Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

VOTE!

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L to R: Holly Kearl, Chai Shenoy, Council Member Muriel Bowser, Ben Merrion

If you’re in the USA, I hope you’re voting today (if you didn’t already by an absentee ballot or early voting)!!!! People have fought hard, starved, and died to ensure that more than just white men can have this right, so use it!

Here’s just one reason why I think it’s important to vote — because we need people in office who understand our issues and care about them and will act. A perfect example of this was when I joined a group of people organized by Collective Action for Safe Spaces to testify about sexual harassment on the Metro system in Washington, DC, earlier this year. The all male Metro leaders said sexual harassment wasn’t a problem. But the DC City Council chair was a woman, Muriel Bowser, and she said, “As a woman, I feel differently” and told them to do something!! And they did. Without her, the fight would have been much harder.

VOTE!!

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Egypt: Protests against Harassment This Week

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"I Hope..." campaign against sexual harassment - Egypt
"I Wish..." Anti-Sexual Harassment Movement Event

Because sexual assault and street harassment continue unabated in Cairo, Egypt, protests against it are regularly occurring.

On Wednesday, the “I Hope…” (Nefsi) anti-sexual harassment campaign organized a human chain along a road and participants held up signs with anti-harassment messaging. In the photo on the right, the posters read from left to right: “Harassment degrades the male (harasser) before it degrades the female;” “I wish I could ride a bike without anyone bothering me;” and, “I wish you would respect me as I respect you.”

Right now, about 30 activists are wrapping up another protest on Tahrir Square.

The Safe Tahrir For Women Facebook Event page reads:
“On Friday 6th July, we’re asking everyone, men and women, to meet at Midan Talaat Harb at 1.30pm, ready to go to Tahrir to set up a safe place where women can join the protests in safety, and independent journalists can document our revolution.

We want strong people to act as guards to protect women from thugs who have been abusing them in the square. We want to catch these criminals who are destroying the reputation of the revolution, expose and shame them, and bring them to justice.

We want to say, “Enough, No!” to the terrible assaults against women which have been happening in Tahrir. We believe them to have been carried out by state-sponsored paid thugs: let’s catch them, and prove that the people of Tahrir are amongst the noblest in the world…

We want to set up a Safe Point in the square where women can join the revolutionary protest, and set up escorts to take women safely in and out of the square to the Safe Point. We want to spray paint and handcuff any thug who touches a woman, so he can be exposed and shamed for behaving like a dog. We’re asking every political group and each individual, as a human being: please help.”

On Twitter, people are posting photos and videos about the action and right now, it sounds like the male protectors out number the female protesters….but is it any wonder when the last protest against sexual harassment on Tahrir Square ended with the women being groped and chased away?!

I am traveling to Egypt for the first time next week. Many concerned family members and friends have been emailing me articles about the assaults and harassment against women, urging me to “be careful.”

It makes me angry that just because I’m female, just because every other woman in Egypt is female, we have to be careful. And it makes me angry that even if we are “careful,” that won’t ensure complete protection from groping, harassment and even assault. We must continue to live our lives; we shouldn’t be cloistered away.

I’m glad that activists are persistent with their outcry and action and I look forward to joining their actions next week.

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Youth in Jordan: “fed up with the way men harass women in public”

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Human Chain in Jordon. Image via Albawaba.com

Last week, youth in Jordan formed a human chain from Al Hussein Sports City to the Interior Ministry Circle to protest various gender-based crimes, including street harassment, the practice of forcing rape survivors to marry their rapist, and honor killings.

Via Albawaba.com:

‘This is the first time activists from different women’s initiatives get together for a demonstration… it was a spontaneous event and we only thought of it a few days ago,’ said Toleen Touq, one of the organisers of the “There is no honour in crime” campaign.

She noted that the demonstration came after the ‘accumulation of years of suppression, discrimination and insult against women in Jordan.’

‘We wanted today [Monday] to get people’s attention. The fact that passers-by read the banners we held means that our ideas were delivered and they would start to think about them,’ Touq, an artist, told The Jordan Times.

Among the activists was 19-year-old Rasha Abu Dajar, who said she was ‘fed up with the way men harass women in public.’

‘Last week I was leaving school after sitting for a Tawjihi exam and a man kept following me and saying dirty words. It was not until I got home that he disappeared,’ she said, stressing that ‘whatever women wear is not an excuse for men to harass and insult them.’

Iraqi Ali Mahdi noted that his sisters do not feel comfortable walking in the capital’s streets, saying that harassment is tolerated in Jordan and is often treated as ‘justified.’

‘I wanted to stand today in solidarity with every woman who is subject to daily public harassment,’ he said.”

Good for them!! It takes a lot of courage to speak out against gender crimes when they are so normalized and common that they’re accepted and the people who speak out are seen as being in the wrong. May we all be so brave.

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“Why should any outfit be considered as an invitation?”

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Women Protesters, Via Tea Leaf Nation

A subway company in Shanghai, China, thinks it is okay to blame women for “causing” sexual harassment.

Last week the Shanghai No. 2 Subway Company posted an image of a woman standing on a subway platform in a semi-transparent dress to the company’s official Sina Weibo account with this caption:

“If that’s what you wear on a subway, then no wonder you will be sexually harassed! There are too many perverts riding the subway every day, and we can’t catch them all. Girl, you’ve got to respect yourself!”

Wow.

No matter how people dress, they should not be touched or spoken to disrespectfully. Sure, some outfits will catch the eye more than others, but looking (and not leering) is where the interaction should stop. The fault for harassment lies with the harasser, not the target of the harassment.

CNN.com reports that “sexual harassment claims on the Shanghai subway rose in the month of June. Reports included instances of indecent exposure, lewd acts and attempts at taking pictures up women’s skirts.”

While I haven’t seen a study about sexual harassment on their transportation system, a 2002 survey of 200 citizens in Beijing, China, showed that 70 percent had been subjected to a form of sexual harassment. Most people said it occurred on public transportation.

So, Shanghai No. 2 Subway Company, don’t shrug your shoulders in the face of known sexual harassment on your train and tell “girls” to respect themselves. Instead, tell harassers to respect women.

Given the prevalence of sexual harassment on the subway, many people who saw the post were outraged. Via Tea Leaf Nation:

“@贺瑜-小鱼儿 exclaimed, “Even if she’s wearing a bikini, she should still be free from harassment! What is wrong with this subway line?” @指间_谁de旋律 blames the subway line for its inappropriate comment as well: “It is disgusting to hear this from an official Weibo! How does her outfit make her deserving of sexual harassment? Why should any outfit be considered as an invitation?”

The official account of Women’s Voice, an NGO for gender equality in China (@女权之声), was also outraged: “Sexual harassment is a crime! The subway line should try harder to be responsible for passenger safety instead of finding excuses for these criminals and blaming the crime on the victims!”

On Sunday, two young women launched their own protest at a Shanghai subway station. They each wore a “black veil over their face, stepped into a crowded subway station with signs that read, ‘I want my coolness under the sun, but not the pervert in the subway,’ and ‘I can reveal myself, and you cannot bother me.'”

Unfortunately, their protest was met with opposition. Their actions, however, have helped bring international attention to the issue, so in that sense, it was a success!

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“S.H.O.W You Care” (S.H.O.W. = Stop Harassment of Women) in Sri Lanka

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Photo submission to the S.H.O.W. You Care Facebook page

To address the widespread problem of sexual harassment on public transportation in Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Unites in Colombo is undertaking a unique project this week called S.H.O.W You Care (S.H.O.W. = Stop Harassment of Women).

Via Facebook:

“From June 25th to 30th in all bus routes in Colombo, students (from mostly boys schools) will board the buses according to a formulated plan and address the passengers in all three languages (Tamil, Sinhala, English):

1) apologizing to all women for any incidents of harassment they may have encountered in the past,
2) handing out leaflets highlighting the legal recourse available to women if they experience such treatment,
3) making a general statement of the right of women to be treated respectfully and the men taking the responsibility to safeguard this right and the negative reflection on them, if they fail.

These leaflets will also contain information regarding basic women’s rights and the actions that could be taken if one’s found violating them.”

It’s great that so many young men plan to participate…we must have boys/men involved in these efforts in order to make them truly successful.

Their decision to target bus riders is very smart. More than 70 percent of women aged 15 to 45 surveyed in Sri Lanka last year said they’d experienced sexual harassment on public transportation. The survey was conducted by the Legal Aid Commission. In other studies, it was revealed that more than 95 percent of women feel it’s unsafe to travel alone in public spaces in Colombo, and one in four women report sexual harassment on public transportation in the country, according to a report by the Transport Ministry.

Sri Lanka Unites is a grassroots youth movement that empowers youth to be the driving force of social change in the country. Already their initiative has received nice media attention. Look for another blog post later this week to recap how their efforts went.

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