Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Street Harassment Snapshot: January 9, 2011

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Story Submissions Recap:

I accept street harassment submissions from anywhere in the world. Share your story!

Street Harassment in the News, on the Blogs:

Image via Washington Post

Events:

  • Jan. 10: Radio show about street harassment by The F Word: Feminist Media Collective, 3 p.m. EST
  • Jan. 10: Discussion on HarassMap at 14 Sleem EL-Ghatas St, Off Sleem the First St. – Hadaek EL-Zatoon, Cairo, Egypt, 5 p.m.
  • Jan. 13: Stop Street Harassment Book Talk, University of California, Irvine, 8 p.m.
  • Jan. 15: First day of 5 week self defense class with the Center For Anti-Violence Education in Brooklyn, NY. sliding scale! call 718-788-1775
  • Jan. 23, Anti-Street Harassment Planning Meeting, In Other Words, 14 NE Killingsworth, Portland, OR, 4 p.m.
  • Feb. 1: Stop Street Harassment Book Talk, Northern Illinois University, 7 p.m.
  • Feb. 12, HollaBack Baltimore Launch Party, Metro Gallery, 1700 N. Charles Street, 8 p.m.

Announcements:

New:

On-going:

10 Tweets from the Week:

  • monaeltahawy “Move away or I’ll smash your face!” a young woman told the man who groped her on a bus in #Yemen (she wrote to tell me). Kickass!
  • DianeMassage Another day of #streetharassment in #nyc, whilst wearing my red puffy jacket.
  • MaxineFrances Street harassment so angers me. Usually I let it lie due to incredulity and fear for my safety. Proud I gave it a bit of lip just now.
  • FatSocialWorker Octopus Pie on #streetharassment http://bit.ly/dJNhZ6 cat-callers don’t make me laugh like Octopus Pie does.
  • bettyslutsky Street harassment is worst when other cyclists do it. A Harvardy 1 made lascivious tongue gestures & ruined the sunshine
  • FatBlackDiva Cab home. Driver says: “Why not invite me in? I like a big woman like you.” Yeah? Do you like fines from the TLC, too? #streetharassment
  • sasaragor Chuffed to see WAG’s ‘Let’s stop blaming victims’ rape prevention campaign on Queen’s Street in Cardiff #streetharassment
  • StreetHarassmnt recntly approached a dude known for yelling at women on the street and told him to quit it. ended w/ ‘don’t fuck with me’! he was speechlss.
  • _sugaHoney Doesn’t matter what you wear. If you have a vagina, you’re going to be harrassed because men don’t know how to act. Period.
  • burnyourbones man in car shouts “I can see your knickers!” at me cycling down hill. At best I’m humiliated, at worst a multi-car pile-up #streetharassment
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New police initiatives in Delhi to deal with rise in reports of eve-teasing, rape

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Women’s reports of rape and molestation rose in Delhi during 2010. In response, this week the Delhi police force held a press conference to announce several new initiatives to make the city safer for women.

Via Sify News, here are what the initiatives include:

  1. All Police Control Room (PCR) vans had been ordered to help stranded women at night and women “in distress” can call 100 and get dropped off at the nearest safe spot.
  2. PCR vans with women police officers will be deployed around women’s colleges and schools.
  3. There will be a women’s help desk at all police stations, managed by women officers.
  4. Women police beat staff have been deployed in areas prone to crime against women.
  5. A 24X7 specialized mobile team will deal with domestic violence.
  6. Police teams will also conduct surprise checks in buses, markets, universities and areas prone to eve-teasing, especially in the mornings and evenings.

This is quite a lot of activity. Hopefully it will deter some of the street harassment and assault that is rampant in Delhi (just as it is in so many major cities around the world) and also provide survivors with ways to seek justice.

UNIFEM and Jagori are also working on initiatives to make Delhi safer for women.

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Blocking the view of oglers

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This happened in Delhi. Yesterday evening, I was at a take away place and I had ordered something and was waiting for my order to come through. This young girl about 13 or so walks in and orders some take away food at the counter and stands back waiting for her order to be ready. There’s this group of men in their early thirties were waiting there too. This kid is hardly 13 and has no breasts to speak of and she’s wearing jeans and a long shirt below her hips with an open collar. This dirty group of young men stared openly at the kid’s chest. Made me feel creepy. Think about it, she’s just a kid! It made me very angry, but I couldn’t do much, so I moved myself and positioned myself in front of the kid so the other guys couldn’t ogle at her, as in I came in their line of vision. I cannot go all around town slapping people. That was the best I could do at that moment. What is the world coming to? Everybody has kids who are 12 or 13 at one point of time in life! Sickening!

– Tbg

Location: Delhi, India

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.

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96% of women in Delhi are afraid to be alone in public

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Via Indian Express:

“As many as 82 per cent of women find buses to be the most unsafe place in Delhi and 96 per cent of women feel unsafe to venture out alone, says a survey done by the NGO CEQUIN, or the Centre for Equity and Inclusion.

With sexual harassment in public places on the rise in the Capital, areas like Chandni Chowk, Connaught Place, Karol Bagh and Rohini are deemed the most unsafe localities for women, the study says.

The organisation, run by Sachin Pilot’s wife Sara and Lora Prabhu, said it had formed a working committee that would contact the key stakeholders and form ways to improve the safety of women in Delhi. Prabhu said the survey covered more than 600 respondents, who were asked questions about sexual harassment and their safety in the city.

“We were shocked to hear that women faced the most harassment in crowded places in the city,” Prabhu said.”

I’m shocked to hear that she is shocked. Around the world crowded city streets and packed public transportation are notorious sites for men harassing women. Just two months ago, a “Ladies Special” train service started in four of India’s largest cities to give women some reprieve from male harassment. There are women-only buses in parts of India for the same reason.

Maybe one of these years, after countless more women and girls are harassed by men, governments will decide to tackle the root of the problem – male socialization to harass women – instead of trying halfheartedly to address the problem by separating women from men.

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