A few stories in the news:
IWPR, “Afghan Women Demand Action Over Street Harassment”:
“Latifa, 22, earns up to 150 US dollars each month working in a factory that processes dried fruit. She needs the money, but longs to leave her job because of the gauntlet she has to run on her journey to and from work each day.
Every morning, as soon as she leaves her house and heads for the bus stop, men begin to harass her. Private cars pull up beside her and the occupants try to lure her inside.
“These men invite me to go have fun with them, they offer to pay me money, they harass and taunt me,” she told IWPR. The same thing happens on the way home.
The harassment had reached a point, she explained, where she would prefer not to have to go out to work at all. However, she has to support her family as her father was killed in a suicide bombing three years ago.
Campaigners say that street harassment in Afghanistan has reached epidemic proportions. Women furious at the extent of the problem have been organising public protests across the country.”
She dropped out of school, around a year back, because of the street harassment she regularly faced while returning home. The teenage girl, however, did not know that she would soon muster the courage to fight back and speak up for others.
DNA, “The story of a teenage girl and her battle against street harassment”:
“This is the story of courage of 16 years old girl Anajli, who resides in Sanjay Camp area that comes under Deoli assembly constituency of Delhi. The JJ Cluster colony, according to rough estimates, is home to around 10,000 families, and is believed to be a highly unsafe area for women, who feared stepping out of their homes after 8 pm till some time back.
‘Lewd comments, ogling, attempts of molestation break the confidence of many girls living here. That’s what happened to me, and so I decided to leave school. I missed studies, but I feared the repercussions of going out and facing the menace,’ Anjali recalls…
Anjali, who is now well-versed in laws pertaining to gender-based violence and regularly holds casual meetings with women in her locality, is also happy to get back to school, finally. ‘I have no fear of the men I may face out there because I feel empowered by empowering others,’ she sums up.”
City Lab, “How Urban Design Could Help Reduce Rape in India”
“Indians are moving to cities to access opportunity. If women of any class or background feel unsafe leaving their houses to pursue that opportunity, the promise of India’s urban future would be lost. A radical rethink of how Indian cities are designed must be a central part of how the country does justice to “J”’s memory.”
