FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
03/24/14
Contact:
Holly Kearl, hkearl@stopstreetharassment.org
International Anti-Street Harassment Week Draws Attention to the Problem of Street Harassment
23 Countries to Participate in Week of Awareness
WASHINGTON — In its fourth year, International Anti-Street Harassment Week will be observed by at least 150 groups in 23 countries from March 30 – April 5. Tens of thousands of people will participate in the awareness-raising week to tackle the prevalent social problem of gender-based street harassment.
“What could be more basic than the right to walk down one’s street safely, without facing harassment? For too many people – especially women and all members of the LGBQT community – this is a right they are routinely denied because of street harassment, or the threat of it,” said Holly Kearl, author two books on street harassment and the founder of the nonprofit organization Stop Street Harassment. “More and more people are recognizing street harassment as a human rights violation and each year we join forces, amplify each other’s efforts, and draw global attention to the problem.”
Groups in Egypt, India, Germany, Peru, Nepal, Colombia, and the United Kingdom will host activities, ranging from sidewalk chalking parties to informational workshops. Safe City Nepal members will distribute leaflets about harassment in Kathmandu. HarassMap in Cairo, Egypt, will run a campaign called Mesh Sakta (“Don’t be silent”) to encourage everyone to take an active role in speaking out when street harassment happens. Stop Harcelement de la Rue will hold a “Safe Bar” event at a famous Paris, France, venue, followed by sidewalk chalking.
Stop Telling Women to Smile is a primary co-sponsor of the week and any interested people and groups can download PDFs of their famous “Stop telling women to smile” posters and paste them on walls in their community. Founder Tatyana Fazlalizadeh encourages everyone to paste the posters in the evening of April, 4 so that on April 5, “The walls around the world will bear the faces and words of women protesting street harassment.”
Events hosted in the United States include campus workshops on street harassment from Arizona to Pennsylvania, a film screening in Massachusetts, a Unity March in Texas, a rally in New York City, and distributing flyers at a Metro station in Virginia.
There will be many virtual events as well, including a Google+ Hangout panel on March 30 and six Tweet Chats on topics like the impact of street harassment on people’s lives and street harassment and teenagers (use hashtag #EndSH).
Participants in the week who are smartphone users are encouraged to use the new, free phone app called Safetipin that allows them to quickly conduct a safety audit wherever they are and see what other reports have been made in their area. “Our hope is that more people upload and use the information to advocate for safer streets and safer cities,” says Safetipin founder Kalpana Viswanath an advisor to the Jagori Safe Delhi Initiative. All pins for a city are clustered showing a color to indicate the level of safety (Green for Safe, Amber for Less Safe, and Red for Unsafe). A special report will be issued for all individual reports made that week.
Street harassment is a pervasive human rights violation. Around the world, studies suggest that most women and LGBTQ individuals face street harassment, ranging from verbal to physical forms, and it limits their access to public spaces.
Any individual can help speak out against street harassment during the week simply by sharing stories on and offline. Visit www.MeetUsontheStreet.org for more information about the week and how to be involved
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Stop Street Harassment is a nonprofit organization dedicated to documenting and ending gender-based street harassment worldwide through public education and community mobilization. SSH organizes International Anti-Street Harassment Week annually and helps activists with local campaigns through the Safe Public Spaces Mentoring Program. SSH just completed the first-ever national study on street harassment in the USA which will be released May 20, 2014.
