Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Results of L’Oreal Paris’s 15-Country Street Harassment Study

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L’Oreal Paris, one of our partners for this year’s International Anti-Street Harassment Week, recently released the results of a 15-country study on street harassment. With survey firm IPSOS, they surveyed a representative sample of around 1,000 women in each country between Jan. 25th – Feb. 9th, 2021, so the results represent approximately 15,000 women’s experience.

First, the results confirm once again that this is a pervasive and global problem! Around 80 percent of women across the 15 countries said they’ve experienced street harassment (with the highest figures coming from South Africa – 94% and Mexico – 92%).** The countries included in the survey were: Brazil, Canada, China, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Spain, South Africa, Thailand, UAE, UK, and USA.

Personal experiences of street harassment in their lifetime, by country

The results also show how much this violation continued during the past year of the COVID-19 pandemic, even with all the quarantines, lockdowns, social distancing, and increase in working and going to school remotely that came with it. Around one in three women (31%) said they faced street harassment last year. This figure is 46 percent for those ages 18 to 34. Additionally, 42 percent said they witnessed street harassment occur in the last year.

1 in 3 women in 14 countries said they have experienced street harassment in the last year

Thinking about the last year, 50 percent of respondents said they did not feel safe in public spaces! Among these women, reasons they gave for feeling unsafe included: not being able to see people’s faces behind masks (51%), there are fewer people around (36%), and shops are closed (10%).

75 percent said they avoided certain public spaces to try to avoid street harassment and 54 percent said they avoided some forms of public transportation specifically.

A unique feature of being in public spaces this past year is that many or most people wore masks. This did not help the situation of street harassment. Instead, 72 percent of women felt harassers were emboldened to harass because of the increased anonymity a mask gave them.

It is clear that street harassment continues to affect so many women’s lives in really significant and scary ways — the murder of British woman Sarah Everard while she walked home last month emphasizes this reality too.

L’Oreal Paris is partnering with Hollaback! to host free bystander online training sessions called Stand Up! to help combat this widespread problem. Check out the programs being offered this week and join one if you can!

Sign up for a free, interactive 1 hour Zoom training on standing UP against street harassment

** This survey only focused on women, ages 18 and up, and if teenagers and pre-teens were included and persons of all genders from the LGBTQ community and other targeted communities, I’m sure these figures would be even higher.

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One Week Until Anti-Street Harassment Week 2021!

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Dear Friends, 

My body is not public property.

The results of a groundbreaking street harassment survey conducted by our partner L’Oreal Paris of 14,000 women in 14 countries will be released for International Anti-Street Harassment Week (April 11-17).

The findings highlight how global this human rights violation is and also includes statistics from the pandemic year. They show how much this issue continues to affect people everywhere, even during this unusual global health crisis.

Indeed, street harassment is an on-going global health crisis. This is evident by the recent statistics and campaigns around the world that document it and work to end it.

Will you join us next week in speaking out against this human rights violation? Use the hashtag #stopstreetharassment and tag @pinthecreep and @stopstharassmnt on social media.

Need an Idea? — Submit to the Safecity Campaign
Safecity is inviting people to participate in Week by submitting quotes for posters they’ll create and share on social media.

“This year the campaign is Confidence is Beautiful. Confidence to walk down a street without worry, confidence to loiter in public spaces, confidence to travel further to explore work, leisure and more. But that cannot happen if streets are not safe. We need to spotlight the issue, create urgency to act and encourage men to take action.” Submit your quotes and pictures here.

Need another Idea? — Share Your Pandemic Street Harassment Stories
Share your experiences and stories with street harassment across the pandemic – and/or submit artwork to stopstreetharassment@gmail.com.

Sexual Assault Awareness Month
In the U.S., April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Learn more about how to get involved with this month-long campaign. April 6 is the Day of Action — find ways to participate.

“Support Survivors During Sexual Assault Awareness Month”

Anti-SH Week Partners
Thank you to Safecity/Red Dot Foundation, Catcalls of NYC and L’Oreal Paris for partnering with us this year. Over the week, you can take part in L’Oréal Paris and Hollaback! training on how to safely intervene if you witness or experience street harassment.

Watch the Catcalls Turns 5 Event
If you missed our joint event with Catcalls of NYC for their 5th anniversary, you can watch it here! What an empowering and uplifting program.

Thank you! 

-Holly

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We All Want to Make It Home Safely

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This week, 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah Everard’s remains were found in the UK after she went missing last week. She was attacked and murdered while traveling home from a friend’s house. A police officer was arrested on suspicion of her murder.

Her story is tragic — and it’s the worst-case scenario that makes so much street harassment unnerving. We wonder: which harassers might escalate their behavior and strike us, follow us, grab us, assault us and even kill us?

Her story also confirms that police officers may NOT be people we can turn to for help and protection… instead they may ignore, blame, harass, assault or even kill us.

Since Sarah went missing, thousands of women have shared their own stories of assault and street harassment by men. A new representative study in the UK released this week backs up their stories – 97% of young women have faced sexual harassment and 80% of all women have experienced street harassment.

Of course, street harassment is a global problem, a global crisis, and these figures and stories in the UK are just the latest documentation of it.

During our collective year of global health pandemic, the issue of street harassment has often become a lower priority, a lesser problem to address, but Sarah’s story shows that street harassment is also deadly. The study shows that street harassment is also a far-reaching crisis.

Share Your COVID Street Harassment Stories
Ahead of International Anti-Street Harassment Week (April 11-17), we invite you to share your experiences and stories with street harassment across the pandemic – and/or submit artwork to stopstreetharassment@gmail.com.
We’ll share them across the week to help raise awareness that this is STILL a critical issue that we must address, we must work to stop.

And we must hold men — yes, all men — accountable for the culture they directly or indirectly contribute to and benefit from that turns women into prey who cannot safely walk home.

Anti-Street Harassment Week Partners & Activities
Thank you to Safecity/Red Dot Foundation, Catcalls of NYC, Hollaback! and L’Oreal Paris as well as other partners for their help this year’s Week of Action!!

As a reminder, we imagine much of the world will still be practicing social distancing next month, and so we encourage you to engage in online action (and use the hashtag #StopStreetHarassment) or, if it’s safe to do so, take small offline actions, like go with a friend or two to chalk on sidewalks or post flyers in your community. 

If you have ideas already, you can let us know what you’ll do by filling out this form, and you can let us know if you’d like to be listed on the website as a participating co-sponsor, stopstreetharassment@gmail.com.


March 27 Event
Catcalls of NYC turns 5 years old this month and we’ll be hosting their anniversary event on our Facebook Page on March 27. More details to come!

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Join our 11th Annual Anti-Street Harassment Week

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Dear Friends, 

Happy New Year! We hope you are all staying safe and healthy and thriving as best you can at this challenging time. 

Our partner Safecity/Red Dot Foundation is helping us keep International Anti-Street Harassment Week going this April, and we are grateful for their support and leadership this year. Groups like Catcalls of NYC, Hollaback! and L’Oreal Paris are also playing a big contributing role. 

http://www.meetusonthestreet.org

So, we invite you to join us in speaking out against street harassment during our 11th year of action, April 11-17, 2021. 

Safely Take Action 

We imagine much of the world will still be practicing social distancing and even quarantining in April, and so we encourage you to engage in online action (and use the hashtag #StopStreetHarassment) or, if it’s safe to do so, take small offline actions, like go with a friend or two to chalk on sidewalks or post flyers in your community. 

Here are two other examples of how to be involved, and we’ll share more in the coming weeks: 


1. Online Training 

L’Oréal Paris has partnered with the expert NGO Hollaback! to launch STAND UP AGAINST STREET HARASSMENT: a training program to help people safely intervene if they witness or experience street harassment. As part of the International Anti-Street Harassment Week, help combat street harassment by taking the training program on standup-international.com, and then, share the word about the training in April.

2. COVID-19 Stories

We know that street harassment continues to be an issue, but it’s a problem that is getting a lot of attention right now. You could collect and share online COVID-19-related stories from your community to document the problem and raise awareness that it’s still a serious issue that many people are facing. 

Share Your Ideas & Plans

If you have ideas already, you can let us know what you’ll do by filling out this form, and you can let us know if you’d like to be listed on the website as a participating co-sponsor, stopstreetharassment@gmail.com.

Thank you!  -Holly

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Happy New Year 2021!

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Dear SSH Community,

I am so grateful to everyone who stayed with us during this difficult year of 2020 when so much of our lives changed and when many of us had to prioritize our families/caretaking (me included…even now I can’t write this whole post without being interrupted).

Stop Street Harassment is still here you though, and we will continue to advocate for safe public spaces in 2021!! One big event will be our 11th annual International Anti-Street Harassment Week, in collaboration with Safecity, held virtually from 11 to 17 April. Save the date!

And in the U.S., we have this good news, a women’s history museum was approved and street harassment is a topic they’d consider.

And in the planning process, the key will be an “expansive view” of women’s history, Gross said, including women of different abilities, trans and queer communities, and the experiences of women from all walks of life: “women who were performers, women who were writers, women who were seamstresses, women who were farmers, women who were domestics,” she explained. “I want it all.”

Such an expansive view could also extend to more experiential ways of teaching history, Gross said, including the history of street harassment in the US. “From the first women starting to work and having to navigate public streets, there were all kinds of perils,” she explained, especially for Black women. “They carried hatpins; they learned how to use their purses and bags defensively to protect themselves.”

It will be interesting to see if the museum could find a way to recreate or use “that embodied experience” to teach about the misogyny that has been a major part of American history, Gross said.”

It’s hard for me to imagine that our country now takes this issue so seriously it’d be part of our national museum, but street harassment is a huge issue in women’s lives, dictating many aspects of our life, so it should be! I can’t wait to see what happens.

Happy New Year to you and your loved ones. May 2021 be a year of peace, productivity and joy.

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