New Anti-Rape Underwear Claims to Send Electric Shock Through Would-Be Assailants

(Photo: Manisha Mohan, Niladri Basu Bal, Rimpi Tripathi via Techpedia)

Engineering students from India claim to have made underwear that could thwart would-be rapists by jolting them with an electric shock as they try to attack a woman.

The students from SRM University in Chennai call the prototype of the anti-rape underwear "Society Harnessing Equipment" (SHE) and hope to someday introduce commercial versions of it.

"The lingerie with global positioning system (GPS), global system for mobile communications (GSM) and also pressure sensors, is capable of sending shock waves of 3,800 kV as well as alerts to parents and police," Manisha Mohan, one of the developers, said according to Times of India.

Mohan continued that the underwear can shock up to 82 times.

"A person trying to molest a girl will get the shock of his life the moment pressure sensors get activated, and the GPS and GSM modules would send an SMS on emergency number 100, as well as to parents of the girl," she told the Times.

According to a paper about the underwear, a camisole-like garmet is what has been developed so far with the shock technology placed in the chest.

"The circuit is placed near the bosom because in the attempt of rape or road‐side eve‐teasing, as per survey, women are attacked first on their bosom," the paper stated.

Currently, the students are working with the National Institute of Fashion Technology to find the best fabric for the product that would allow it to be washed without foiling the electronics.

Watch WPIX's report about the anti-rape underwear:

"Studying in a convent girls school, we were always taught to be good to everyone around and bear a cheerful smile," the engineering students stated in the paper about the underwear. "After stepping into the real, cruel world we realized that our smile could not last for long as the threat to our purity and integrity always lingered on. Since the law makers take ages to come up with just laws and even after that, women are unsafe. Hence, we have initiated the idea of self‐defense which protects the women from domestic, social and workplace harassment."

Read more about the underwear in the paper posted on Techpedia here.