Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Activists in 17 countries meet for street harassment conference

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This past weekend, activists from 17 countries like Egypt, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia met in Cairo for a two-day conference to discuss the serious problem of men’s public harassment of women.

At the conference, attendees concluded that harassment was unchecked because “laws don’t punish it, women don’t report it, and the authorities ignore it. The harassment, including groping and verbal abuse, appears to be designed to drive women out of public spaces and seems to happen regardless of what they are wearing.”

Here is more information from the conference (via the AP):

  • “We are facing a phenomena that is limiting women’s right to move … and is threatening women’s participation in all walks of life,” said Nehad Abul Komsan, an Egyptian activist who organized the event.
  • Sexual harassment, including verbal and physical assault, has been specifically criminalized in only half a dozen Arab countries. Most of the 22 Arab states only outlaw overtly violent acts like rape, according to a study by Abul Komsan.
  • In Syria, men from traditional homes go shopping in the market place instead of female family members to spare them harassment, said Sherifa Zuhur, a Lebanese-American academic at the conference.
  • Amal Madbouli, who wears the conservative face veil or niqab, told The Associated Press that despite her dress, she is harassed.

I’m so happy to hear they were able to come together and discuss these issues. We need a global street harassment conference too, to discuss how we can work across all borders to make public places safe and welcoming for women!!

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300 cases of sexual harassment over Adha

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Over the recent Adha holiday in Egypt, there were about 300 reported cases of sexual harassment in public spaces against women, varying from verbal taunts to assaults.

Last year over the Septemeber holiday Fitr, 150 men and boys were arrested for a harassing spree in the streets of Mohandeseen in Cairo. A few of the men who assaulted girls and cut their clothes were taken to court and one was sentenced to a year in jail.

While the sexual harassment of women in public spaces in Egypt is a major problem and one which the Egyptian  Centre for Women’s Rights brought to light last year, the problem is increasingly becoming associated with feast holidays. The LA Times reports that contributing factors may be that thousands of people enjoy spending their free time outdoors, younger generations face less-strict scrutiny from their parents during feasts, and police security is usually softer than it is throughout the rest of the year.

In good news, women’s rights groups have worked with Georgette Kellini, a Member of Parliament for the ruling National Democratic Party, to prepare a draft law for sexual harassment that Kellini will introduce in the next session. The new law would legally define the harassment and it would include a number of deterring penalties for perpetrators. Hopefully it will pass and help people realize sexual harassment is unacceptable, including during holidays!

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New method for reporting street harassers

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In Egypt, individuals are developing a HarassMap to allow women to report harassers via SMS messaging. It will map the location of the occurrence and help track where harassment is occurring and its frequency.

My good friends at HollaBackNYC and RightRides (who also are the lead coordinators for New Yorkers for Safe Transit) are taking this idea new places. This is their plan:

“We want to create an online map where women can ‘Hollaback!’ directly from their cell phones. Quick, 140 character stories can be submitted through three easy portals: a) text it, b) tweet it, and c) submit it through a ‘Hollaback’ mobile phone app. Once submitted, harassment and assault data will be mapped and later analyzed in an annual ‘State of Our Streets’ report which will be sent to the police, public officials, and the media. Automatic email alerts noting real-time harassment will also be available. Local citizens and policy makers can sign up for alerts on incidences in their own communities, or review our HARASSmap to see harassment hot-spots. Once we launch in New York City, we want to take it worldwide.”

As you may imagine, implementing this project takes money. They’ve applied for funding and they now need YOUR HELP to vote for their project!

For almost a year now I’ve been advocating (mostly silently though – lol) for a system that allows women to easily report the harassment and its location so I am thrilled to see them working to make it a reality. There are a lot of deterrents to reporting harassers now (including the fact that in most places you can only report people who are threatening or touching you) and it’s making the pervasiveness of the problem of gender-based street harassment largely invisible to mainstream society and to policy and lawmakers. This tool could change everything and make it easier to report harassers and it also could  show us where there are the most harassers so we can target those areas to end it.

Please go vote for the mapping/reporting tool – it’s really cool and has the potential to be a gamechanger in the fight against street harassment!!

Please also spread the word to your networks. Cut and paste this to your facebook, twitter, Myspace, and LinkedIn pages:
Vote for Hollaback 2.0 http://bit.ly/14Egc2 then repost to end street harassment!

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Egyptian women fight street harassment with karate

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“What should be a leisurely stroll through Cairo’s streets, for some women has become more like a gauntlet run… Campaigners say the male-dominated society leaves women feeling vulnerable and unprotected by traditional forces like the police.

Al Jazeera’s Amr el-Khaky met one group in Cairo, Egypt’s capital, who are taking the fight into their own hands: they are taking lessons in karate.” – AlJazeeraEnglish

I’ve written about street harassment in Egypt a lot across this past year. To add to the list — here’s an interesting video called “Egyptian women fight harassment” on the AlJazeerEnglish youtube channel that’s definitely worth a look. Many related videos show up after the end of the video clip if you’re interested.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb3x39Ud7cI]

 

 

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Quick News Cap

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I’ve been working hard on my street harassment book and took a two day vacation over the weekend, so my posts have been lax the last week – sorry! Here’s a recap of three relevant news stories for the past week or so.

First, today journalist Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein goes on trial again in Sudan. Her crime is wearing pants in public. Rather than take lashings as other women who were arrested did or rather than take immunity from her job with the United Nations she is electing to go through a public trial in an effort to change the laws saying women cannot wear pants in public. Her original trial was scheduled for August but it got rescheduled to today. Best of luck to her!

Second, it’s been one year since the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights released its report on the high rate of public sexual harassment in Egypt. Bikya Masr writes about how little things have changed for women since then.

“The government and police have done little to enforce the laws in place, which call for up to one-year in prison and a hefty fine for perpetrators.

“The police chief told another man ‘what if this were to happen to a foreigner or even an ambassador’s wife? Then we would have a problem.’ I felt as if I was being demeaned because I was Egyptian,” said an Egyptian woman who recently took an incident to a local police office. She argued that the police do not seem to put much weight when it comes to average Egyptians complaining of harassment.

And it is Egyptian women who face the brunt of harassment on a daily basis. ECWR agrees, saying that “not addressing this problem leads to total injustice, especially since victims often hesitate to report incidents for lack of confidence in the legal system or fear of being blamed herself.”

Third (and lastly), there is an interesting article in the Yemen Times about street harassment. In January 2009, a survey revealed that most women experience street harassment and for many of them this causes fear and anxiety about going into public spaces. The article from last week covers the role of Sana’a’s police patrol who monitor the street for crimes like street harassment, the low report rate of harassment, and the impact of Sheikhs on negative attitudes about women being in public (punish women who are not modest and not cloistered etc). Educators suggest the importance of teaching both boys and girls not to harass each other and to report people who do.

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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