Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Nepal: Fuel Shortages Lead to Carpooling… and then to Harassment (Part 1)

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Smriti RDN Neupane, Nepal, SSH Blog Correspondent

In Nepal, due to “unofficial blockade” by India since September, 2015, no fuel could be imported via the border. The blockade of borders has been causing a crisis in lives of Nepali people since it is a landlocked country surrounded by India on three sides. They have been suffering from shortage of many basic amenities in life most importantly, fuel (petrol, diesel and gas) and medicinal supplies. Fuel shortage was the first thing that hit and caused impact on daily lives of people.

Public and private vehicles became scarce, creating difficulty in mobility for everyone. During the initial days, it worsened in a way that schools had to shut down and people started walking or working from home in Kathmandu. Although there were Safa Tempos (battery-run three wheelers), there were not enough to accommodate everyone.

After the first few days, young people from Kathmandu started initiating various campaigns from a cycle rally with slogan “No Petrol, No Problem” to peaceful protests in front of the Indian embassy and Nepali government offices. The campaigns were not limited to protests and strikes but were also focused on adaptation and how to be self-sustainable.

The people who had free seats on their two wheelers or four wheelers started offering rides to others who were traveling through the same route. Similar, a campaign on Facebook called “Carpool Nepal,” which is an open group where people who had access to Facebook could #offer and #ask for rides. This became an instant hit among the young students and office workers. This fostered a very communal feeling among people towards one another in Kathmandu valley and many people benefitted through it.

Unfortunately, a campaign initiated purely to help people became a site for discomfort for women, both on the page itself and also during rides in the public roads. Various instances of harassment against women started happening. Women and girls shared their stories on the Facebook page and they were mostly met by ridicule and derogatory comments, mostly by men.

The instances of harassment started increasing at such a rate that in almost a week, a few of the young women came up with a closed Facebook group named “Carpool Nepal (Women).” Some commented that the new group was useless because it served the same purpose as “Carpool Nepal” but many women are glad that it exists.

I had a conversation with one of the administrators of the closed group, who wished to remain anonymous. Part 2 contains my conversation with them.

Smriti coordinated Safe cities campaign in Nepal with a team of feminist activists of various organisations, networks and community groups from 2011 to 2014 and is still voluntarily engaged with it. She is currently engaged in an action research and advocacy on women’s leadership in climate change adaptation focusing on women’s time use.

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Croatia: It’s Never Too Soon to Talk to Children

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Marinella Matejcic, Croatia, SSH Blog Correspondent

As I was finishing my chores for the day, my daughter began sharing a story from her class with me. She goes to elementary school, is very calm, mature, and has a strong sense of justice. “So, do can you even imagine what did this boy did..”

“Which one?” I asked gently, trying to hide my ignorance. “This X kid or the Y kid?”

“Neither of them, it was the XY, he pushed a girl to the ground and tried to kiss her. We didn’t tell anyone, and he decided to let her go. But can you imagine?”

The unexpected sorrow got to me because the sad part is – I could imagine. That boy is the theoretical boy who later on continues to hassle other people. That boy represents the one who never hears no from his peers because they’re afraid of him. Boys like that get to be local mini-bully that grow up to a typical bully and possibly later on develop a file with the police. That kind of behaviour is the starter pack for harassment that includes catcalling and other forms of street harassment.

What bugs me is this – when and why and where did that boy decide it would be okay to harass someone? I don’t feel that kind of behaviour is congenital. Are the patriarchal patterns so deeply incorporated into our culture that we are successfully implementing them from that early age? I’m not thinking about general gender-roles expectations, but – is the violence that comes from hatred and the urge to dominate so easily being ignored, just for the sake of letting “boys be boys?”

I firmly believe that it’s never too soon to talk to our children about these serious topics — consent, personal boundaries, acceptance, freedom, and discrimination – even though they keep our throats dry and heart rates high. Those are the topics we should discuss at home since children carry their respect to others from home.

What is the exact moment when the let “boys be boys” changes into a hate crime, sex crime, whatever? In situations like that, when we’re talking about children and parenting, it’s important not to blame it on the kid – it’s never the kid’s fault. At the same time, we have to keep in mind that at some point, the child will start making informed or less informed choices and we are here to help them carry out the good ones by promoting healthy life choices and providing positive models to look up to.

Society changes step by step, and we are the society, so wouldn’t it be logical to teach our children the same values we desire? We can talk about how to combat street harassment with activities, rallies, and websites, but we will not make as big of a positive impact until we start teaching the next generation how to avoid becoming those harassers.

Marinella is a freelance journalist/writer, feminist activist, and soon-to-be administrative law student. She writes for Croatian portal on gender, sex and democracy called Libela.org and covers CEE stories for globalvoicesonline.org. Follow her on Twitter @mmatejci.

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The Netherlands: From Paris to Amsterdam: Connecting the Dots

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Eve Aronson, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, SSH Blog Correspondent

The events in Paris last week, just a few hours drive from Amsterdam, were tragic and appalling. They also represent an extreme form of a familiar foe.

The Paris shooters targeted people in public venues—sports stadiums, restaurants and concerts—dictating their movement and using violence to carry out their agenda.

What such a choice in venues and tactics makes clear is that the perpetrators targeted spaces designed for public use and leisure and used violence towards people they did not know within these spaces.

We can therefore look at the events in Paris as examples—albeit extreme ones—of the broader power structures that define how safe people feel in public spaces.

Not unlike a man groping or catcalling a woman on the street, the incidents in Paris show how important it is to understand seemingly mundane ‘everyday’ street harassment incidents as part of broader notions of freedom and safety in public spaces.

You might be thinking: Wait a second. That’s a bit of a stretch. Street harassment is, for one, typically gendered (e.g. a man catcalls/whistles at/gropes a woman), whereas the Paris events were not.

That is a valid point to raise and indeed, the Paris events were not explicitly gendered (although they do have implicit echoes of links between terrorism and masculinity that have been raised in relation to previous violent attacks in public spaces).

However, there are a few important connections to highlight that bring these issues closer together than you might expect.

But before I do, I want to note why I am taking the time to do so. By showing how different and seemingly unrelated forms of violence within public spaces connect, my hope is that better, more lasting and enduring solutions can be found to a larger number of problems that affect people in public spaces. In addition to finding better solutions, underlining the similarities among these issues can also lead to more resources and brains available to prevent them in the future. But I digress.

One main connection between the incidents in Paris and everyday street harassment are that the feelings of powerless, confusion and fear that were evoked last Friday were the same feelings that people in Amsterdam, for example, reported feeling while and after they were harassed.

And, at least for the short-term, the feelings of apprehension that many people in Paris are feeling when they step out into the public sphere is not so dissimilar to the feelings expressed by people as a result of their experiences with street harassment in Amsterdam.

Below is a chart of some of the primary feelings about their surroundings that people in Amsterdam reported after experiencing various forms of street harassment:

amsterdam-fearful

A look on the conversations happening on Twitter about the Paris events reveals a similar spectrum of emotions. What this shows, is that in order to more fully understand and fight against issues like street harassment and violent attacks in public spaces, we have to start making connections between different manifestations of impeding or restricting movement within public spaces.

By doing this, we can start to see broader power structures emerge that reveal why these incidents occur and the factors that drive people to be physically or verbally violent towards others they do not know within different public spaces around the world.

The majority of reasons that people in Amsterdam, for example, think that their harasser(s) did what they did is that they believe their harasser(s) want to fit in with others in some way and to be accepted and applauded for their actions. The second most common reason people cited that was that they believed that their harasser(s) thought it was the ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ thing to do.

The fact that many perpetrators (street harassers or others) are motivated by group acceptance and by what they think is normal are just more of the many commonalities between issues like street harassment and other forms of violence in public spaces.

In a time where people are increasingly fearful, anxious or weary of moving through public spaces—whether because they do not want to be catcalled or groped, or whether because they do not want to be harmed or attacked in another way—it is absolutely essential that we make it our priority to examine the links between different forms of violence in public spaces more closely.

Looking at these links and using them to our advantage in the fight against street harassment and against violence in public spaces will lead to more informed policies, more helpful solutions and to more individuals feeling safer in public spaces. So what are we waiting for?

You can find the full analysis of the Amsterdam survey results here or by contacting Eve at evearonson@gmail.com. Follow Eve and Hollaback! Amsterdam on Twitter at @evearonson and @iHollaback_AMS and show your support by liking Hollaback! Amsterdam’s Facebook page here.

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USA: What Would the World Be Like If All Women Were Safe?

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Sara Conklin, Washington, DC, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

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Truth is Beauty | Marco Cochrane

What would that be like? I’ve spent the past several days in quiet contemplation on the matter. After “planning” (read: pinterest’ing) my probably-not-happening-anytime-soon trip to Burning Man, I came across this striking art installation by The Bliss Project, of a 40-foot woman that poses the question, what would the world be like if all women were safe?

Well, for starters, my world would be drastically different. I have built a life around women survivors; women who have braved incomparable odds and battled life’s challenges. I work in a community center and housing complex for women experiencing homelessness. I drum alongside an all-women’s cohort of marching percussionists. I keep a tight-knit group of women warrior friends. And I champion daily, my mother and grandmother who came before me and all they’ve taught me about strength and veracity. (Heck, I even write for this blog.)

What I love the most about this sculpture of the female form is that you can’t hide from it. She is vivaciously and fiercely alive. Her presence is notably dominant on the landscape. But, as the artist Ian Mackenzie mentions, “that very energy is dangerous for women to do in the real world.”

If I closed my eyes and imagined a world in which all women were safe, I see a huge void. Would my all-women’s drumline have the same necessary element of female empowerment? Would my girlfriends have the same compassion and vitality each time we meet? And more interestingly, would the organization I work for simply exist?

Perhaps this speaks more to the lifestyle I’ve chosen, then the dramatic question the artist poses. Nonetheless, it got me thinking about my daily environment and mainly that the threat of being unsafe is what permeates my everyday life.

And what an interesting thought that is – Do you pity the person who lives with that in mind each passing day, or in solidarity, do you choose to champion her?

These are a lot of questions that I do not have the answer to. But, what I can begin to conclude is that if we are faced with a world where women will not, have not, and cannot always be safe, then I am proud there are so many sisters with me. If the impossibility is permanent, together we can lessen it. If we do indeed share the burden, I’m happy at least to know I am sharing it. For being alone in a fight is a scary thing.

Sara works in fundraising events at an organization that empowers women who face homelessness through recovery, wellness training, and housing. She runs her own photography company (saraconklinphotography.com) and a popular website that seeks to connect the world through pictures, sarapose.com.

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India: Are we supporting all survivors of sexual violence equally?

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Women from the lowest caste in India, Dalits. Image via www.supportingdalitchildren.com
Women from the lowest caste in India, Dalits. Image via www.supportingdalitchildren.com

Meghna Bhat, Chicago, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

In December 2012, the horrifying, brutal and fatal gang-rape and death of a young woman in New Delhi, India was followed by many other gang rapes, including the gang-rape of a young photojournalist in Mumbai in August 2013. Many other cases of sexual assault, gang-rapes and sexual harassment are becoming more visible in our news headlines. India has become known as ‘No Country for Women’, or ‘India: Land of 100 rapes a day’ and so on.

After the 2012 attack, people from all walks of life across India took to the streets protesting for the safety and rights of women. The topic of women’s safety and rape prevention dominated the news headlines. I was spellbound by the national gesture of public protests. It was mostly well-intentioned. However, I also realized that we, as a nation, don’t view and treat all survivors of sexual assault, rape and other forms of violence equally. I really wish our national protests, strict amendments and implications of anti-rape laws and calls to action among stakeholders could apply to and extend to every girl or woman sexually assaulted or sexually harassed.

Our society should be supportive and sensitive to each survivor whether she is a young girl from a middle-class family in a large metro city or if she is a poor girl from a village who barely speaks English. The same laws and resources currently allotted to “respectable victims” should be equally available for the low caste Dalit girl and the same with a sex worker or a homeless woman who was sexually assaulted.

In fact, I would suggest creating more accessible, inclusive and accommodating resources and legal help for survivors of gender violence among marginalized parts of our society. Do you know that Dalit women are most vulnerable and susceptible and have been targets of brutal and horrific sexual violence in India? What about transgender women in India, commonly known as hijras?  Many of these Dalit or/and transgender women traumatized by sexual violence face additional individual and organizational barriers due to their sex/ gender, caste, social class, occupation, etc.

What about male survivors of rape and gender-violence in India? With all the public discourse highlighting men being the perpetrators of heinous crimes, we are likely to think that only women get raped or abused. This can be attributed to the preconceived notion of men being stronger and able to protect themselves. Thus, these notions lead to glorifying the patriarchal underpinnings, and images of macho image and hyper masculinity. Public Health professional Urvashi Prasad wrote, “Male survivors have very few active organizations to support them, but more importantly perhaps, they often get little compassion or acknowledgement from society. Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code does not include males as rape victims.”

Furthermore, the presence of homophobia and laws (re)criminalizing homosexuality in our country reinforces re-victimization and trauma that LGBTQ survivors of sexual violence face in their daily lives.

All survivors should be able to seek help, including just and thorough police investigations and access to sensitive & non-judgmental medical support, legal advice, and counseling resources. All of these options should be offered to the survivor, whether she, he or they would like to report a police complaint or would like to go to the hospital or speak with a family member or crisis counselor. Survivors need to be informed of their rights and the proceedings by trained advocates.

Most importantly, it is so critical to promote comprehensive trauma-informed, victim-centered, sensitive and supportive programs for survivors of gender violence across all intersections. I am very well aware that what I am suggesting above cannot be achieved overnight. Being away from home doesn’t help either in providing the full picture of the local and grassroots efforts and initiatives being organized in India. I have been following four organizations in India (among many others) who have done some extensive impressive work for bringing justice to survivors of gender-violence. They are:

1) Lawyer’s Collective: “One of the leading public interest service providers in India with a proven record of setting high standards in human rights advocacy, legal aid and litigation.”

2) Majlis Legal Center: “Includes a group of women lawyers and social activists committed to informing, educating and empowering women on their legal rights.” The director, Flavia Agnes has been one of the pioneers of the women’s movement bringing justice to women and children’s rights.

3) The Humsafar Trust– “Is a community-based organization of self-identified Gay men, MSM, Transgender, Hijras, LBT people in Mumbai since 1994.”

4) Sangama– “A sexual minorities, sex workers and people living HIV human rights organization for individuals oppressed due to their sexual preference.”

When I am asked what’s the best way to prevent any form of gender-violence, I always recommend to start training and educating our young boys and girls in schools about respect, tolerance and gender equality! Here are two examples of such programs: Parivartan and Khel Planet.

In summary, we should be extremely thankful to our desi invisible heroes who work relentlessly and tirelessly for these survivors of gender-violence, especially sexual assault in India. There is extraordinary backstage work being done 24/7 in terms of advocacy, resources, medical help, counseling and legal justice for these survivors. Unfortunately, their contributions to social and gender justice do not make the headlines in our news media!

Meghna is a doctoral candidate in the Criminology, Law, and Justice program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, with a specialization in Gender and Women Studies. She is currently working on her dissertation, which focuses on representations of violence against women in a widely viewed form of Indian popular culture, Bollywood cinema.

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