Correspondent, Author at Stop Street Harassment

Indonesia: Is Women-Only Transport Effective?

July 26, 2017 By Correspondent

Astrid Nikijuluw, Serpong, Banten, Indonesia SSH Blog Correspondent

English version below.

AREA KHUSUS WANITA PADA TRANSPORTASI UMUM: EFEKTIF?

Kereta pagi meluncur dari stasiun Manggarai menuju stasiun tanah abang. Di dalam penumpang kereta yang berdesak-desakkan, terdapat Agnes yang hendak berangkat menuju kantor. Tiba-tiba dari arah belakang dia merasakan sesuatu yang aneh. Sontak ia segera berbalik badan dan dengan lantang berteriak ke muka pria yang tepat berdiri di belakangnya,”Heh! Kamu sengaja ya gesek-gesek?!” Pria tersebut tidak bisa mengelak dan di stasiun berikutnya dia pun diturunkan oleh petugas dan dilaporkan pada pihak berwenenang.

Kisah diatas merupakan ilustrasi dari kejadian pelecehan seksual yang kerap terjadi di transportasi umum di Indonesia. Banyaknya pengguna kereta di pagi hari mengakibatkan hal-hal seperti ini terkadang sulit dihindari. Kejadian pelecehan seksual seperti yang terjadi pada KRL juga terjadi pada penumpang wanita Bis Trans Jakarta. Beruntung pemerintah cukup peduli dengan hal tersebut. PT Kereta Api Indonesia melalui PT KAI Commuter Jabodetabek (KCJ) terhitung sejak tanggal 1 Oktober 2012 meresmikan kereta khusus wanita. Gerbong khusus ini biasanya terdapat pada gerbong pertama dan gerbong terakhir dari rangkaian KRL. Selain pada transportasi kereta api, transportasi umum lainnya yang juga terdapat area khusus wanita adalah Bis Trans Jakarta. Bis Trans Jakarta juga merupakan sarana umum yang kerap digunakan oleh para pekerja setiap harinya. Dengan adanya area-area khusus wanita tersebut dapat pemerintah Indonesia melalui PT KCJ seperti yang diungkapkan oleh Eva Chairunissa selaku VP Communications PT KCJ dapat mengakomodasi permintaan para pengguna KRL yang merasa risih harus berdempet-dempetan dengan lawan jenis. Selain itu ia juga mengharapkan agar dengan adanya gerbong khusus wanita dapat menghindari kejadian-kejadian yang tidak diharapkan yang korbannya lebih sering perempuan. (https://news.detik.com/berita/d-3504057/sejarah-gerbong-krl-khusus-wanita-di-indonesia-dan-negara-lain)

Saya sebagai salah satu pengguna reguler KRL sangat mengapresiasi tindakan pemerintah dalam mengurangi pelecehan seksual terhadap pengguna wanita baik di kereta maupun di Bis. Kejadian seperti ilustrasi kisah diatas memang sangat mengganggu bahkan cenderung menjadi terror yang cukup menakutkan bagi sebagian wanita terutama para korban dari tindakan asusila tersebut. Saya merasa cukup beruntung tidak pernah mengalami kejadian ini. Dalam pengamatan saya membaca berita-berita, semenjak diadakannya area khusus wanita baik pada kereta api maupun bis trans Jakarta, kasus pelecehan seksual pada transportasi umum tidak sebanyak sebelumnya. Namun apakah hal ini bisa dibilang efektif untuk menanggulangi kasus-kasus pelecehan seksual yang terjadi pada sarana transporasi umum? Saya rasa hal ini masih harus dikaji lebih dalam. Coba sama-sama kita bayangkan. Untuk merasa lebih aman, pengguna kereta wanita yang jumlahnya bisa mencapai puluhan bahkan ratusan ribu per harinya harus rela berdesak-desakkan dalam 2 gerbong yang tersedia. Berita-berita terakhir bahkan menunjukkan kejadian tidak mengenakkan di gerbong wanita seperti adu mulut berebut tempat duduk. Sehingga akhirnya sebagian dari mereka tetap menggunakan gerbong biasa dengan resiko bisa mengalami kejadian pelecehan seksual. Dan apabila memang terjadi, akankah mereka disalahkan karena ‘memilih dengan sengaja’ gerbong yang bukan dikhususkan untuk wanita?

Buat saya kejelasan hukum juga menjadi poin penting dalam rangka pencegahan kasus pelecehan seksual tersebut. Dari penelitian singkat saya mengenai kasus-kasus pelecehan seksual yang terjadi di transportasi umum, pelaku tidak mendapat hukum yang setimpal, bahkan dalam beberapa kasus dibebaskan karena dianggap ‘hanya’ melakukan percobaan. Bukankah segala sesuatu itu berawal dari ‘mencoba’? Kalau berhasil diteruskan. Justru titik krusial menurut saya adalah pada saat mencoba ini. Jika dari hal ini saja sudah ‘dibolehkan’ secara hukum maka jangan heran kalau kasus pelecehan seksual masih akan dan terus berlangsung di transportasi umum. Sejauh ini saya belum menemukan hukuman yang dapat memberikan efek jera kepada para pelaku kejahatan seksual tersebut. Sekali lagi seperti yang pernah saya tulis sebelumnya, hal ini masih belum dianggap serius. Padahal efek yang ditimbulkan kepada para korban sangat dalam. Berdasarkan laman resmi dari Komnas Perempuan (komnasperempuan.go.id) pelecehan seksual dikategorikan ‘hanya’ sebagai perbuatan yang tidak menyenangkan dalam hukum Indonesia. Hal inilah menurut saya yang masih perlu perbaikan.

Upaya pemerintah dengan mengadakan area khusus wanita pada transportasi umum patut kita hargai. Setidaknya pemerintah masih peduli terhadap kasus-kasus pelecehan seksual yang kerap terjadi pada pengguna wanita. Namun alangkah baiknya apabila langkah yang sudah baik ini diikuti pula dengan payung hukum yang sepadan. Kita semua juga tahu tidak mungkin semua penumpang wanita berada di area khusus wanita. Sebagian akan tetap berada di area umum. Dengan hukum yang jelas dan bisa menimbulkan efek jera, akan sangat menunjang usaha pengurangan tingkat pelecehan seksual di area publik dan transportasi umum. Jika tidak maka jangan heran apabila kejadian seperti akan tetap berlangsung tanpa dapat dicegah.

Astrid received her Bachelors of Business at Queensland University of Technology Brisbane Australia. She finished her Master’s Degree at Gadjah Mada University Yogyakarta where she majored in Human Resource Development. Follow her on Twitter at @AstridNiki or on Facebook.

The morning train is on its way from Manggarai station to Tanah Abang station. Among those many people, there was Agnes who is on her way to the office. Suddenly she feels something disturbing. She quickly turns her body angrily and yells at the man standing behind her, “Hei! Are you intentionally touching my back with your p***s?! The man cannot avoid the accusation and in the next station he is brought to the post for further process.

The above story is an illustration of how the sexual harassment happens on public transportation in Indonesia. The crowds of people using the trains and buses in their daily morning makes that behavior seems unavoidable.

Luckily the government has shown their concern towards this matter. Since October 1, 2012, PT Kereta Api Indonesia (Indonesian Train Company) through PT KAI COMMUTER JABODETABEK (KCJ) has run women-only transit carriages in the front and back of the train. In addition to the train, the trans-Jakarta bus, which is also a common mode of transportation, has a special area for women, the first few rows behind the driver.

Eva Chairunissa, the VP Communications of PT KCJ, said the women-only areas are meant to help women riders feel more comfortable. The government hopes that the women-only areas are decreasing the levels of sexual harassment and that people are more comfortable using the public transportation.

I, as one of the public transportation user, really appreciate what the government has done in order to reduce the level of sexual harassment in public transportation. I am lucky enough to never have experienced such an incident, but based on what I’ve read in the news, the sexual harassment cases have gone down since the launch of the women-only areas.

However is it really effective at decreasing the level of sexual harassment in public transportation? I think it still needs to be reviewed. Let’s imagine. To feel more comfortable and safe, women passengers, who are up to hundreds of thousands in number each day have to use only two carriages on the train or the first few rows on the trans-Jakarta bus. There is simply not enough space for all women and there are often arguments over seating. Thus, many women still use the regular area in the public transportation and face the risk of experiencing sexual harassment there. And of course if and when that happens, some may blame them for choosing the “wrong” area.

In my opinion, women-only options are not enough. The clarity of the law is also very important in order to prevent sexual harassment. From my own research of news stories, the punishment for the perpetrators are not worth it, even in some cases they are not being punished because they were ‘only’ just ‘trying’ to sexually harass the victim…. But doesn’t everything start from trying? If they succeed, they may do it again. The crucial moment for me is at the stage of ‘trying’. If this stage is ‘allowed’ according to law, then no wonder sexual harassment cases in public transportation still occur. Thus far, I haven’t found any punishment that would realistically act as a deterrent to the perpetrators. Once again, as my two last articles had stated, this kind of behavior has not yet been taken seriously.

Based on the KOMNAS PEREMPUAN (National Commission On Violence Against Women) website, by law, sexual harassment is categorized only as a “disturbing behavior” that is on the same level as other behavior, such as cheating. This is what needs to be improved. The current sexual harassment law is not at all adequate to accommodate the range of every day behaviors.

The government’s plan for preventing sexual harassment in public transportation by creating women-only areas is well-respected. At least the government has done something. However, it would be much better if this action was accompanied with a decent law, especially as many women still use the regular sections of public transportation. Therefore a stronger law will help reduce the sexual harassment cases on a larger scale in public spaces, including public transportation. Otherwise, we can’t be surprised when sexual harassment incidents continue to occur.

USA: Latinx Women: Our Experiences with Street Harassment

July 13, 2017 By Correspondent

Dee Rodriguez, Reading, PA, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

I like to walk and when the warmer weather hits, I go for walks as part of my self-care routine. I also walk to work and during work. As a domestic violence and sexual assault advocate, I sometimes have to respond to calls at our local services center or hospitals so I usually walk to these places to avoid wasting time looking for parking.

Being an advocate does not protect me from being harassed. In fact, I’ve been harassed literally walking out of work by a group of men driving by in a vehicle. Another time, I was walking back from a medical facility to my job and a guy said to me, “Why don’t you smile, ma?”

On both occasions, I did not respond. I’m actually less inclined to engage when harassed now that I am an advocate because of the violence I see every day. Many of the survivors that come through our doors are women. While the violence they experience is typically at the hands of an intimate partner, I know that women experience many forms of violence; I don’t respond to harassment due to the fear of what might happen if I do.

When I returned to the offices after being at the medical center, my coworkers asked me how my time there went. I cannot go without mentioning that many of my coworkers are women and women of color, particularly Latinx, and our organization is located in a city with a high Latinx population. While I told my colleagues about my work that day, I couldn’t stop talking about the guy that harassed me on my way back. It bothered me. My coworkers’ reactions were pretty blasé and that’s probably because they too have had their share of experiences with street harassment. When I think back to how I’ve reacted when women tell me of their experiences with street harassment, I was not shocked either.

So the day I was listening to Locatora Radio’s Capitulo 004: Femme Defense, where hosts Mala Muñoz and Diosa Femme discuss their experiences with street harassment and how they use femme defense to deal with it, I was blown away. I was blown away because never in all the times I’ve discussed street harassment did anyone talk about how to respond. Locatora Radio “is a Radiophonic Novela …. Las Locatoras make space for the exploration and celebration of the experiences, brilliance, creativity, and legacies of femmes and womxn of color. Each Capitulo of Locatora Radio is made with love and brujeria, a moment in time made by brown girls, for brown girls.”

As Mala states, femme defense is not just defending oneself but one’s community and you can be any gender and be femme.

The discussion between Mala (who is a fellow domestic violence and sexual assault advocate) and Diosa (who advocates for immigrant women) really struck a chord with me. They discussed having their bodies policed by their family (as way to prevent being harassed), being aware of their surroundings, and using techniques such as the eye gouge if one must engage in physical defense. One particular piece of the discussion that really resonated with me is the “Fuchi face.” The Fuchi face is your mean face, bitch face, mean mug, or whatever you call it, that you put on when you don’t want to be approached or messed with. I used to call it my “train face” while growing up in NYC so I wouldn’t get bothered while taking public transit.

It’s funny that while out with my “Fuchi face” I was still harassed but I felt less angry about it after listening to the Locatoras because I am not alone and learned useful tips for what do in situations of street harassment.

While we are 3,000 miles apart, we share many of the same experiences. To know that there are other Latinx women out there dealing with this and talking about it, makes me feel like I have a community.

Editor’s Note: Here are suggestions for dealing with street harassment from the SSH site, in Spanish and English.

Dee is a volunteer coordinator and domestic violence/sexual assault advocate for a non-profit social services agency and works on a project to better serve Latinx women survivors. She has a bachelor’s degree in Global Studies with a focus on Latin American Culture from Penn State University. She originally hails from New York City and is a proud daughter of immigrant parents from the Dominican Republic. You can follow Dee on Instagram at @missdeerodriguez.

Brazil: Female solidarity and cyberfeminism: collectivist measures against street harassment

July 4, 2017 By Correspondent

Yasmin Curzi, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, SSH Blog Correspondent

In philosophy, the concept of “disrespect” describes situations of injustices that marginalized groups and minorities suffer in a society. In my thesis “My name isn’t pssst!”: Street harassment and feminisms’ struggle towards legal recognition”[1], I explain that street harassment, itself, expresses disrespect in two different ways:

As a form of legal disrespect because it deprives women from exercising fundamental rights – basically, freedom, in its many forms, and equality in the uses of the city.
As a form of social disrespect because it devaluates women socially, inhibiting the full development of their self-esteem, provoking trauma, stress, feelings of self-depreciation, anger and disgust of their own bodies, as several investigations[2] pointed out.

As Axel Honneth says in “The struggle for recognition” (1992), experiences of disrespect fuel social movements. It drives them to engage in fights to put an end to these situations of injustice. In brief, what Honneth says is that what makes individuals commit to the same cause is sharing the same situations of disrespect. In other words, disrespect generates negative emotional reactions that, in turn, when shared by others, provokes the union of these individuals in order to combat it. This bond that emerges from experiencing situations of similar sufferings can be defined as “solidarity”.

“Solidarity” expresses the true interest in the well-being of another individual. It evokes fights for a social coexistence free of experiences of injustice, that is to say, not troubled by disrespect. Thus, sharing stories and personal narratives are fundamental to identify others with the same suffering or even to raise consciousness of an interaction as a form of violence.

Social media platforms have provided a revolution in the feminist movements by creating new spaces where collective action can be organized and information can be shared. With social networks as their main tool, women began to articulate what was conceptualized as cyberfeminism by Donna Haraway in the book “The Cyborg Manifesto” in 1985.

As Holly Kearl^[3] shows, significantly, these new spaces have served to mobilize women’s activism to cope with street harassment – especially by allowing the realization of surveys and by creating the possibility to women of sharing their narratives, in various parts of the globe, that are otherwise made invisible.

Also, in Brazil, in face of the scenario of structural inequality and absence of public policy for women^[4], some important initiatives have been developed in the scope of civil society.

There is the campaign “Fiu Fiu Enough” (“Chega de Fiu Fiu”) of the NGO Think Olga and the movement “Women go together” (“Vamos juntas?”). The NGO Think Olga is now producing a documentary, with crowdfunding resources, that intends to expand the debate over sexual harassment in public places. The second action was idealized by the journalist Babi Souza, from Porto Alegre city, and it’s a call to women to get united with other women (strangers or not), when they’re alone in the streets. Also, there’s multiple groups in Facebook where women can arrange to go together to the same place or direction. In a partnership with “99 Taxis” (a taxi ordering app), this organization promoted workshops of non-sexist behaviors directed to the taxi-drivers associated with the app.

A third action, idealized in 2015 by the student Catharina Doria, is the app “Back Off!” (“Sai Pra Lá!”). It enables women to record where and when they were harassed and what was done to them. The purpose is to create a “harassmap” in order to alert which are risky places and also to pressure the public to assume the responsibility of assuring women’s safety.

Cyberfeminism has been, therefore, fundamental to the confrontation of street harassment as it enables resistance actions, led by women. But collectivist measures, in the scope of civil society, can’t be addressed, by material reasons, to the whole country. There should be no opposition to collectivist measures in the civil society scope, and in the elaboration of public policy toward women’s rights. Public authorities should, instead, be working along with these organized groups in order to eradicate violence against women.

Endnotes:

[1] To be published in the next year.

^[2] GARDNER, Carol. Passing by: gender and public harassment, 1980. Also BOWMAN, C. Street Harassment and the Informal Ghettoization of Women, 1993.

[3] KEARL Holly. Stop Global Street Harassment: Growing Activism Around the World, 2015.

[4] See my first article for the SSH Blog: https://stopstreetharassment.org/2017/05/public-policy-women/

Yasmin is a Research Assistant at the Center for Research on Law and Economics at FGV-Rio. She has a BA in Social Sciences from FGV-Rio and a Master Degree in Social Sciences from PUC-Rio, where she wrote her thesis on street harassment and feminists’ struggles for recognition.

USA: Street Harassment Looks Different For Women of Color

June 22, 2017 By Correspondent

Dee Rodriguez, Reading, PA, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

If you’re reading this, you may already know that street harassment is a big problem. For people of color, particularly Black and Latinx folks, street harassment is an even bigger issue. According to Stop Street Harassment’s national survey in 2014, Black and Hispanic people more likely to experience street harassment. While the survey uses the term Hispanic, I will be using the term Latinx throughout this blog.

The results are not surprising seeing as how sexual violence in its many forms, including street harassment, is a tool of oppression. It is estimated that 40% of Black women report coercive contact of a sexual nature by age 18 and 1 in 3 Latinx women report sexual violence other than rape. Black and Latinx people experience oppression in society due to their race and/or ethnicity and women that identify as such experience an added layer of oppression due to their gender. Street harassment is a gender-based harassment. Therefore, it’s important to note gender and race and/or ethnicity when discussing street harassment because the harassment may have racial overtones but also that Black and Latinx women are experiencing this at a higher rate.

Even more alarming, is that the Stop Street Harassment survey found Black and Latinx people were more likely to experience physically aggressive street harassment. Since street harassment is a way to exert control, it seems that the harassment escalates in cases where women of color are the targets. The graphic below shows how violence intensifies in rape culture and where street harassment falls. Following, catcalling, and whistling all fall under street harassment. Whistling and following can escalate to threats and then to rape and/or murder.

Sadly, we have seen cases in which street harassment became very violent towards Black and Latinx women of color. In Detroit, Mary ‘Unique’ Spears was murdered for saying no to a man who approached her and asked for her phone number. She left behind a fiancé and 3 children. In Brooklyn, NY during J’Ouvert, the celebration prior to the annual West Indian Day Parade, Tiarah Poyau was killed for telling a man to stop grinding on her. Tiarah was a college student with a bright future ahead of her. In Florida, a 14 year-old Latinx girl, was strangled, kidnapped, and ran over with a car for refusing to have sex with a man who approached her. He offered her $200 to have sex with him. Fortunately, she survived. All of these women are Black or Latinx. These stories serve as a reminder that street harassment continues to be a pervasive problem in society and can be lethal, especially to Black and Latinx women of color.

Nepal: How safe are public spaces for gender non-conforming people?

June 19, 2017 By Correspondent

Pritha Khanal, Kathmandu, Nepal, SSH Blog Correspondent

“I don’t want to rank levels of harassment because the thing about harassment is that even after the act you are traumatized by it. And trauma doesn’t have hierarchies — sometimes I can be more hurt by a word than I can be a fist.” – Alok Vaid Menon

Gender is a social construct and it hasn’t been very inclusive. In many societies, it only has categorized roles for heterosexual males and females. The population of LGBTQ thus is largely excluded by this inherently patriarchal system. The third gendered community is flatly denied by large amounts of population, and hatred for them is twice as much. People, including some ruling governments, policy-makers, politicians and icons, believe “God” only created two sexes and any others are showing themselves up, seeking attention or going against the natural law.

Gender non-conforming people are often known as queer or femme or trans-sexual and they are slowly coming out of closet through various forms of art and literature. One of these great and rising artists is Alok Vaid Menon who uses the pronoun they/them and is originally from India and is now residing in the United States. They represent and promote not only LGBTQ rights, but they also protest against a patriarchal system of gender division and roles, white supremacy and cis supremacies.

Having followed them on Instagram for quite some time now, I noticed that they face harassment ten times worse than me and other cis gender women I know.

*Courtesy of Alok Vaid Menon’s Facebook page*

Last month on 22^nd May, Alok Vaid Menon set the stage on fire among Nepalese poetry lovers in Nepal Tourism Board, Kathmandu. In the event organized by QC bookshop, the popular queer artist and writer Menon enlightened the audience with the problems the transgender community have been facing on a daily basis. The issues which were so surprising to us were expected and every day for them and include: hatred, domination, bullying, being called at, being misunderstood and judged and HARASSED. (Excessively and severely harassed.) They shared the story of being beaten up inside an Australian metro once and how not a single person intervened to help.

Dressed in floral gown and high heels, carrying their body hairs as a pride and shining in the neon lip paints, Menon sings loudly, “I don’t call harassment as harassment; I call it torture. Torture of Patriarchy.”

Alok Vaid Menon agreed to do a short interview with me after I attended the program. The interview is focused mainly upon street harassment and their say on it.

1. As a member of the transgender community, how do you define harassment?

I don’t believe in harassment I believe in torture — by which I mean, I understand harassment to be an intentional use of intimidation, pain, fear, and violence in order to break down marginalized peoples.

2. What are the most common forms of harassment you come across on the street?

Being stared at. People literally just stop what they’re doing and stare at me, take photos of me, point at me.

3. What is the worst case of harassment you’ve ever experienced?

I don’t want to rank levels of harassment because the thing about harassment is that even after the act you are traumatized by it. And trauma doesn’t have hierarchies — sometimes I can be more hurt by a word than I can be a fist. So what I would say is that the most severe and intense forms of harassment that I experience are in the Western world (specifically the US and Australia).

4. How do you usually react during these moments?

I enter survival mode. I look down and try to take up as little space as possible. I start thinking about my options and how to get away safely.

5. How does it impact you psychologically?

I am traumatized by the level of harassment that I experience. It has had an extremely negative impact on my mental and physical health. It’s made me incredibly anxious and I have to constantly find ways to cope with it.

6. What according to you is the solution of these problems? Do you believe change is possible with more awareness and proper education to people or is it effective when victims react back?

The solution is ending patriarchy and the gender binary that upholds it. I notice that a lot of strategies when it comes to ending harassment are oriented around making women and trans people modify our behavior and appearances, and never around actually challenging societies which enable and encourage harassment against us. I don’t think education is necessarily the right approach because this is about power not prejudice. What we need is to name systems of violence like patriarchy, caste, and race — and strategize how to address them at their roots rather than their systems.

7. What do you want to say to society specifically in regards to street harassment and to the victims regardless of gender to rise against it?

It’s not your fault.

Pritha is doing her Master’s degree in Anthropology and her thesis is on the menstruation practice issues among rural teenagers in Nepal. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work. She works in a non-governmental organization focused on women empowerment. Follow her blog www.prithakhanal.com and my Facebook account: @pritha.khanal.

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