number
40% ignored the calls/SMS
32% called their operator for help
29% told the harasser to stop
6% reported to authorities
This research was conducted by Truecaller with support from Ipsos in India, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt and Kenya. Ipsos used a mobile-based approach for data collection and the same questionnaire was used across the region. In countries like Brazil, Colombia and Egypt the questionnaire was translated to the local language with minor localization tweaks.
The survey was conducted from the period November 22nd, 2019 to February 24th, 2020. The sample size varied from 1000 to 3324 women for each market among the age group 18-40, and women in socio-economic classes A, B, C1 and C2.
Truecaller helps users to know who is getting in touch with them, filter out unwanted calls and SMS, and focus on what really matters. The company provides a suite of unique services such as a dialer that offers caller ID, spam detection, messaging and more.
Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, the company was founded in 2009 by Alan Mamedi and Nami Zarringhalam.
