Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Archives for April 2013

Safe City Nepal Takes Back the Pedestrian Bridge

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Safe City Nepal is taking many actions for International Anti-Street Harassment Week, including taking back the bridge!

“Many women and girls have shared and reported various instances of harassment against them on the overhead bridge. They’d rather get killed by a vehicle then walk on the overhead [pedestrian] bridge. Hence, this was our opportunity to take- back the bridge,” Smriti RDN a field research coordinator with Safe Cities Nepal, told me over email.

“We are happy to announce that we were taken seriously and most of them responded positively towards our initiative. The take back the overhead bridge today was so effective that we are planning to do the same on other overhead bridges of the city in coming days too!!”

View more photos.

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Anti-Street Harassment Week in Yemen

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In Yemen, the Safe Streets campaign launched a Hotline for street harassment reports, to coincide with International Anti-Street Harassment Week.

Director Ghaidaa Alabsi writes: “The aim of the Hotline is to monitor and document the crimes of sexual harassment on the electronic map of the campaign to deliver the suffering of those who were subjected to sexual harassment to the public opinion and put pressure on the decision-makers to implement a mechanism to reduce the phenomenon of sexual harassment in the streets of Yemen. The victim can report by sending SMS to the following number 772150052 and explaining the location where it happened.”

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“Should I speak up there or wait?”

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The latest incident of street harassment toward me occurred yesterday at Meyer Park in Houston, Texas. My grandson was playing in a youth league soccer game and my son invited me to go to watch the game. My son and I were watching the game when a man bent over in front of us and displayed his backside as though he could interest me in sexual activities. I found it disgusting but I was in a difficult position, should I speak up there or wait. I chose to wait until today.

Here are the issues. First, I am 65 years old. Second, my sexual interests are primarily heterosexual. Several years ago, I was drugged and involved in sexual activities. Pictures were taken and now whenever I go out in public, people are shown those pictures and they feel justified in harassing me with obscene activities.

– J

Location: Meyer Park, Houston, TX

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Police Harassment of Transgender Individuals

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Transgender individuals face some of the most vicious and persistent forms of street harassment, including from the police.

Via New York Times:

“Last week, Mitchyll Mora, a youth leader at a group called Streetwise and Safe told me about an experience he had last spring, on his way to a poetry reading on the Lower East Side. Dressed in a style he called non-gender-conforming — makeup, boots, long earrings — he was stopped and searched by the police for no reason he could understand. The police made him throw his hands up against the wall, invoked a gay slur and grabbed his buttocks, he said. “I should have tried to file a report, but it’s hard to feel empowered in this kind of situation,” he said.

Mr. Mora did recount this story in testimony to the City Council last October in support of the Community Safety Act, proposed legislation that would, among other things, require police officers to explain themselves to those they have stopped and provide them with a document, including the officer’s name and information on how to file a complaint, if necessary, at the conclusion of a police encounter…

Johanna Vasquez, who at age 16 came from El Salvador, where, born male, she always felt the instinct to be female and suffered terrible abuse and prejudice because of it, she told me. Two years ago, she said, she was stopped by police officers at 2 a.m. outside a nightclub on Roosevelt Avenue, waiting for a taxi. She pleaded guilty to charges that she was loitering with intent to sell herself, feeling that she had no other choice, she said, but she denies having any involvement in prostitution. She had been similarly accused in Texas, she told me, a matter that resulted in her deportation years earlier.

Last year, the Police Department responded positively to requests from advocates that it revise its Patrol Guide to ensure that transgender men and women receive more sensitive treatment. But Ms. Vasquez continues to feel constrained. She told me tearfully, “I don’t go out at night, and I fear that even if I go to the pharmacy I’ll get arrested.”

RightRides shared the story on their Facebook page along with this additional information:

“During our community forum in Jackson Heights last summer, we learned from community members that NYPD police have been profiling LGBTQ folks, especially Transgender folks, in the neighborhood for quite some time. Community members shared with us stories of being discriminated against by police, being harassed by police and being wrongly incarcerated for prostitution. The struggle continues to make our streets safer and that means calling out NYPD when they are the ones doing the harassing. #policeharassment”

Amen. The streets should be safe for EVERYONE. Police should be our allies, not our harassers and tormentors. It’s time for change.

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