Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Sex segregated in line, assaulted on the bus

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Bus in indiaLast month the government in Central Jakarta, India, segregated people by sex in the bus stop lines to curb crime, including sexual harassment. Today I read a news article about a case of sexual assault on the bus because, unsurprisingly, segregating people without addressing the real issue will not solve the problem!

Via Berita Jakarta:

“The criminal sat beside the victim. At a time, the criminal touched the victim’s breast. The victim screamed and slapped the criminal on his face.

“The incident took place in Tosari. Both of them were stopped in Dukuhatas and then taken to South Jakarta Police Precinct,” said Dano, Tuesday (7/6). In fact, besides separating passengers based on gender, the bus attendant always reminded the passengers to place themselves on empty spaces. To make the passengers comfortable, Transjakarta BLU will set stickers about safety way in the bus.”

I’m sure a reminder to sit in empty spaces is really useful…not. The harasser won’t listen and the harassee probably already did that. I think women instinctively know we’re in for trouble when it’s a largely empty bus or subway car and a man plops himself down right next to us. And sometime when we move, they do, too. Harassing behavior like that is scary and predatory.

What seems to be hard for these men to understand is that they do not have a right to our space and to our bodies just because we’re women living in patriarchal societies. That kind of assumption needs to change! Incidentally, the International Center for Research on Women has an initiative in India focused on changing those assumptions in boys and so far it’s been very successful. Hopefully in time it can spread across all of India!

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Weekly Round Up: July 3, 2010

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Story Submissions Recap:

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

Interviews:

In the News:

10 Street Harassment Tweets of the Week:

  • iHollaback: How come no matter how much you talk about street harassment, it’s still shocking and scary when it happens?
  • mkpheartsnyc: Gotta love that it’s never too early for street harassment.
  • MissDC2009: The stories on @hollabackdc infuriate me so much, I called my parents yesterday to tell them that I’m going to law school. I need to help
  • femmeniste: I hate walking down the street KNOWING that a man is looking and waiting to say something gross as you pass by. #StreetHarassment #NYC
  • thekateblack: E. Village street harassment stoops lower. Not 1, but 2 men blocked my path. 1 reached in front of me 2 prevent me crossing
  • feministhulk: HULK TRY TO OPEN MIND, SMASH EPISTEMOLOGICAL FRAMEWORKS WHICH LIMIT HULK’S THOUGHT, BUT HULK WILL NEVER GET CAT-CALLING.
  • lorenacupcake: Street harassment is getting so bad I’m almost wishing for winter, wrapping my body in wool armor against the stares and comments of men.
  • ashleyrebeccah: Guy says I look cute. I ignore him & he asks didn’t u hear me? Yes I fucking heard u I just want u to leave me alone! #streetharassment
  • kerinrose: Awkward fratboy-in-a-cab catcall of the nite: “I can see my reflection in your pussy!”
  • allfallsup: i love dresses but hate how nasty older men catcall to me like i want em…ewww you got wrinkled balls dude.

Events:

Announcements:

Resource of the Week:

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90% of Bangladeshi girls ages 10-18 experience sexual harassment

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Via Hindustan Times

“According to the Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association, almost 90 percent of girls aged 10-18 years are victims of sexual harassment.

The perpetrators range from college students and unemployed youth to street vendors, rickshaw pullers, bus drivers, fellow passengers, colleagues and supervisors.

‘Sexual terrorism thrives on patriarchal attitudes, prejudices, cultural norms, double standards and discriminatory laws that devalue women and deny them their rights. Eradicating it will require transformative social change.'”

Nearly 90 percent of girls starting at age 10 are harassed in public?!?! That is so terrible!!

The article describes many cases where the family members of girls being harassed took matters into their own hands by snatching the harasser or his father and turning him over to the police and even burning a harassers’ home. With 90 percent of young girls being harassed, it’s no wonder people are upset enough to do so! What’s a 10 year old supposed to do against teenagers or grown men harassing her? Outrageous bullying on the men’s part.

The article also notes something I was unaware of – the Bangladeshi government is led by several women and it is because of them that the government declared last Sunday Eve Teasing Protection Day.

“The resolve to raise public awareness comes from the presence of several women in public life. ‘In a country where the prime minister (Sheikh Hasina), foreign minister (Dipu Moni), home minister (Sajeda Khatun), agriculture minister (Motia Chowdhury) and the leader of the opposition (Begum Khaleda Zia) are female, women and girls cannot walk on the streets, use public transport, or go to school, shops, parks or other public places without often being ogled, taunted, harassed, humiliated, sexually molested, groped and assaulted – and in some cases, attacked with acid, abducted and raped.'”

Yay for women leaders.

Given the close proximity of Bangladesh is to India and the overlaps of culture, I wonder if programs similar to those going on in India to educate young boys about gender issues and healthy definitions of masculinity could be useful in curbing the problem of eve teasing in Bangladesh, too.

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Women in the Maldives face street harassment

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“At midnight Rachael, 25, returned from a friend’s place. Glancing around to make sure she was not being followed, she climbed the stairs to her seventh-floor apartment.

When she’d first arrived from the UK several months ago to work on a government project, she had smiled and replied to the greetings thrown her way on the street. She stopped doing it when the men started following her.”

This is from an article in the Minivan News about the high rates of street harassment that women, especially foreign women, face in the Maldives (the smallest Asian country that is comprised of 1,200 island in the Indian Ocean. The local population is 300,000 and the annual visitor population is 600,000). The harassment is usually verbal and vulgar, no matter how covered up the women are when they are in public. There are also many cases of groping and stalking.

For foreign women working there, harassment is usually a daily occurrence. The native women interviewed said they are not usually harassed as often and rarely is it physical. One woman mused that “physical harassment directed at local women has lessened ‘as guys know that we will scream, and slap them and embarrass them if they try anything.'” Interesting, if true.

The police officers interviewed for the article said that there are very few reported cases of harassment or assault in public by women and they urged women to report it if the are harassed. Depending on what the person has done, they can prepare a case under the public nuisance laws and send it to the Prosecutor General’s office.  In the article, the good news is that two of the foreign women interviewed called the police and said the police were wonderful and took their complaints seriously.

So even though I had to look up the Maldives to see where it’s located (time to brush up on my geography!), I am unsurprised that street harassment is rampant there. I find it interesting how two-thirds of the populations is comprised of visitors and I wonder how that contributes to foreign women being harassed more than local women.

Anyway, obviously this is a global problem and it must end!

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Weekly Round Up: June 13, 2010

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Weekly Round Up is back by popular demand.

Story Submissions Recap:

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

In the News:

Announcements:

Resource of the Week:

The Welsh Government’s excellent video “One Step Too Far” and the companion website.

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