Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

New police initiatives in Delhi to deal with rise in reports of eve-teasing, rape

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Women’s reports of rape and molestation rose in Delhi during 2010. In response, this week the Delhi police force held a press conference to announce several new initiatives to make the city safer for women.

Via Sify News, here are what the initiatives include:

  1. All Police Control Room (PCR) vans had been ordered to help stranded women at night and women “in distress” can call 100 and get dropped off at the nearest safe spot.
  2. PCR vans with women police officers will be deployed around women’s colleges and schools.
  3. There will be a women’s help desk at all police stations, managed by women officers.
  4. Women police beat staff have been deployed in areas prone to crime against women.
  5. A 24X7 specialized mobile team will deal with domestic violence.
  6. Police teams will also conduct surprise checks in buses, markets, universities and areas prone to eve-teasing, especially in the mornings and evenings.

This is quite a lot of activity. Hopefully it will deter some of the street harassment and assault that is rampant in Delhi (just as it is in so many major cities around the world) and also provide survivors with ways to seek justice.

UNIFEM and Jagori are also working on initiatives to make Delhi safer for women.

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Street Harassment Snapshot, abbreviated Dec. 28, 2010

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Because of the holidays, I didn’t do my normal Street Harassment Snapshot post on Sunday. This is an abbreviated one to highlight interesting street harassment news stories & blog posts from the past week or so.

Image from The Good Men Project

If there are any I missed, please add them to the comments.

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New Indian study: 98 percent of women report street harassment

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There aren’t a lot of studies out there about street harassment, so this week I was happy to read about two more. They were recently conducted in Korea and India.

#1: In a study of 828 salaried employees in an unnamed city in Korea, 43 percent said they experienced sexual harassment during their commute, and 79 percent were women. Via The Korean Times:

“Nearly 72 percent of the incidents occurred on subway cars, followed by buses at 27.3 percent and taxis at 1.1 percent. Nearly 60 percent said they experienced harassment between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. when most workers are on their way to work, while 17 percent were between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. while returning home from work.

About 61.9 percent said at the time of the sexual harassment, it was too crowded for them to move within the subway train or bus. In response to the harassment, 43.2 percent said they did nothing about it, and 25 percent moved to a different place. Only 18.2 percent strongly protested against the assailants and 6.3 percent shouted in anger.”

Unfortunately, the findings aren’t too different from surveys conducted in Chicago and New York City regarding harassment on the transit systems. The growing number of women-only transit around the world plus studies like these are a testament to the global problem of sexual harassment on public transportation.

#2: In the state capitol of Thiruvananthapurm in the south Indian state Keralaas, 1000 women were recently interviewed about street harassment. Ninety-eight percent said they had experienced it and 90 percent said the harassment was either physically or vocally violent. The harassment was notable on public transportation and 62 percent had experienced it there. Only seven percent had reported any of their experiences of harassment.

The study was part of UNIFEM’s safe cities project in India and once they have completed their studies they will work on solutions to make public places safer for women and girls. I met several people working on this initiative within the UN and Jagori at a recent conference in India. I am so grateful for the work they are doing!

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The movie 678

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It’s no secret that public sexual harassment is a big problem in Egypt, for both Egyptian and foreign women. A new Egyptian film called 678, released this month, is putting the spotlight on this problem, as well as the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace.

Via Facebook

Via Gulf News:

In the film, popular actress and singer Bushra plays the part of an employee who suffers from harassment and is regularly molested while travelling to and from work on the public bus service. It marks the directorial debut of Mohammad Diab and is named after bus route No 678, which the heroine uses.

“The claim that the film harms Egypt’s image is a silly joke. Keeping silent on this phenomenon is what really harms Egypt’s name,” Bushra said in a recent interview.

Via The National:

Mohamed Diab, the director of the film, believed it to be among the most important movies he had produced.

Speaking at the seventh Dubai International Film Festival ahead of the gala screening of the film last night, Diab said: “I have made commercial movies before, but 678 was a risk. I have a strong belief in it and will continue its campaign, because it is not just a movie.” …

Egyptian singer Bushra, who was cast as one of the leading ladies, said the movie was about all women from all social classes.

“This film is about women’s rights, human rights and the invasion of privacy. We are discussing it from an Egyptian perspective because this is how we experienced it, but there is no doubt that this is a universal problem,” she said.

“Women of all ages and social class can [fall victim] to harassment, so the issue is how each relates and handles it,” she said.

Bushra also noted a surge of serious films which surpassed commercial motivation. “Politicians alone do not create change. It is high time for us actors and filmmakers to also participate,” she said.

Great!! I would love to see many more movies about sexual harassment that portray it in a negative light (instead of as a joke, compliment, or minor annoyance). Movies are powerful mediums for shaping public opinion. (Update: here is another article that describes more of the movie plot)

Another exciting new resource for changing the social acceptability of public sexual harassment in Egypt is HarassMap, which allows them to report harassers to a map tracking system.

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Street Harassment Snapshot: December 12, 2010

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Read stories, news articles, blog posts, and tweets about street harassment from the past week and find relevant announcements and upcoming street harassment events.

Story Submissions Recap:

I accept street harassment submissions from anywhere in the world. Share your story!

Street Harassment in the News, on the Blogs:

Upcoming Events:

Announcements:

New:

On-going:

Ten Tweets from the Week:

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