Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

UK Study Shows Objectification, Street Harassment Affects Girls

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Each year, Girlguiding, the UK’s leading charity for girls and young women, asks girls what they think through our Girls’ Attitudes Survey. They collect the views of over 1,600 girls and young women aged 7 to 21 across the country.

This year’s report shows that safety in public spaces is a big concern.

girlguiding-research-2016-unsafe-on-own

So is objectification. Sadly, 36% of seven to 10-year-old girls believe they are rated more on their looks than their abilities.

Overall, Girlguiding says its survey shows girls and young women face “multiple, compound pressures” including exposure to images that objectify women, sexist online abuse and street harassment.

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Screening of New Egyptian Street Harassment Film in Chicago

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[Editor’s Note: This is being shared with the permission of the filmmakers]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CHICAGO, IL – Sep 28, 2016 –  A new documentary on sexual harassment in Egypt directed by Chicago filmmaker to screen at Jane Addams Museum

14087415_10101436748880917_1753161913_oSexual harassment is a pervasive issue internationally, yet it has only recently gained more attention in the media. By intimidating and objectifying women in public spaces, harassment discourages women from working, socializing, and living a normal life. Egypt has recently been identified as the worst country for women in the Arab world, largely due to the staggering UN statistic that 99% of Egyptian women have been sexually harassed. But the epidemic not only exists abroad; according to Stop Street Harassment, 65% of women in the US have experienced street harassment, with an even higher prevalence in urban areas. This makes this topic extremely relevant for the Chicago community at large.

An award-winning documentary on sexual harassment in Egypt, “The People’s Girls,” is a crowdfunded film that is the recipient of awards from the Worldfest Houston International Film Festival, International Open Film Festival, and the Ambassador Award at the Flickers Rhode Island International Film Festival. It has also been featured in various media outlets, such as Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, France 24,  El Mundo.

In the documentary, directors Colette Ghunim and Tinne Van Loon interview both harassers and survivors in Egypt to explore the root of this problem. They talk with women who have fought back and also conduct hidden camera social experiments. Before filming the documentary, Ghunim and Van Loon created a short clip titled “Creepers on the Bridge”, which captured the feeling of being stared at and catcalled in the streets of Cairo. It went viral, quickly gaining over 2 million views worldwide. They then created a Kickstarter campaign to fund their documentary on sexual harassment in Egypt. Over the following months, they were interviewed by many international news sources. They received contributions from over 500 backers worldwide on Kickstarter and gain a fanbase of over 11,000 people on Facebook to create “The People’s Girls”.

In honor of International Day of the Girl, the Illinois Humanities Council and MALA will host a screening of the documentary on Tuesday, October 11 at 6 p.m. at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. Co-director Colette Ghunim will also be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A.

Order tickets through their Eventbrite page, which has a suggested donation amount of $10.  These funds will go towards a campaign to conduct free screenings in six different locations across Egypt in February 2016.

The People’s Girls – Synopsis

thepeoplesgirls01Sexual harassment has been a growing problem in Egypt over the last few years, especially in Cairo. UN Women reported that over 99% of Egyptian women have suffered from sexual harassment in their lifetime. Due to the extensive media coverage on the issue, the Egyptian government introduced anti-sexual harassment legislation, making it possible for harassers to face years in prison.

In September of 2014, filmmakers Colette Ghunim and Tinne Van Loon created a viral video, Creepers on the Bridge, showing the haunting stares of sexual harassers in Cairo’s streets. They now bring you The People’s Girls, a documentary film which through a series of interviews and social experiments takes a closer look at Egypt to see who is to blame for harassment and how women are fighting back. Because patriarchal societies often overlook women’s rights violations, this documentary serves as a catalyst for public debate not only in Egypt but internationally, as prominent cases of sexual harassment frequently occur on a global scale.

Website: www.thepeoplesgirls.com

Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/benaatelnas

Twitter: @thepeoplesgirls

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New UK Video: Because I am a Woman

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“The video features women across the county sharing language they hear on a daily basis and the behaviour they have been subjected to, simply because they are a woman.
 
From stories of women being followed and verbally assaulted to examples of ‘everyday sexism’ and street harassment, the video shows the seriousness of the issue and the reality of how often this happens.
 
Nottinghamshire Police takes all reports of misogyny hate crime very seriously and we want to encourage women to report anything which makes them feel uncomfortable, threatened or intimidated, either by calling 101 or by visiting the True Vision website at www.report-it.org.uk”
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United Kingdom: Freshers’ Week & Ending Sexual Harassment

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Ness Lyons for UNmuted Productions, UK, SSH Blog Correspondent

freshersToday marks the start of Freshers’ Week here in the UK. Over 400,000 undergraduates begin their first week of their first term of their first year at university. A longstanding institution, ‘Freshers’ Week’ – or ‘Welcome Week’, to give it it’s formal name –  is fun, flirty and fabulous. A lot of planning goes into making it so and this year, more so than any other, a lot of effort has also gone into ensuring students’ sexual safety.

“Freshers Week is a celebration so please treat it as such,” states the website for Sussex University’s Student Union.  “Respect other students, their bodies and their choices.  If you’re initiating sexual activity with someone, make sure they are as into it as you are, and that they have the freedom and the capacity to make that decision themselves.”  There’s an unfortunate irony in that statement; this is the same university that last month made a decision to continue to employ a lecturer convicted of assaulting his student girlfriend.

The website Unilad has also done a U-turn when it comes to its attitude towards female students. Four-and-a-half years ago, the site was temporarily suspended after making a joke that encouraged rape during Freshers’ Week.  This autumn however, it’s turned over a new leaf. Unilad has paired with the charity Drinkaware to raise awareness of ‘booze-fueled sexual harassment’; their research shows more than half of 18-24 year old female students have experienced sexual harassment on a night out. Unilad and Drinkaware are campaigning to get young people to ‘call out’ such incidents by using the hashtag #GropeFreeNights.

Drinkaware has also launched a non-virtual initiative to protect drunk students from harassment. The Drinkaware Crew are specially trained staff who will patrol student nightclubs and drinking venues in four areas of the UK, including South Wales. Their aim, according to South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Alun Michael, is to “support customers who are vulnerable as a result of drinking too much and prevent them from potentially becoming victims of crime.” While this quote gives the impression the Drinkaware Crew are there to protect all students from all types of crime, including petty theft, the sober fact is they’re in South Wales because of a series of sexual assaults that took place in Cardiff city centre during the 2015 Freshers’ Week period.

Following the attacks, the police, councils, universities and student bodies in both Cardiff and Swansea formed a task force to prevent the same from happening again this year. Aside from the Drinkaware Crew, they have implemented a Safe Taxi Scheme and Student Safety bus to help students get home safely. While these are all good practical initiatives, further progress has been made by Cardiff University in launching a ‘No Joke’ anti-lad culture campaign in April of this year and NUS Wales running consent workshops. Instead of simply removing potential victims from harm of sexual harassment and assault, it is after all far better to remove the actual risk and that’s what we should see more of.

Ness Lyons is a playwright, filmmaker and spoken word poet. She runs UNmuted Productions, is a member of Soho Theatre Writers’ Lab and is currently developing a script with an award-winning production company. Follow her work at: nesslyons.net and on Twitter: @lyonsness

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