Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Archives for December 2015

USA: Florida Chalking Awareness Day

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This post is from our Safe Public Spaces Team in Florida, USA. The SPSM projects are supported by SSH donors. If you would like to donate to support the 2016 mentees, we would greatly appreciate it!

By Tena Gordon

12.6.15 chalk awareness day - FL5In addition to our library event in October educating teens about street harassment, on December 6, 2015, Me=You: Sexual Violence Awareness (MYSVA for short) held our first Chalk Day! We set up on the sidewalk along Degroodt Road, outside our local library. Jineth (the member of MYSVA pictured to the left) held a sign to attract the drivers in passing vehicles to participate. Unfortunately, this was not a successful strategy. Next time, we are going to host Chalk Day at a place with less vehicle traffic and more foot traffic.

12.6.15 chalk awareness day - FL 1Anyway, people on foot and bike stopped and wrote messages against street harassment or just signed their name. We offered them a free informational, promotional package and free water. The most touching part of the day was when Rachael (the jogger pictured to the right) came back and brought her daughter of high-school age to sign her name, too.

Also, to our surprise, Sergio (the student journalist pictured below) from our school came and participated. He took pictures of us chalking, and he did a story on our event that aired on the school news.

In total, about 10-15 people participated. They were mostly of middle-age, not our targeted demographic, so next time we will have it in a place where teens hang out more frequently. Overall, Chalk Day raised awareness about street harassment, our main goal.

 12.6.15 chalk awareness day - FL 3  12.6.15 chalk awareness day - FL

Tena Gordon is the MYSVA Coordinator and a high school student in Florida.

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Street Harassment Videos from India and the Maldives

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“‘When I was 12 or 13 a man came near to me and took out his PENIS, I cycled away to home I was scared to death. ‘

Girls face the incidents of sexual harassment at a very early age, but these incidents never stop occurring. Watch these Delhi university girls sharing their first experience of being sexually harassed.”

“A discussion on the long-standing issue of street harassment in Maldives.”

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Islamophobia Spreads – But Some Challenge It

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After the recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, which were both carried out by Islamic radicals, there has been an increase in Islamophobia. For example, in the U.S., we have seen support for terrible ideas like banning all Muslims from this country or rejecting Syrian refugees fleeing ISIS. This is despite that fact that around one billion other Muslims are perfectly peaceful and 70 thousand Muslim clerics have issued a fatwa denouncing terrorist organizations and attacks.

The rise is Islamophobia also plays out in public spaces. For example, NPR recently produced a story about an increase in backlash and harassment toward Muslim women who wear hijabs.

Other countries are seeing a rise in harassment, too. In the UK, the Independent reported “that there’s been a sharp increase in hate crimes towards British Muslims after the Paris attacks. In the week following the killings, there have been 115 incidents mostly towards girls and women aged between 14 and 45.”

Fortunately, various media outlets are speaking out against this behavior, like the Washington Post: “In communities across America, we are turning on each other, on the very neighbors who have been part of the fabric of our country for decades…The rhetoric dominating our nation right now is anything but civil. It’s time for all of us to put a stop to it.”

23-year-old Ruhi Rahman thanked passengers for the support in a Facebook post.
23-year-old Ruhi Rahman thanked passengers for the support in a Facebook post.

Two of my favorite stories of resistance come from the UK:

“23-year-old Ruhi Rahman said a woman sitting next to her jumped in to help after a man started to make racially threatening comments towards her. After the woman intervened, most of the other passengers on the Tyne and Wear Metro also stepped in forcing the man to leave the train…

Last week, a London commuter stepped in to defend a young Muslim woman after she was racially abused in a rant on the tube. 22-year-old Ashley Powys wrote in a Facebook post that he was travelling on a Victoria line train on Nov. 16 when he saw a man in his 30s shouting at the teenager and calling her a terrorist.”

I encourage everyone to stand up and speak out against Islamophobia! It is unwarranted and unacceptable.

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