Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Afghanistan Street Harassment Documentary

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“Do Not Trust My Silence” is a powerful new short film about street harassment in Afghanistan (English subtitles), directed by Afghan filmmaker Sahar Fetrat. She won the first prize in Italy’s “Universocorto Elba Film Festival” for her “extreme courage of reporting the Afghan women’s condition in the streets of Kabul and for the technique of shooting with a hidden camera.”

She writes:

“‘Do Not Trust My Silence’ was my fourth film which was produced in April 2013 and it is one of my favorites. When I first joined the Afghan voice’s media training, I had the vision of making a documentary about street harassment. This documentary for me is more than just a 10-minute film, there is a lot in it. There is a big pain in it that all women, especially Afghan women, can feel. This documentary shows only a little of what we see, feel and experience every day.

When I made this film, I knew that both women and men should be my audience. For men to see and feel a part what we experience every day, and for women to say no to street harassment. I wanted to show that, as a young woman, I do not accept harassment as my destiny and other women should do the same.

While producing this film, I put myself as the main character and I filmed most of the parts with a small flip camera. It was not easy to film men while harassing me or other women, some of them were throwing small rocks towards us. But I did not stop my work because my aim was to show harassment and how destructive it is. I totally believe that we women are strong enough to not give up and fight against it and we have the power to stop it.”

H/T to SSH’s SPS Mentoring Program Mentee Masooma Maqsoodi

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Afghanistan, Cameroon, Chicago: Meet SSH’s New Mentoring Sites!

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SSH just launched a brand new Safe Public Spaces Mentoring Program to advice/guide and provide a small amount of money to groups or individuals who want help with an anti-street harassment initiative in their community.

I’m excited to announce our three pilot sites for the program!!

Over the next three months we’ll work with activists in Afghanistan, Cameroon, and Chicago, USA, as they undertake projects they’ve designed to address street harassment in their communities.

Here’s an overview of each of their projects and you can look for periodic updates on the blog about their work!

1. “Training of Trainers: Raising Awareness Campaign about Street Harassment in High Schools in Kabul,” Kabul, Afghanistan

This project is based on a separately funded three-part workshop on street harassment. The SSH Mentoring Program funds and direction will go toward helping them develop an additional component to “train the trainers” who will conduct similar workshops.  The interested, prospective trainees will attend pilot sessions of the three workshops and will help to develop printed materials, identify weaknesses and provide feedback.

 Workshop #1 includes reading women’s narratives about street harassment so they can perceive sexual harassment from the perspective of the victims.

Workshop #2 includes short documentaries about street harassment and students will work in groups to discuss the documentaries and brainstorm some practical solutions to stop street harassment.

Workshop #3 will be activity-based with students making posters, singing a song, or performing a play with the topic of campaign against street harassment in their school. Then, students will be asked to tell their ideas and feedback about the whole campaign.

2. “Understanding the Responding to Street Harassment Safely,” Buea, Southwest Region, Cameroon

This project will have two phases. First, there will be two to three informal focus group discussion with young people around the city. Out of the focus groups, the project leaders will create educational posters and stickers containing messages condemning sexual harassment and will paste them on walls and strategic sites in the city to raise public awareness.

The second phase will be a five hours training seminar with 40 young women, girls and men from diverse sociocultural backgrounds. Participants will be asked to share personal stories of harassment and solutions they sought. Participants will learn about literary works on harassment, how to differentiate street harassment from compliments,and they will engage in role playing to explore the issue and its solutions.

3. “End Street Harassment Campaign,” Chicago, IL, USA

Community members in Chicago will create street harassment scenarios for three,  light-hearted, satirical films.

* One film reverses the usual roles and portrays females as the catcallers and a male as the one being harassed.

* The second film features a women asking the catcaller questions from the catcaller questionnaire.

* The last film has a street harasser getting escalating warnings. For the first offense of street harassment one is sprayed with a spray bottle (similar to spraying your cat with a spray bottle when they try to steal your food), the second offense is to be sprayed with a small squirt gun, and the third offense is to be squirted with a super soaker.

The goal of the films is to start conversations about street harassment and show it is not a compliment. The films will be available online and there will be a screening in Chicago in September.

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Afghanistan Videos: This is My City Too

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The Afghanistan-based organization Young Women for Change celebrates its one year anniversary this week! The young women who lead the organization continue to make street harassment one of their central issues of concern (read an article by co-founder Noorjahan Akbar about her harassment experiences). Below are two new videos they produced about street harassment, with English subtitles.

They’ve conducted a 4,000 person study about street harassment in Kabul and it will be released this summer at a press conference event. This is the largest study on the topic that’s ever been conducted. If you can, please donate a few dollars to them as the funds will enable them to print women’s stories and the survey results and then hand those out to attendees and people in the streets. Most Afghans do not have computers/Internet access so print materials is the best way for Young Women for Change to spread their message.

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Less access to public spaces for women in Afghanistan?

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“A resolution passed by the Ulema Council of Afghanistan prohibits women from traveling without a male family member and studying, working, or communicating with strange men in the society, and it allows only men to seek divorce. The Presidential Palace, Arg, welcomed this resolution. Has Afghanistan failed its 50%?….As for as it remains a resolution it will have no binding affect. If the Ulema Council give a Fatwa then it will be binding and will have to be enforced.”

This was the Facebook status update of Noorjahan Akbar, co-founder of Young Women for Change, yesterday.

It is upsetting to see women’s rights under this kind of attack in Afghanistan. If the Ulema Council does give a Fatwa, one of the many, many negative outcomes will be an even greater restriction of access to public places for women and likely more harassment and assault should they dare go outside without a male family member.

Afghanistan is the most dangerous place for women to live in the world (Iceland the best place and Yemen the worst place) and it’s initiatives like this that make it so. A society with few rights for women and where women’s free agency is not respected fosters violence. And that is not good for women or for men.

Young Women for Change is currently fundraising to raise enough money to build and run a women-only, safe and secure Internet Cafe and meeting place. As more and more public places become restricted to women and harassment increases, this space is vital because it will allow women to connect with each other and the outside world. Donate today.

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Marching in South Africa, Art Exhibit in Afghanistan

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March protesters, via Africa Review

Here are exciting updates about activism that took place today in South Africa and Afghanistan.

South Africa: Six weeks ago, two teenagers wearing miniskirts were harassed and groped by a group of 50-60 men at a taxi rank. This was reminiscent of a sexual assault on a woman wearing a miniskirt in the same area in 2008. That attack led to a huge march. Well, the most recent bout of harassment has too.

Via BBC News:

“Hundreds of South Africans have marched in Johannesburg [today]…The organisers said they wanted to end “patriarchal views still entrenched in parts of South Africa’s society”.

South Africa has one of the world’s highest incidences of rape.

Some men, particularly from traditional and rural backgrounds, believe women should not wear revealing clothing, says the BBC’s Pumza Fihlani in Johannesburg.

Minister Lulu Xingwana is going all out fighting for women's rights. PHOTO: TEBOGO LETSIE

The ruling African National Congress Women’s League said it had called the march to emphasise that women had the right wear whatever they wanted without fear of victimisation.

Several cabinet ministers and the governor of Gauteng province were amongst those taking part.

During the march, Women’s Minister Lulu Xingwana warned that she would close down the taxi rank if such harassment continued.”

It’s encouraging to see so many government officials involved, condemning the harassment. Via Mail and Guardian:

“”The scourge of women abuse threatens to erode many of the hard-earned gains of the liberation struggle. It denies women their birth rights. It condemns them to a life of fear and prevents them from being productive members of society,” said Minister of Women Lulu Xingwana.

Afghanistan: Young Women for Change (YWC) is hosting an art exhibit and poster sale today and tomorrow (2-5 p.m. each day) to raise money to create a safe, harassment-free Internet cafe for women (donate online). Many of the pieces of art and posters address the issue of street harassment in Afghanistan.

They’re also airing a new documentary on street harassment called, “This is My City too,” produced by Anita Haidary, YWC Co-founder and a film student at Mt. Holyoke College in the USA.

Via YWC - members of the group select the posters to display in the exhibition
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