Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Brussels Makes Offensive Speech Punishable by Fines

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Posing like the tourist that I was in downtown Brussels

Many verbal forms of street harassment are meant to humiliate, annoy or anger the recipient (e.g. sexually explicit language, demands for a smile, calling someone a bitch, dike, fag, or whore) and those forms should, in my opinion, be considered hate speech or, at the very least, offensive speech.

Maybe I should move to Brussels.

Officials in Brussels recently updated their “Regulation of Public conduct” to make offensive language spoken in public spaces in the city punishable by fines. This includes racist and homophobic comments and sexual harassment.

Via International Business Times:

“City officials in Belgium’s capital Brussels recently announced a set of new fines that target use of offensive language in public.

“Any form of insult is from now on punishable, whether it be racist, homophobic or otherwise,” Brussels Mayor Freddy Thielemans’ spokesperson quoted him as saying.

Authorities plan to impose fines of between 75 and 250 euros for using offensive language in public, including sexual harassment, in an attempt to not only deter potential offenders, but to encourage law enforcement to crack down on such behavior.

The mayor’s spokesman said the courts had previously been too busy to take on such cases, which resulted in police having “little incentive to take any action over such incidents,” the Daily Telegraph reported.”

I didn’t see it mentioned in any articles, but presumably now the courts will be able to take on these cases?

Visit Hollaback Brussels’ website to learn more about this change and their thoughts about it.

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Chalk Walk: Women in Brussels reclaim the places where they were harassed

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Editor’s Note: This guest blog post is reprinted from the Hollaback Brussels Facebook page about the “Chalk Walk” they took on March 24, 2012, for International Anti-Street Harassment Week:

Morning. Saturday. 10.30 am. The sun’s slowly coming up over the rooftops. The streets of Brussels are greeting us. All 4 of us are on ‘our way’. Anxious.

We meet up at ‘Ribaucourt, Molenbeek’. The place where Angelika was harassed. The streets still look quite empty, as if Brussels hasn’t fully woken up yet.

We arrive cheerfully to the ‘spot’, we organise, make our DIY ‘banners’, excited. Time to start. This is Angelika’s moment. With colorful chalk she starts to write on the sidewalk. People pass by glancing quickly, trying to read what she’s writing. ‘I was harassed here. I Hollaback. I reclaim the street.’ she writes strongly.

When it’s over we hug and congratulate Angelika and with our banner she goes and stands at the top of her chalk-text, reclaiming this street, this sidewalk!

Next stop: Lemonnier. The place where Anna was harassed. The tram takes us there and Anna retells parts of her story. She shows us where she went and stood trying to get away from her harasser, there, in the middle of that four-lane boulevard.

The ritual is the same. She starts to write, getting into the moment. People pass. Try to read. When it’s over we hug her firmly and congratulate her. She proudly and beautifully reclaims this spot.

And so we continue. To the Metro/Subway ‘De Brouckere’. The place where Ingrid was harassed. She walks with us and shows us where her story happened. On the staircase leading to the subway platform.

She decides to write in front of the subway entrance, on the sidewalk. It’s a busy spot. When she starts, some people actually stop to see what’s she’s writing, what’s happening. The language changes. Writing in French now.

A guy comes over asks us ‘what we are doing?’ We explain, he thinks ‘this is great, he hasn’t seen anyone do this before’.

Ingrid boldly reclaims ‘De Brouckere’.

We hug and congratulate her and we’re off again to our last stop: the bridge at the cemetery of Ixelles. The place where Julie was harassed.

Again a busy place. Cars honk their horns at us while we’re on the bridge. What are we doing? People pass.

Julie writes in beautiful French. It feels like artwork. We let her get into her moment. She writes: ‘J’ai été harcelée ici. La rue m’appartient. Hollaback’.

La rue m’appartient: The street belongs to me. Such a ‘right way’ to say this.

When Julie is finished, she goes and stands on the bridge and fiercely reclaims it. We hug her and cheer!

And that .. concludes the first part of our day! AWESOME is not even a strong enough word to describe it! EMPOWERING comes close! What we discovered was that writing with chalk on the sidewalk, on the street, on the bridge, telling Brussels: “I was harassed here’ ‘I reclaim the street’ is a powerful, liberating ritual and an amazing hollaback !

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