Ruth Mair, UK, SSH Blog Correspondent
When I first browsed around the SSH site for some ideas on what had and had-not been written about by others so far, one of the things that struck me was that in the information about the origins of the Stop Street Harassment project, street harassment was referred to as a human rights issue.
As a human rights student, my first inclination was to agree: of course street harassment is a human rights issue. But I am also the first to admit that although I vehemently oppose street harassment, I had not thought of it in terms of human rights violations before. And when I tried to unpack this, to myself, in my head I had trouble thinking about how I would explain it to someone else, particularly if that someone had never experienced street harassment, or had perhaps never seen it taking place.
So I thought that for my first blog as one of the SSH Summer Correspondents, I would put together a check-list of sorts, in case you are ever faced with trying to explain to someone why street harassment is a human rights issue. Then you can shout it at anyone (should you wish to) who suggests that street harassment is just a women’s issue, or worse, just banter.
First, the human rights aspects of street harassment can be broken in to two realms of violation. The first is that street harassment literally infringes on the human dignity of the person being harassed, and seriously affects their ability to live their life as they wish to. Preservation of human dignity is one of the key aims of instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and street harassment in all its forms violates one’s ability to live in the world with equal dignity to that of other people who are not generally harassed (e.g. women who are harassed when men are not, or transgender people who are harassed when cis people are not, or people of colour who are harassed in ways that white people are not etc). This would be the case regardless of which groups are most vulnerable to being harassed. In the language of rights violations, human dignity is incredibly important, and street harassment can be extremely detrimental to an individual’s sense of personal dignity.
Secondly, there is very little authoritative or legal framework from which governments are able to prevent harassment, or hold those who harass others accountable for their actions. This is also illustrative of a rights violation, because it reflects an institutionalised vulnerability of those who are most often the victims of street harassment. There are laws against bullying in the workplace generally, and laws specifically against harassment of women in the workplace, for example, but not to address the problem of harassment in the streets. As a wise woman one said (or perhaps typed), just because we move through a public space, does not mean that our bodies are public spaces. The lack of framework to address violations in public spaces also reflects a gap in rights protection, regardless of the reasons behind this specific gap (funding, difficulties of enforcement etc) which represent a whole other sphere of problems in rights protection generally.
In terms of the specific articles of rights that are relevant to the problem of street harassment, much of the time this will depend on the context and circumstances of the harassment taking place, however some rights will often apply in a general sense, to any form of street harassment. The first is the right to a private life. This is embodied in article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and states that no one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with their privacy. Although this is intended to apply to instances of the government interfering with private life, it can also be used to refer to examples of harassment where the government are unable or unwilling to uphold and actively protect that right.
Similarly, the right to freedom of peaceful assembly is significant; attending public events is peaceful assembly, and harassment violates that both by removing the safety to attend, and by removing the “peaceful” part of things, which can thus be seen as a violation of that right. The rights embodied in CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, are also helpful here, as they refer to the specifically gendered side of interaction with the public sphere, and the inherent dangers that face those who are not cis males when interacting with the public generally. CEDAW sets out to create legislation for the purpose of guaranteeing women the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men, and in ignoring the problem of street harassment for women, states party to CEDAW are inherently violating this, if only by an act of ignorance rather than malice.
In my opinion, these rights easily make street harassment an issue worthy of much more attention at a government level, but for now they should at least give you an edge when anyone attempts to suggest that street harassment is a problem that does not need talking about.
Ruth is a human rights MA student finishing her MA dissertation on the legal and normative rights of terror suspects in the UK (spoiler alert: rights are being violated). She also plays bass in a band called Kinshot, sews as often as she can, and spends time getting annoyed at the cat sleeping on top of her computer.
