Simona-Maria Chirciu, Bucharest, Romania, SSH Blog Correspondent
I want to share with you all one of my experiences of street harassment. It was so awful and terrifying. I was in the village where I grew up and where I used to go and relax in the summer. Is a small village with a predominantly older population. There are some teenager and people in their 20’s and only about 12 children.
I was walking down the rural road on my way to my grandma’s house. It was dark, because in some Romanian villages the light goes on after 10 p.m. Four boys where following me that night but I didn’t see them and I didn’t care about that. I was in a bad mood that night and I did not respond to their catcalling me and leering at me when I was passing by.
When I got back from my grandma’s house and I was going to my uncle’s house, not so far from her house, those guys started to throw rocks at me. It was very dark, I had my hands full with apples, a big bottle of honey and my mobile phone as I was on the phone with my boyfriend. I managed to avoid being hit, but I yelled at them that I’m not scared of them. Then they started to walk behind me, so I stopped and let them pass, to let them be in front of me because then I felt safer. But I was wrong! They laughed and tried to intimidate me. I was so nervous; a feminist and activist feeling unsafe and vulnerable in front of those guys!
Most of the time when I get catcalled I respond and I wanted to do that then too! My boy friend heard all of the discussion and tried to calm me down, demanding me to let them be and to stay quiet. But I was furious! This wasn’t the first time I was harassed in my village. I didn’t even know them so why were they acting like this toward me? I felt the urge to respond back! So I started acting fiercely, saying that I don’t fear them and that they are just some dumb harassers. One of them got nervous and started threating me, saying to shut up. I didn’t want to shut up. Why for?
He approach me and threatened me again. So I screamed out in his face that I’m not afraid. So immediately he punched me very hard in the face. Twice! I tried to fight back, but my hands were full. So he pulled my hair in a very brutal manner that I felt my cervical spine snapped. Then he put me on the ground and punched me in the face and the head. Then he and his friends left… while I was laying there, in acute pain. But I didn’t want to feel a victim so I managed to get up, to grab my telephone and other things and I faked that I was calling the Police. They heard and started running. Nobody heard my scream even though people from rural Romania are so curious and always behind the fences, looking on the street to see what’s happening and the next day to gossip about it. But when it comes to violence against women, they do not care!
After a short time, Police came and said to me: “Come on miss, stop crying, it’s not so bad, you’re overreacting!”
I had a swollen cheek and blood came out of my mouth, my hair was damaged. I was in shock! They blamed me for that incident. The officers heard all of my declarations and the guy that hit me, fled. When I confronted the Policeman he said and did nothing about it. Moreover he said the one that hit me me has mental disabilities and he can’t be punished and that he beats his mother and harasses other women too. And because I am not from that village, the Policeman said the declaration has no value if I want to press charges and I can’t come back here every month. For one week my cervical spine was all swollen and sore. I didn’t manage to move my head even an inch. Everybody in my family said to me that was my fault, a girl must never argue with a guy and why I was wandering in the village after dark? Why couldn’t I just mind my own business? Ohhh! All this discourse discouraged me so I didn’t continue with the Police complaint.
Even now, two years after the incident, sometimes my head hurts in those places where I was hit and once more I get terrified when I remember the hate in his eyes towards me. The very cherry on top was that a few weeks from that incident an unknown mobile phone number sent me messages like “I know you! How are you, you sweet girl” and then called me.. It was a familiar voice: it was that Policeman from my village, the one that took my declaration and said to me that I was overreacting! I threatened to report him and he stopped, but still I was petrified that he did this!
This experience gave me the motivation to fight harder against street harassment. Harassers don’t stop easily, so we keep on fighting!!
Simona is the Vice President of a feminist NGO – FILIA Center and a PhD student in Political Sciences, working on a thesis on street harassment in Bucharest. You can follow her on Facebook.
