This is a post for International Anti-Street Harassment Week and is shared with permission from Cheer Up Luv’s Instagram Account. They are based in the UK.
Is anyone else feeling slightly less safe on the streets lately – or is it just me? Obviously we should all be staying at home and going out as little as possible at the moment. But the few times I have popped to the shops, or been for a walk/run I have felt very vulnerable and visible in what were once extremely busy streets.
We are living in an especially strange time. As well as the rates of domestic violence increasing there has also been a slightly odd feeling on the streets. The fact that the streets are empty is a good thing, don’t get me wrong. But I have been hearing a lot of similar experiences lately of sexual harassment on the new deserted streets.
I was harassed the other day by a passing van, and there was no one around. Maybe the driver felt as though he could get away with it seeing as there was no one in sight? Maybe it was just like any other day and he didn’t think twice about it. Either way it left me thinking about it for a lot longer than I had to, and got me questioning a different kind of safety in this new time we are living through.
This isn’t the first kind account I have heard of this nature. For some, it seems the new restrictions are giving a freedom to harassers to do whatever they please, and not face the repercussions of their actions.
– Eliza Hatch, founder of Cheer Up Luv
