Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

#16Days of Activism: Patrolling (Day 8)

By

Nov. 25 – Dec. 10 are the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. To commemorate the week, we are featuring 1 activism idea per day. This information is excerpted from my new book Stop Global Street Harassment: Growing Activism Around the World (Praeger 2015).

At various times and places, a spate of well-publicized attacks on women in public spaces has inspired people to set up patrols or volunteer escort services. In recent years, this happened in Norway, the United States, and Egypt.

In 2011, after reading about men raping several young women who were walking home at night in Oslo, Norway, four young women in their early 20s formed Action Against Rape (AAR) and decided they would patrol the city after dark to help make the environment safer. The first weekend they went out, around 200 people joined them. During the next year, AAR organized patrol groups of 4–6 people every Friday and Saturday night from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. Wearing yellow vests, they fanned out across the city. They rarely encountered harassers, but AAR co-founder Lisa Arntzen felt their very presence deterred harassment and violence. “I was 21 and didn’t have the power to make the big changes, so this was something easy I could do,” Arntzen told me. “That’s why so many people joined us. They realized they could contribute and it wasn’t hard at all.”

Similarly, in response to numerous sexual assaults of women in Brooklyn, New York, American bike messenger Jay Ruiz reacted by starting the Brooklyn Bike Patrol in 2011. He recruited 10 volunteers, and they began escorting women home from five neighborhood subway stops from 8 p.m. until midnight most nights. People could simply call them to request an escort. Within weeks, they expanded their volunteer base and service area. Wearing florescent-yellow T-shirts, the volunteers continue to receive up to a dozen calls each night.

New chapter 6-1Because many men in Egypt take advantage of crowds at protests and holidays to harass, grope, and commit gang assaults against women, activism groups set up patrols during these times in 2012. Wearing bright-yellow vests, they look for harassment situations and break them up. They also publicize a phone number people can call if they need help. For example, in 2012 during Eid-ul-Fitr, the holiday at the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, volunteers with Bassma (Imprint) interrupted many instances of harassment and helped police arrest several harassers each day. Founder Nihal Zaghloul wrote for the SSH blog, “It is OUR RIGHT as women to walk in the streets safely, and [since] NO ONE will give us this right, we must take it ourselves.”

Similarly, during political protests, as many as 300 volunteers with groups like Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment wear shirts proclaiming Tahrir Square a “safe square for all” while standing at every checkpoint, atop watchtowers, and throughout the crowd. They pass out hotline numbers and instructions on handling rape trauma victims. After one of their patrols in December 2012, Yasmine Abdelhamid said it was the first time since the uprising that she felt it was safe for her to protest in Tahrir Square.

Help fund our work in 2016, donate to our end-of-year giving campaign!

Share

#16Days of Activism: Marching (Day 7)

By

Nov. 25 – Dec. 10 are the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. To commemorate the week, we are featuring 1 activism idea per day. This information is excerpted from my new book Stop Global Street Harassment: Growing Activism Around the World (Praeger 2015).

Since the mid-1970s, Take Back the Night and Reclaim the Night marches have occurred annually in many cities worldwide to challenge rape. Starting in 2011, SlutWalk marches spread globally, too, with participants criticizing rape culture and victim blaming. In recent years, there have also been marches in countries like Afghanistan, Colombia, Nepal, Romania, South Africa, and the United States.

Afghanistan. Image via Gender Across Borders

On a hot day in 2011, 50 women and men carrying banners and signs with messages like, “We will not tolerate harassment,” “Islam forbids men from insulting women,” and “I have the right to walk freely in my city” marched together from Kabul University to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. Organized by Young Women for Change, marchers handed out fliers to raise awareness about the problem of street harassment in their country. Most of the people they passed on the street stood shocked, staring, since openly supporting women’s rights can be dangerous. Despite the presence of a police escort, some men heckled the marchers and called them names. But others were supportive and took fliers or joined the march. Organizer Noorjahan Akbar, then a 20-year-old college student, told me in an interview at the time: “It was so thrilling to see that none of us are alone in this fight and we are willing to stand up for each other.”

In 2012, between 3,000 and 5,000 women and men joined together to march through Johannesburg, South Africa, outraged by the sexual assault of two women wearing short skirts at a taxi rank and by the daily street harassment most women face. They carried signs with messages like “I will wear my mini-skirt anywhere!” and “Humiliating women is a sin before God.” Lulu Xingwana, the minister of women and children and people with disabilities marched too, and told the local news station: “Through this march, we are reclaiming our streets from those who abuse and terrorize women and children.” She also warned she would close down taxi ranks if harassment and assault against women continued there.

In Bogota, Observatorio Contra el Acoso Callejero Colombia held a march against street harassment in the center of the city in 2014. More than 100 people participated, carrying signs with messages like “Nuestros Cuerpos No Hacen Parte Del Espacio Publico!” (Our bodies are not public space!). The group joined forces with a female percussion group called La tremendarevoltosabatucadafeminista and a performance group called Tulpadanza, which both brought extra energy to the march.

Also in 2014, with the help of volunteers from the feminist organization Filia, Simona-Maria Chirciu organized a 100-person march through Bucharest, Romania. Women and men of all ages held signs that read, “Harassment is violence,” “We don’t need your validation,” and “It is NEVER ok to harass people! So stop doing it.” Numerous women’s rights groups participated. Chirciu wrote for the SSH blog: “People on the streets interacted with us, greeted us, and asked questions about our march: ‘Hey, do you think a march will solve the problem? Boys need to be educated or legally punished for doing this.’ Yes! Maybe a march doesn’t solve the street harassment issue, but it can raise awareness and is empowering for the march participants.”

Help fund our work in 2016, donate to our end-of-year giving campaign!

Share

UK: Venues Must Help Make Gigs Safer

By

Tracey Wise, London, UK, SSH Blog Correspondent

safegigsSince establishing Safe Gigs for Women, one of its core aims has been to get venues and festivals on board. Whilst it is clear venues themselves cannot be fully held accountable for the actions of individuals, there are many actions they can take to ensure a better experience for all their customers, male and female alike, and make it clear that such behaviour is not acceptable in their establishment.

Firstly, having been on the receiving end of unwanted attention by a festival security guard, it should go without saying that staff at such events and venues should be the first line in preventing harassment in the first place. They should also be taking reports of harassment seriously and doing everything they reasonably can to assist the complainant. Venues in Boston, USA provide a safe refuge for anyone in trouble at a gig, and this seems like a fairly simple approach. Dedicated members of staff can then engage with anyone with any concerns or needs. This seems a very practical, low cost approach towards safety.

I understand the music industry, live music in particular, cannot exist without the support of alcohol companies. However, isn’t it time this was reframed? Whilst there has been a campaign in the UK to ‘drink responsibly’ and be drink aware, with so much attention surrounding alcohol and its role in sexual assault, is it perhaps not time that am alcohol company came out to state it will be taking proactive action against this? Actually take the initiative and be the first to challenge this head on? And whilst we’re at it… Soft drinks companies, how about lowering the price of your products in venues, in order to contribute towards greater safety and the enjoyment of others? And venues can reinforce this with greater provision of free water, available at any time, to those who need it. Better use of cooling systems in venues would also reduce the instances of people getting drunk and improve safety all round.

Quite early on from establishing safe Gigs for Women, I was approached by a local authority in London, Camden Council, an area well known for its musical history and links to alternative cultures. To enact the above changes we will need support from local authorities, those ultimately responsible for licensing venues. We’ve been lucky to have Camden on our side. But what about venues and authorities not in favour of projects like this?

Then consider this. I am a self-declared music obsessive person. In working with Camden Council, I did some tough sums, and estimated that with the gigs I have attended in Camden alone this year, the cost of tickets, food and drink that I have spent in their local economy is somewhere between £1500 – £1800. When women who have experienced harassment at gigs state that their experiences now stop them going to gigs, venues should consider the effect on them, economically.

Safe Gigs for Women welcomes any venue that wishes to work with us — and thanks Camden Council for its support.

Born and raised in London, Tracey is a graduate of City University. She has spent the best part of her life at gigs and festivals and obsessing about music and created the “Safe Gigs for Women” project.

Share

“Keep standing up for your rights, friends”

By

I had just pulled up to a red light at an intersection, alone in my car, with one couple in their car behind me. A car pulled up to my left, waiting to turn left. I saw from the corner of my eye that a young-ish white man with dark hair and facial hair was gesturing at me and saying things through the window of the car he was a passenger in. He kept doing this for over a minute, and I completely ignored him, looking at the lights and waiting for them to change to green.

I saw out of the corner of my eye that he seemed to be giving up, and he seemed to turn away for a moment to say something to the driver of the car he was in. At that moment, the lights started changing and I slowly pulled forward to go straight, as they pulled forward to turn left; at that moment, I flicked the middle finger at this person and looked over to make sure the disgusting individual saw this; he did, and he seemed very happy with this sudden attention being payed to his pathetic and disrespectful behaviour.

This individual’s behavior made me disappointed, and made me feel insulted; it is unfortunate that this person chose to try to foist an uninvited interaction upon another, and also that this person did not demonstrate respect. I find that although this individual is obviously a symptom of a larger societal problem with treating women properly, the individual themselves is also entirely responsible for their pathetic and unbecoming actions.

I think my response was great, because I 1) ignored the fool for the entire minute because that behaviour is pathetic and useless, and 2) responded with a calm, cool, collected, strong, brief, and self-confident rejection of the person, while remaining in my car. I kept driving straight and that car turned left, driving off.

I do hope I do not see that person again, as my mother upon hearing this story, got very worried that it could escalate into a fight or something. (I also considered photographing the individual, but did not try because I don’t have room on my phone for pics at the moment.)

Guess what? That kid is lucky I had somewhere to be and couldn’t spend more time than I did; otherwise I would have been tempted to turn my car off, get out, and knock on that car’s window to ask what was the matter, and if nothing was wrong then to encourage him to cease the disrespectful gesturing.

As a side note, I have been taught (mostly by my mother) that women cannot defend themselves. I have seen, however, thankfully that this is not true; women are oppressed, of course, but we can stand up for ourselves and every instance in which our allies do the same, I do think will bring us all closer to a world we can be proud of, and a society we don’t have to be embarrassed to bequeath to our children. Keep standing up for your rights, friends.

Optional: What’s one way you think we can make public places safer for everyone?

This is a very good question, how we can make public places safe– I do not know how we can make intersections at night safe for everyone. It really would be great to figure out a way; I think there’s even a traffic video-camera mounted on one of the traffic lights, but I’m not sure it would catch this. In any event, video can only deter so much, and then all it becomes is evidence once the harm is done; so that’s not really ideal. I’ll keep thinking; anyone reading this, please keep brainstorming, as well!

– Anonymous

Location: Illinois, street intersection while in my car.

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more idea.

Share