Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Archives for November 2012

16 Days: Day 4, Israel

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During the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence (Nov. 25 – Dec. 10), Stop Street Harassment is featuring activists who took action against street harassment this year, one new country per day.

Image via the Jerusalem Post

Day #4: Israel

At the end of 2011, it surfaced that ultra-Orthodox Jewish men were continually calling an 8-year-old a whore as she walked to school in Israel.

To protest and challenge this outrageous behavior, in January, a group of 250 women from Bet Shemesh held a Flashmob in the city square. This was revolutionary because women are not supposed to dance in public.

“[They] decided to raise their voices against the exclusion of women from the public domain by holding a mass public dance in the city square. The women, residents of the city from all ages and sectors, religious, traditional and secular, gathered together in a flashmob dance, in the city square and started dancing towards a change.” – via YouTube

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Now Available: HoodRules thebook

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HoodRules BookAre you looking for a practical book about how to deal with crimes on the street, including street harassment? Then consider purchasing Aqueelah Grant’s new book HoodRules.

From Amazon.com:

“HoodRules thebook, emphasizes that every place is a neighborhood or a “Hood” and crime can happen anywhere so preparation is key. Sometimes shocking and often funny, HoodRules thebook is a quick read, that is designed not to scare you, but to empower you! Crime will always be a problem, but you can decrease your chances of becoming a victim with sufficient awareness. Ms. Grant was not cowed by her experiences-she examined her habits, took self defense classes and came out fighting. She shares her journey with the hopes of helping others to avoid victimization and perhaps create their own set of “Hood Rules”

When I asked Ms. Grant what inspired her to write the book, she said:

“I constantly read articles about crime that hit home:  An assault, a gun point robbery, a car- jacking, a murder, a missing person, a snatched phone. I then read the comments on the articles and they often read: “Oh that’s terrible”, “The world isn’t safe anymore”. When reading these comments as someone who has been victimized, I realize that comments like these aren’t enough and they certainly don’t mean much after the fact.

So two years ago I started writing HoodRules thebook. I wanted to speak to people like a parent, a best friend, and older sister by combining laughter and seriousness. I wanted to give people options on different Street Safety techniques that most people never think of or may have simply forgotten. Also letting people know it is their job to design a personal safety plan because there will be times when the cavalry might not ever come. I’ve had those times where I hoped for a cavalry that never showed up and realized that was because I was meant to be my own Calvary. In the same breathe I also wanted to let the people who have been victims of crime know they are not alone and that some of our most scariest and embarrassing moments are our greatest life lessons.

One quote I created to help myself cope was “If we all had the same story to SHARE there would be no story to TELL”. Which means no one’s journey will be the same because some will be pretty rough. However, when you can tell a story to lift someone else up that’s the moment you realize your journey was worth it.”

Her book is available in print and for digital devices.

Learn more about the topic and the book here: Book Website | Tech Blog | Facebook | Twitter

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16 Days: Day 3, Myanmar

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During the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence (Nov. 25 – Dec. 10), Stop Street Harassment is featuring activists who took action against street harassment this year, one new country per day.

Image via the Myanmar Times

Day 3: Myanmar

In February, a new anti-harassment campaign launched in Myanmar called “whistle for help.” As part of the campaign 150 volunteers distributed whistles and pamphlets to women at eight busy bus stops in Yangon each Tuesday morning that month and they’ve continued to do so for nine months. The pamphlets tell women to blow the whistle when they experience sexual harassment on the bus and advises them to help other women when they blow the whistle.

The whistle campaign is so popular, riders regularly ask for extra whistles to pass out to their friends and family and some have requested the organizers expand their campaign to other regions.

The bus drivers have been supportive too: “U Tun Aung, a driver one the No 51 line, said sexual harassment had been tolerated on buses for too long and he praised the “whistle for help” organisers for devising an effective, non-violent campaign to stop it.”

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Egypt: Year One, HarassMap Report

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I grew up in Cairo learning how to strategize my life to avoid sexual harassment. I would make sure to run my errands during a football match when men and boys in the neighborhood are busy watching, not before or after. I knew which routes to take to school, and that I can only go to cafes to meet my friends, but never to public parks.

I always took sexual harassment as a fact of life that I need to deal with. It never struck me as a plaguing problem until, as a 25-year old professional, I realized that I spend a significant portion of my income on a “precaution budget” against sexual harassment. For example, I had to go out at expensive restaurants but not the more affordable “men-only” cafes or free public parks, and I had to resort to private taxi rides over public buses. I even turned down jobs because they had no accessible parking, which will take me back to the dreadful public bus. And even with all these precautions, I was still harassed in the few minutes that I have to walk every day between my parked car and any building.

I felt very lonely in this shameful experience. But when I talked to one friend after another, I found that it happened to every other woman I know, and that it was not my fault. So I decided that the first step in building up resistance against this shameful behavior, is to create awareness, and tell other women that it is not their fault, and they should not let sexual harassment go unpunished.

Through common friends, I met Rebecca, Engy, and Amel, and we established Harassmap: an open online mapping tool to end the social tolerance of sexual harassment. We help victims, like us, speak out and access support services, and contribute to changing the environment in our streets to no longer tolerate harassers. Our initiative has three prongs: online crowdsourcing of harassment reports, offline street campaigns in target locations, and referral to psychological/legal support services.

Our first year of work was a learning experience for us first and foremost. The reports we received on our portal (540 in the first year) showed that there is no typical harasser or victim. The demographic features of the former ranged across teenagers, university professors, medical doctors –and children in 83 cases; whereas the victims were young and old, women and men, veiled, face-veiled and not.

This insight was a strong foundation for our offline campaigns. It was important to feel confident as we debunked the justifications of harassers to violate women’s safety as such. “Look how she’s dressed”, “It’s her fault for going out so late”, “men are sexually frustrated” are all too common excuses. Conversely, knee-jerk condemnation or patronizing media discourse were evidently ineffective, we had to speak grassroots language and immerse within the grassroots. Now, more than 500 HarassMap volunteers go out once per month to ask shop owners, police, doormen and others with a presence in the street to send the message: harassment will not be tolerated!

In 2012-2013 we are working on strengthening our efforts on the ground. Public order enforcement by community figures (mainly doormen) is very evident in Egypt and it is important to win it on our side. Therefore we aim to strengthen community outreach teams to become more independent as they interact with respective communities. On the other hand, we hope to expand our intervention beyond street harassment, to include workplace, school and university. Finally, we are encouraging the Egyptian police to work together and use our reporting system to target enforcement areas.

Sawsan Gad is a GIS Analyst and the co-founder of HarassMap.

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16 Days: Day 2, Belgium

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During the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence (Nov. 25 – Dec. 10), Stop Street Harassment is featuring activists who took action against street harassment this year, one new country per day.

Day #2: Belgium

There’s been a lot of activism in Belgium around street harassment this year!

For Meet Us on the Street, Hollaback Brussels held a chalk walk where they visited places they’d been harassed and reclaimed those spots by telling their stories aloud and writing in chalk that they reclaim the area. They’ve held additional chalk walks since then.

Over the summer, college student Sofie Peeters’ documentary about street harassment went viral, launching an international discussion about the topic and leading the government of Brussels to pass legislation addressing it.

In the fall, ELLE launched a Touche Pas à Ma Pote! (Don’t Touch my Girl friend) campaign that is now supported by local government agencies and is plastered on trams for the next six months.

Via Elle


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