Many verbal forms of street harassment are meant to humiliate, annoy or anger the recipient (e.g. sexually explicit language, demands for a smile, calling someone a bitch, dike, fag, or whore) and those forms should, in my opinion, be considered hate speech or, at the very least, offensive speech.
Maybe I should move to Brussels.
Officials in Brussels recently updated their “Regulation of Public conduct” to make offensive language spoken in public spaces in the city punishable by fines. This includes racist and homophobic comments and sexual harassment.
Via International Business Times:
“City officials in Belgium’s capital Brussels recently announced a set of new fines that target use of offensive language in public.
“Any form of insult is from now on punishable, whether it be racist, homophobic or otherwise,” Brussels Mayor Freddy Thielemans’ spokesperson quoted him as saying.
Authorities plan to impose fines of between 75 and 250 euros for using offensive language in public, including sexual harassment, in an attempt to not only deter potential offenders, but to encourage law enforcement to crack down on such behavior.
The mayor’s spokesman said the courts had previously been too busy to take on such cases, which resulted in police having “little incentive to take any action over such incidents,” the Daily Telegraph reported.”
I didn’t see it mentioned in any articles, but presumably now the courts will be able to take on these cases?
Visit Hollaback Brussels’ website to learn more about this change and their thoughts about it.
beckie says
Go Brussels!