Mary Kom faced sex attack as a teenager, set to launch self-defence mobile app

Indian boxer MC Mary Kom

Five-time World Boxing Champion and Olympic medallist Mary Kom is all set to launch a new mobile application intended to teach women how to protect themselves from sexual assaults.

Mary has partnered with mobile network Vodafone to develop the app which will offer basic self-defence tips for women. In addition, the app, which will be released later this year, will also provide advice and support to women.

Features of the app – providing basic self defence tips to women

The app will reportedly contain videos demonstrating how to fight off sexual predators using techniques that are easy and straightfoward. The techniques even include basic punches, kicks, scratching with nails and hitting with high-heeled shoes.

A basic version of the app for regular mobile phones giving advice and instructions in text form is also expected to be made available.

Speaking of the app, Mary Kom said: “The app teaches basic things for people who have not done [boxing] before. If it is too hard for them, it will not interest them. Hopefully, if they are interested, they will continue to learn.”

Olympic and World Champion herself a victim of an attack

Mary Kom’s motivation behind launching this app is deeply personal. She has revealed that she herself had to endure a horrific experience in her younger days but managed to protect herself thanks to her boxing knowledge, which enabled her to defend herself.

Recalling her escape, she said: “I remember I went to church wearing a traditional wraparound dress. I was 18 years old and looked very lady-like. The rickshaw driver wanted to do bad things. We were travelling through a quiet area when he tried to do what he wanted.”

But re-enacting the powerful punches she used to protect herself as she spoke, Kom emphatically added: “Boom, boom, boom… he was on the ground – finished.”

“I managed to flatten him because I was fit and strong. But that incident taught me a lesson that as a woman, I have to be very alert all the time and must have courage (to fight the odds),” she said.

Sport a tool to help women in India find their identity

Mary Kom expressed concern over women’s safety in India, and urged them to go for physical training to fend off attackers.

“I would urge them to have some kind of physical training to prevent sex attacks, because you need to be strong and fit to fight attackers. I would also tell them to fight sex offence without fear,” she said.

While physical protection from sexual predators is definitely one of the main things that the initiative attempts to achieve, Mary Kom hopes that the app, along with a few other initiatives, will also help women in the country to gain confidence in themselves and not succumb to the prevailing social prejudice that considers them as inferior and weak.

“When I was a little girl I was always playing fighting games. I was very interested in sports but nobody in my village knew what to do with me. People try to discourage what women do. I began my sports career to help my father financially but people say ‘you are a girl, you can’t do this’ or ‘you are a woman you must do this’. I want to give girls the confidence that if a man can do it, they can do it,” Mary Kom said.

“I was the eldest and helping my father but people in the village were telling me not to do things but I would not let it get to me,” she added.

With role models like Mary Kom taking such active interest in the welfare of women, maybe India can hope for a more secure future for its female population.