Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Los Angeles passengers under 18 years old face high rates of unwanted touching

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Here is the latest study about harassment on the Los Angeles, California, transit system (via the LA Times):

“Recent survey data from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority suggests nearly one in five riders — 19% — has experienced some form of harassment this year. Seven percent have been fondled or groped, and 8% have been subject to indecent exposure.

The data, from nearly 20,000 surveys handed out on Metro buses and trains, raises question about actual and perceived safety on Los Angeles County’s ever-expanding rail network. And, experts say, it could be a stumbling block for Metro as the agency works to coax Angelenos out of their cars and onto public transit.

The numbers are also troubling for the 78% of Metro riders who have no access to a car.

Although six in 10 Metro passengers are Latino, black passengers reported the highest rates of indecent exposure, physical contact and harassment overall. Riders younger than 34 reported the highest rates of harassment of all kinds. Passengers younger than 18 reported the highest rate of unwanted touching of any age group.”

I am so glad they are collecting this information and are recognizing this as a problem that could keep people from wanting to ride the system. I think it’s also important that it shows young people and black passengers face the most harassment. Knowledge is the first step toward solutions.

And here are some of their strategies, which are all very positive steps forward:

“[A] public awareness campaign called “It’s Off Limits,” which urges passengers to report harassment by calling (888) 950-7233…

Metro has a smartphone app, Transit Watch, that helps people call sheriff’s deputies, confidentially report harassment and snap photos of an incident. But only 6 in 10 Metro riders own a smartphone….

In the last three months, Metro has begun training its 11,000 employees to handle reports of sexual assault or harassment. Someone who has just been through that experience will probably talk to the first uniformed person they see, Gonzales said, even if it’s a janitor or a ticket-taker.”

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UK: Harassment and Technology – Legislation Is Not Growing Fast Enough

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Emma Rachel Deane, UK, SSH Blog Correspondent

PAY-Gemma-NewittLast month 20-year-old Gemma Newitt was left enraged after no charges could be brought against a man who took inappropriate photos of her in a supermarket. CCTV footage from a Co-op store in St Austell, Cornwall shows Karl Leggatt holding his mobile phone inches away from Newitt’s bottom as she browsed the shelves of the store. After the incident was reported to the Store Manager the police were called and Newitt was told that no arrests could be made because Leggatt had not broken any laws.

After celebrities including Katy Perry, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan fell victim to an invasive lens, the “upskirt photo” became an all too familiar phrase. Although generally used to refer to an unauthorised photograph under a woman’s skirt, the term is also used in relation to more general voyeuristic photography depicting, almost exclusively, women. Despite the relatively recent phrasing, the interest in creating such images is not a recent occurrence and references in art can be found as early as the 1700s as well as a plethora of pictures created during the pin-up era. The difference between then and now, of course, is the development of technology. Smartphones now make it possible for non-consensual images to be uploaded to the internet and viewed by millions within minutes. There are entire websites dedicated to photographs of women sitting on benches, relaxing in parks and stepping out of cars completely unaware that they are being intimately photographed and posted on an erotica site.

Screenshot 2015-08-16 at 22Last year, despite complaints, crowdfunding site Indiegogo continued raising funds for a smartphone accessory, pitching itself on the ability to take stealthy photos of a woman’s body without her knowledge. The text on the webpage advertised the accessory’s ability to “take pictures round corners” while images used in the marketing focused on discreetly photographed breasts and legs.

Australia, New Zealand and India are countries that have specific legislation in place to tackle the issue based on a reasonable expectation of privacy but the UK is yet to follow suit. The Sexual Offences Act of 2003 criminalises ‘voyeurism’ in the UK and defines it as recording someone engaging in a private act or installing surveillance equipment in private areas without the knowledge or consent of the victim. This means that because Newitt was shopping in a public place, her body was considered available for public recording. Few countries have tackled the issue head on and created specific legislation for the protection of a woman’s privacy in this modern world of ever developing technology.

The attitude that women’s bodies are publicly owned is ingrained deeply in our society. We see this exhibited in a myriad of ways which each boil down to denying women agency over their own bodies. Restriction to abortion access, slut-shaming, sexual assault and the endless barrage of judgmental appearance based media representation are all displays of entitlement to the female form which promulgate a culture in which Leggatt could think of his actions as reasonable behaviour and stand vindicated by the law.

Emma Rachel Deane is a London-based retail manager for a fast growing women’s lifestyle brand and an outspoken advocate for women’s social justice issues. She can be found blogging on Raging Hag or tweeting @emmaracheldeane.

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UK: An interview with Bryony Beynon of Hollaback! London

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Ruth Mair, UK, SSH Blog Correspondent

When it comes to street harassment, the use of the word “street” is seen kind of as a catch-all. Anyone who has observed harassment, or experienced it knows that the street is just one of the many spheres of public space where it can occur, and since so many spaces are so very different, there must be different approaches to combating harassment that are tailored (as much as possible anyway) to the space they are hoping to make safe and fully public.

There are a variety of ongoing projects in different cities across the world to combat the harassment of women, LGBTQ people, and any vulnerable individuals who are likely to have encountered that kind of treatment. This week I spoke to Bryony Beynon of Hollaback! London, who has been independently advising Project Guardian, British Transport Police’s (BTP) and Transport for London’s (TFL) initiative to tackle unwanted sexual behaviour on public transport, on the progress that has been made, and the work that still needs to be done.

Project Guardian contact information

“It’s been a really interesting journey,” Beynon told me, “although it has been slightly disappointing to see how TFL – less so BTP – are so reticent to put out a message that this kind of violence is happening across their network.”

The “Report it, Stop it” video and Tumblr Beynon calls “quite brilliant” and I am inclined to agree. TFL and BTP have clearly learned a lot from the advice and support of people like Beynon through Hollaback! London, as well as consulting with the Everyday Sexism Project and End Violence against Women Coalition. However as Beynon and I spoke it became clear that there are certain barriers still preventing a more thorough and widespread campaign.

“The ‘Report it, Stop it’ video got over 1 million views, and TFL were really pleased with that. But given that 24 million journeys are made on their network every day, wouldn’t a poster reach more people?”

Beynon explained to me that, since the video was up on YouTube as targeted advertising, there was a limit to which audiences it could reach- targeting 18-30 year old women depending on what other videos they were watching obviously excludes a significant proportion of the population that might experience harassment on street harassment, and although Beynon is the first to acknowledge that she is an activist, not a communications person, this does appear to be an unintentionally blinkered response on the part of TFL, to the issue of sexual harassment on public transport. Bearing in mind also that on TFL’s own pages concerning “Safety tips for using public transport” and “Information on reporting a crime” there is no reference to sexual harassment, or to the BTP text number (61016) specifically created for the reporting of such crimes, although there are plenty of references to taking extra care not to trip down escalators when drunk.

“It’s a really simple message,” says Beynon, but there is a clear reluctance to put such information on posters in case they scare people. However this seems to be a reflection of the perpetuation of the view that a sexual harasser is still “a shadowy man in a mac.”

“The video was great because the guy who was harassing the woman in it was in a suit, and clearly looked like a commuter. That much more accurately matches the profile of harassers from stories that we (Hollaback London) collect.” But there seems to be a block on acknowledging that sexual assault on the TFL network is no different to attacks on members of staff (some of whom happen to also be women) that TFL have also run brilliant campaigns to help prevent.

“There seems to be this idea that posters about unwanted sexual behaviour won’t work because the only people doing it (the harassing) are people who are somehow pre-programmed to do it anyway. It’s stuck in that mode, rather than realising that it’s about power and wanting to control someone else.”

However, as Beynon points out, there are many other projects similar to this that have been highly successful, and reflect a much broader approach to communicating the extent of the issue, as well as the solutions to it. In New York City, the NYPD are working with the MTA, and have messages in subway stations and on trains stating that “A crowded train is no excuse for an improper touch” along with posters and a website with a reporting tool that has been live since October 2014. In Washington, DC, SSH and Collective Action for Safe Spaces have worked with the transit authority since 2012 and their second wave of posters was up this spring saying, “If it’s unwanted, it’s harassment.”

Similarly in Boston, MA, the MBTA launched an app called “See Say” in 2012, allowing passengers to report “suspicious” behaviours- including harassment. In the UK, Nottingham’s public transit is launching an initiative called Project Regard, based on the Project Guardian model of the BTP, but have already had posters on their buses concerning unwanted sexual behaviour for quite some time. Clearly such projects can be successful, in a variety of different contexts.

However, as Beynon and I agree, sometimes that “extra push” outside of all the other messages that women receive constantly telling them that such harassment is the norm, and that they are expected to get on with their day and ignore it, could be quite significant, even to those of us who are engaging frequently with activism relating to street harassment. For all of those who are less engaged, the extra information from posters, stating repeatedly that we do not have to just accept or ignore such harassment, could be absolutely integral to their feeling safe on public transport. But hopefully this will be the next step of TFL in their campaign. This is a long term project, and affecting behavioural change is the only way to really improve the situation. TFL have made progress, with significant support and input of groups like Hollaback, Everyday Sexism, and others, but there is still a long way to go before their campaign will be on the level of more extensive ones like New York’s MTA.

If you would like to support Hollaback! London, there is due to be a call out for volunteers at some point in the next few months. Sharing stories and testimony is really important for Hollaback’s campaigns, so if you have any stories relating to harassment on public transport, or if any of this information regarding reporting is new to you and you would have liked to have seen it on posters on the TFL network then you can share your stories here.

Ruth is a human rights MA student finishing her MA dissertation on the legal and normative rights of terror suspects in the UK (spoiler alert: rights are being violated). She also plays bass in a band called Kinshot, sews as often as she can, and spends time getting annoyed at the cat sleeping on top of her computer.

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Reporter in Canada Stands up to Harassers

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“F–k her right in the p—y” is a harassing phrase some men have yelled at female reporters across Canada for more than a year. One reporter decided to do something about it and bring this reality to light. Numerous Canadian news outlets covered it last week. Below are excerpts from two papers. And good for her!

But first, the Halifax Police issued this statement (good!):

“If you’re a news consumer and/or on social media, you’re likely aware of a disturbing trend that has been discussed in the media over the past few days where men are yelling vulgarities at women reporters while they’re while they’re on camera in public places. Halifax Regional Police has learned that this is also happening in our community. The individuals who are doing this may think it’s funny and harmless or within the boundaries of their freedom of expression, but we view this type of behaviour as a form of sexualized violence and take it very seriously. We want people to know that aside from being extremely degrading and disrespectful, it could also be criminal. Depending on the circumstances, a person who does this could be charged with mischief, criminal harassment, creating a disturbance or breach of the peace.

We encourage anyone who has had this happen, whether a reporter or otherwise, to report to police if they wish. We also urge those men who would be inclined to make these disgusting comments to think twice about the consequences. “

Via the Globe & Mail:

“‘This has nothing to do with you.”

That was the jarring retort when CityNews reporter Shauna Hunt turned the camera on male soccer fans at a Toronto FC game on Sunday to ask why they were standing around and snickering at her.

Moments earlier, and just before Hunt’s live news hit, a man had waltzed into her interview and uttered a vulgar slur into the microphone – “FHRITP,” an obscene quip calling for the sexual violation of the female broadcaster. The shouting of the sentence began as an online prank in 2014, and grew into a regular occurrence that female television news reporters have come to dread, as men and even young boys will routinely interrupt them to scream it live on the air.

One of the smirking men explained to Hunt that the prank wasn’t personal and that she should probably lighten up. Soccer fans in Britain do a lot worse to female newscasters, another added creepily.

By Tuesday, one of the fans had been fired from his job at Hydro One for violating the company’s code of conduct, which includes a zero-tolerance policy on harassment. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne tweeted her support for the journalists, stressing that the “prank” amounts to verbal assault and sexual harassment, on the job no less. Toronto police are reportedly consulting with the Crown attorney’s office on possible charges; police in Kingston tweeted that such hecklers could potentially face a charge of causing disturbance. The men involved also face a minimum one-year ban from all games hosted by the Toronto FC soccer club and the other teams owned by parent company Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. “We’re appalled that this trend of disrespectful behaviour would make its way to our city, let alone anywhere near our stadium,” an MLSE statement released Tuesday afternoon read.

The sexual harassment of female television reporters using this “crude trend” has been pervasive in North America since the stunt went viral a year and a half ago. Hunt said she’s had obscenities hurled at her up to 10 times a day.”

Via CBC:

“Shannon Martin has had “F–k her right in the p—y” hurled at her from a passing car, in a children’s area at the Exhibition and at a Toronto high school.

It was during that last instance — when several groups of students took turns hurling the crude phrase at her while she worked — that really shocked her.

“I want to curl up in myself. It’s mortifying,” Martin told CBC Radio’s Metro Morning.

“They were trying to get a laugh from their buddies, but I don’t think they were thinking about the words,” she said.

Still shaken days after, Martin alerted the school board of the incident and sent them the video. Eventually, for the students involved, they were able to use it as a learning opportunity.

But Martin says she, and many other female colleagues, encounter someone yelling the phrase at least once a week. Few male colleagues, she said, have similar experiences while reporting in public places.”

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UK: London Needs Anti-Harassment Posters

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For many women, the streets are not ‘public’ spaces. Rather, they are places where our actions and clothes are judged by others, and our feelings of security are put into question. This often occurs in the form of sexual harassment or assault, an encounter which is intimidating, demeaning, invasive and frustrating. I would like to add here that I fully acknowledge that various forms of sexual harassment and assault are also suffered by men and transsexual people.

These experiences don’t stop when we step from the street onto London’s public transport and so I was relieved when I heard of an initiative called Project Guardian. As stated on its website, it is a ‘long-term project involving British Transport Police (BTP), Transport for London (TfL), Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police, which aims to reduce sexual assault and unwanted behaviour on public transport in London’. Apart from the name, which implies that women need to be protected rather than needing to be given a platform and the agency to strengthen and empower themselves, it is a wonderful and much needed project.

Given that Project Guardian has been running for nearly two years, when I excitedly mentioned it to friends of mine living in London I expected them to be aware of it, yet none of them were. I wondered if these responses represented a wider trend and so I created a survey in January 2015 asking Londoners of their knowledge of Project Guardian. The results were shocking: 84.3% of respondents using London transport ‘daily’ or ‘once or twice a week’ ‘have not heard of [Project Guardian] & don’t know what it is’ and 13.8% of respondents ‘have heard of it but don’t really know what it is’. Equally 72.8% did not know that ‘lewd comments or leering’ are reportable offences. Yet, when the initiative was explained almost all of the respondents were supportive of its aims and thought it to be a valuable and needed service.

My findings contrasted with an article in the Guardian from October 2013, written by Laura Bates, who’s illuminating Everyday Sexism project helped to advise the Project Guardian team. The article implied that the ‘20% increase in the reporting of sexual offences on the transport network’ was due to the launch of Project Guardian in April that year. However, I doubt the reliability of this claim because my findings show that very few Londoners have even heard of Project Guardian.

This trend is not surprising given that no posters advising passengers of what Project Guardian is and how to use it exist on the London transport network. I started to wonder why this was so, given the endless stream of TfL posters advertising other safety and security issues. I contacted TFL asking if there was a planned poster campaign, given that in September 2014 it was reported in the Londonist that Boris Johnson and Peter Hendry (Transport for London Commissioner) had said that such a campaign was planned. Their response was that ‘an integrated communications campaign is in development’. This came in April 2015 in the form of a social media based campaign called ‘Report It To Stop It’. On the launch day, BTP said that there are no plans for posters in the pipe line but ‘we have more than 300,000 handouts ready plus a big digital campaign to spread the word’.

Whilst a positive move by the Project Guardian team, this recent effort seems insufficient. Aside from the absence of a trigger warning on the rather graphic short film, it is also problematic as it is ‘aimed at women aged between 16 and 35’. I am campaigning for Project Guardian posters on the London Transport system because this way, a zero tolerance policy surrounding sexual harassment and assault will be clearly stated to all members of this public, including potential perpetrators. This would be more effective than a campaign only directed at potential victims. A short film and a few thousand leaflets can’t compete with the publicity generated by a widespread and permanent poster campaign.

Aside from the practical advantages of a poster campaign, I want to see Project Guardian given equal priority to combating other safety and security issues. There are currently 40 different poster campaigns on the transport network including those telling passengers ‘Please don’t play your music too loud’ and to be ‘Beware pickpocket’s tactics’. While these are valid safety & wellbeing concerns, it is outrageous that an issue so serious as sexual harassment and assault is not deemed worthy of a poster campaign. It’s ironic to note that TFL recently allowed the body-shaming adverts from Protein World on Tube platforms, but they don’t think Project Guardian posters are needed. This seems to echo the universal lack of recognition for women’s issues and the often contradictory messages surrounding them.

I did not start this campaign because I believe that law enforcement is the only, or most important, means of change. However, I believe that as a society we have normalised this form of violence against women and therefore posters informing the public that these are reportable offences are needed. Not only do the perpetrators need to know that this will not be tolerated, but those who have experienced sexual harassment or assault need to know that they will be listened to, taken seriously and supported in their responses by both police and surrounding members of the public. It needs to be clearly communicated that reportable offences include sexual touching, exposure, outraging public decency, lewd comments, leering and harassment, for which Project Guardian provides a specialist phone and text line through which to contact them.

Please help to support this campaign by following our Twitter page and tweeting us with your photos of TfL’s current posters and ask them why there aren’t any for #ProjGuardian.

Please tell friends and family about Project Guardian and keep your eyes out for the petition coming soon!

Matilda campaigns for women’s rights and against street harassment, founded Underreported Street Harassment and is a recent graduate from University of Leeds, UK. 

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