Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming
“‘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.”
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.”
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.
Wishing you a safe and peaceful holiday season from my #HoundsAgainstHarassment!
Do you feel passionately about ending street harassment and do you like to write? We need YOU!
Stop Street Harassment is one of the top street harassment websites in the world and we’re recruiting new members for our first Blog Correspondents Program cohort of 2015. This is an unpaid, volunteer opportunity. Build your resume and add your voice to the global conversation about this important topic!
Your words will be read: the SSH blog receives up to 30,000 unique readers per month.
Assignment:
From January to April 2016, correspondents in our first cohort of 2016 must commit to writing one blog post per month about street harassment issues in their community, region or country, for four posts total. The topics could include incidents of street harassment covered in the news, activism to stop it, interviews with street harassment activists, and street harassment in popular culture, traditions or the news. You can also write pieces that tie street harassment to relevant related issues (such as racial profiling/racism, online harassment, and campus rape).
We aim to have geographic diversity among our cohort members. People of all genders, ages, regions are welcome to apply.
Applying:
If you would like to join our final Blog Correspondents cohort of the year, please complete this short application form by January 6 and the selected cohort will be announced on January 11.
Note: If you prefer to write in a language other than English, please also indicate what language is most comfortable for you and you can send your writing sample in that language.
Please apply and/or share with others who may be a good fit!