Simona-Maria Chirciu, Bucharest, Romania, SSH Blog Correspondent

I want to share with you all one of my experiences of street harassment. It was so awful and terrifying. I was in the village where I grew up and where I used to go and relax in the summer. Is a small village with a predominantly older population. There are some teenager and people in their 20’s and only about 12 children.

I was walking down the rural road on my way to my grandma’s house. It was dark, because in some Romanian villages the light goes on after 10 p.m. Four boys where following me that night but I didn’t see them and I didn’t care about that. I was in a bad mood that night and I did not respond to their catcalling me and leering at me when I was passing by.

When I got back from my grandma’s house and I was going to my uncle’s house, not so far from her house, those guys started to throw rocks at me. It was very dark, I had my hands full with apples, a big bottle of honey and my mobile phone as I was on the phone with my boyfriend. I managed to avoid being hit, but I yelled at them that I’m not scared of them. Then they started to walk behind me, so I stopped and let them pass, to let them be in front of me because  then I felt safer. But I was wrong! They laughed and tried to intimidate me. I was so nervous; a feminist and activist feeling unsafe and vulnerable in front of those guys!

Most of the time when I get catcalled I respond and I wanted to do that then too! My boy friend heard all of the discussion and tried to calm me down, demanding me to let them be and to stay quiet. But I was furious! This wasn’t the first time I was harassed in my village. I didn’t even know them so why were they acting like this toward me? I felt the urge to respond back! So I started acting fiercely, saying that I don’t fear them and that they are just some dumb harassers. One of them got nervous and started threating me, saying to shut up. I didn’t want to shut up. Why for?

He approach me and threatened me again. So I screamed out in his face that I’m not afraid. So immediately he punched me very hard in the face. Twice! I tried to fight back, but my hands were full. So he pulled my hair in a very brutal manner that I felt my cervical spine snapped. Then he put me on the ground and punched me in the face and the head. Then he and his friends left… while I was laying there, in acute pain. But I didn’t want to feel a victim so I managed to get up, to grab my telephone and other things and I faked that I was calling the Police. They heard and started running. Nobody heard my scream even though people from rural Romania are so curious and always behind the fences, looking on the street to see what’s happening and the next day to gossip about it. But when it comes to violence against women, they do not care!

After a short time, Police came and said to me: “Come on miss, stop crying, it’s not so bad, you’re overreacting!”

I had a swollen cheek and blood came out of my mouth, my hair was damaged. I was in shock! They blamed me for that incident. The officers heard all of my declarations and the guy that hit me, fled. When I confronted the Policeman he said and did nothing about it. Moreover he said the one that hit me me has mental disabilities and he can’t be punished and that he beats his mother and harasses other women too. And because I am not from that village, the Policeman said the declaration has no value if I want to press charges and I can’t come back here every month. For one week my cervical spine was all swollen and sore. I didn’t manage to move my head even an inch. Everybody in my family said to me that was my fault, a girl must never argue with a guy and why I was wandering in the village after dark? Why couldn’t I just mind my own business? Ohhh! All this discourse discouraged me so I didn’t continue with the Police complaint.

Even now, two years after the incident, sometimes my head hurts in those places where I was hit and once more I get terrified when I remember the hate in his eyes towards me. The very cherry on top was that a few weeks from that incident an unknown mobile phone number sent me messages like “I know you! How are you, you sweet girl” and then called me.. It was a familiar voice: it was that Policeman from my village, the one that took my declaration and said to me that I was overreacting! I threatened to report him and he stopped, but still I was petrified that he did this!

This experience gave me the motivation to fight harder against street harassment. Harassers don’t stop easily, so we keep on fighting!!

Simona is the Vice President of a feminist NGO – FILIA Center and a PhD student in Political Sciences, working on a thesis on street harassment in Bucharest. You can follow her on Facebook.

Juliana Guarany, Brazil, Blog Correspondent

(In Portuguese)

So this happened: I was enjoying Carnaval in São Paulo, following a nice bloco down the street when I saw him stop and force a girl to kiss him. She was uncomfortably laughing, in an attempt to get rid of him without spoiling the fun of the party. He grabbed her and kissed her for less than 30 seconds and then he was gone, and she was back with her friends, probably telling herself that this is normal during this time of the year and she should just let it go. I had the same reaction as her. It was too fast and I knew that, if I intervened, things could get uglier, so I didn’t do anything at that time even though it upset me.

French kisses during Carnaval are a tradition. Even singer Claudia Leitte wrote a song about it and broke the record of couples kissing at one of her concerts. Unfortunately, forced kisses are also very common. I have heard stories from friends being kissed against their will on micaretas (out-of-season Carnaval parties) since I was 15 years old. I also heard stories of men’s tactics, like this guy who used to take a tube of lança-perfume (an illegal mixture of ethyl chloride that gives a quick sense of euphoria, but can cause arrhythmia) and hold the girls, forcing them to inhale it until they passed out so he could kiss them. I guess every stupid action has its extreme.

Right before Carnaval started this year, a man was charged with seven years in prison for forcing a kiss on a girl in Salvador, Bahia, in 2008, which was considered rape. He was arrested at the scene and spent one year in jail before getting the right to appeal.

The main TV channel in the region used the story to give us a great “why we need feminism” moment when they released a poll for their Internet users, asking if “the forced kiss during Carnaval should be prohibited” (SEE PHOTO).

Unlike me and the bloco I saw, people on social media did not let this go. They even remembered the famous forced kiss after the end of World War II and the glamour behind a scene of violence (the girl says she hates that image.)

This year is no different from 30 years of Carnaval… forced kisses are common. But at least the debate about forced kisses and harassment in general is rising. Let’s hope next year brings us an even better party, in which we will not hesitate to intervene when a forced kiss happens in front of us.

Juliana is a fellow from Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and, together with Hamburg University, in Germany, is creating a digital campaign to connect all feminist initiatives around the globe. Read her blog Whistleblower and follow her on Twitter, @juguarany.