Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Los Angeles Metro Commits To Fighting Sexual Harassment

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(Photo by Juliet Bennett Rylah/LAist)

Great news out of Los Angeles! The LA Metro has launched a new campaign called “Its Off Limits” to dissuade harassment on trains and buses and encourage victims to report.

The campaign follows a recent survey that found that while approximately 20% of LA Metro’s 22,604 riders have experienced sexual harassment during their commute, only 99 people reported this behavior in the past year.

With the new campaign, victims can report harassment either using a special hotline or a phone app.

The campaign officially launches tomorrow with a press release at 11am at Union Station, though the posters are up today!

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Study: All Women In France have been Harassed on Public Transit

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More soon, but quickly wanted to share that the first report on gender harassment and sexual violence on public transport across France was released today.  It found that ALL of the more than 600 women surveyed had experienced it at least once in their life on public transportation. In half of the cases, the victims were minors when it first occurred.

Via English RFI:

“You ask a woman, ‘Have you been a victim of harassment or violence in public transportation?’ And she will say, ‘No, not at all’,” explains Elisabeth Moiron-Braud. “But then you ask, ‘Has a man ever pressed up against you or put his hand on your bottom?’ And she will say, ‘Yes!’”

Moiron-Braud is a lawyer who worked on the report for the High Council on Equality between Men and Women (HCEfh) which was presented to the deputy minister for women’s rights, Pascale Boistard.

It is aimed at tackling the range of sexual harassment and assault on public transportation, from catcalls at bus stops, to groping in the metro, to rape in train cars.

The report calls these behaviours “manifestations of sexism” which affect women’s rights to feeling secure, and which limit their use of public space and their ability to move around.

The challenge is identifying the problem. Catcalls can be considered by women and men as flirtation; groping is seen as so common as to not warrant a complaint.

“Women are used to it,” says Laure Salmona, of the Association Mémoire Traumatique et Victimologie, a victims’ rights advocacy group.”

High Council for equality between women and men plans to launch a comprehensive national campaign around harassment on buses, subways and trains next month. To my knowledge, France would be the first country to do this across the whole country!!

H/T Dan Moshenberg

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Help Create a Safe Shopping Space for Afghan Women

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My friend Noorjahan who is an amazing feminist activist from Afghanistan shared this with me.  I am donating and hope some of SSH’s readers can too… let’s help Afghan women have a safe place to shop (the store will sell underwear, among other items, and currently women’s only option is to buy those items at stores with all male employees) and a source of income!

“Recently, two Afghan women opened a store called Herat Design to provide a few women with jobs and create a safe space for women to shop in Kabul. The store is run and owned by women and a part of its profit goes to a local orphanage in Herat. Economic empowerment of women is essential for gender equality and progress in Afghanistan so they made this GoFundMe campaign to help them keep the store open and provide more women with jobs! Please consider making a small donation.
Here is a break down of how the money will be spent.
GoFundMe fee: Around $200
12-month salary for a female shopkeeper: $1800
6-month rent and some marketing for the store: $1,000
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Meeting with WMATA to talk next steps in harassment campagin

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Today Zosia Sztykowski, Co-Executive Director of Collective Action for Safe Spaces and I met with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) at their headquarters in Washington, D.C. to talk about sexual harassment on the system. For three years, we’ve been working with them to see the implementation of an online reporting options, collating of reports on verbal harassment incidents (instead of only forms of harassment that rise to the level of a crime), employee training, and a PSA campaign. We’ve collaborated on a number of outreach days, too.

This meeting was in part a celebration of the second wave of ads (see an example on the right) and an opportunity to plan our outreach efforts for International Anti-Street Harassment Week/Sexual Assault Awareness Month. We also discussed other ways the system could do more around this issue. Stay tuned.

WMATA has been responsive to our suggestions and ideas and we are proud to work with them. We hope many other transit systems follow suit!

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Nepal: Separate buses now, separate walking lanes in the future?

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Aakriti Karki, Kathmandu, Nepal, SSH Blog Correspondent

Image via ekantipur.com

Recently, a female only bus service launched in Nepal. The idea behind this service is to provide more safety to women from harassment.

When I read about it in the morning paper, I smiled. I was glad that the public transport authorities were finally paying heed to our concerns. Moreover, to know that the bus services would soon have lady drivers and lady conductors meant that more opportunities were going to be provided to women. Also, this would break the gender stereotypes in our society. We don’t see women as bus drivers or as conductors in Kathmandu even though there is a rise in the number of women who drive their own cars. Even the tempos have more female drivers compared to bus drivers. As for conductors, I’ve seen only a handful in Kathmandu so far. So I was really happy about the news that morning.

That very day, while I was returning home, I was treated rather rudely by a male bus conductor. As soon as I took my seat next to a window, he stared at me. A few other passengers gave me quizzical looks. A few minutes later, the conductor started yelling and pointing his finger at me. I had my earphones in so I removed them in time to hear him yell at me for not sitting in the “women’s seating area,” meaning the few seats designated for women-only on the bus.

I apologized and sat where he wanted me to be seated. Throughout that ride I kept questioning myself – Why could I not sit any other place? Wasn’t this “seat reservation” system put in place for the ladies who couldn’t find a seat in a packed buses? Why did I have to sit here if I could sit anywhere else? The bus wasn’t completely occupied! I didn’t have to sit just there. I knew I could sit anywhere else. But how was I supposed to explain it to them? The conductor followed the system. But was that the right way? He just did that to avoid the scolding from the police in case there was an inspection.

This is where our problem lies. No matter how much our society chants “women equality”, “women empowerment”, “women safety”, we never manage to make that happen. Will females not be allowed to travel in regular buses because there are “all-women buses” available for us? What if I want to travel someplace with my guy friends? Will we have to use separate buses? I hope this doesn’t become another misinterpreted system or another excuse for people to tell me where to sit. The last thing I need now is people telling me which bus to travel in and whom to travel with.

The new women-only bus “tactic” will surely help physically challenged women and older women. It’ll definitely put parents with young daughters at ease. But not me. I don’t mind defending myself when someone makes lewd comments about me or even stares me with that grin on his face. I like fighting with perverts and harassers. I like my freedom and I want all that any guy in my society gets.

I also like making people aware about the inequalities and dangers our society holds for girls. I like it when men show some respect to women – not because they are women but because they are humans. I like it when one human respects another human.

With these new buses, maybe we’ll be safe. But what about the “perverted” minds that will still wander free? Will we start having separate lanes to walk in? Because hey! We aren’t safe on the streets either, are we?

Aakriti is a student at Jalalabad Ragib Rabeya Medical College and member at Women LEAD Nepal – the only leadership development organisation for young women in Nepal. You can follow her on Twitter @karki_aakriti or Facebook.

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