Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

OCAC Chile presents New Bill to Congress

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Posted with the permission of Observatorio Contra el Acoso Callejero Chile

VALPARAISO, 17 March.- In the month of International Women’s Day and the UN CSW 59th, which discusses the status of women in the world, Chile advances in the struggle for gender equality. In order to remove street harassment from the bad number of violence complaints, as well as prevent future attacks and protect victims, the Observatorio Contra el Acoso Callejero Chile – OCAC Chile (Observatory Against Street Harassment), Tuesday, presented to Congress the Bill “Law for Street Respect”, which seeks to enroll street harassment in Chilean law.

The project is divided into four main areas: it defines what is understood as street harassment, defines what acts shall constitute a minor offense, incorporates into the Penal Code the offense of street harassment and proposes alternative measures with an educational focus. In parallel, OCAC Chile submitted to the Executive power a set of recommendations to promote educational and preventive public policy, and thus not merely criminalize the problem.

“We believe that the Law for Street Respect is a vital step towards a more friendly and safe public space for everyone. This will be a tool that will prevent attacks and protect victims, besides having a preventive, educational and committed to gender equity approach”, said Maria Francisca Valenzuela, President of OCAC Chile.

The document is sponsored by the deputies Camila Vallejo (PC) and Karla Rubilar (Amplitud) and was signed by parliamentarians of cross militancy, as Giorgio Jackson (Independiente-RD), Daniella Cicardini (PS), Loreto Carvajal (PPD) Marcela Sabat (RN), Karol Cariola (PC), Vlado Mirosevic (Liberal), Yasna Provost (DC) and Gabriel Boric (Self-IA).

“It is important to legislate on street assaults so they do not become naturalized, since in an almost imperceptibly way they can affect psychologically who is the subject of such aggression. I hope we can have a transverse support this motion,” said Santiago’s  deputy, Giorgio Jackson.

For its part, the parliamentary Camila Vallejo, sponsor of the bill, said that “every day, women of all ages, regardless of socioeconomic status, are discriminated against and abused physically or psychologically. Laws like this are intended to assert our struggle for gender equality, for recognition of our humanity, so often trampled and abused”.

To develop this initiative, OCAC Chile had the support of UN Women and the European Union. If passed the law, Chile would join countries like Peru, and various nations of Europe which have already moved towards regulations that address, prevent and punish this form of violence.

For more information, OCAC has developed the respetocallejero.cl website, where you can download the full bill, review an explanatory video and read testimonials about street harassment in Chile.

Video with english subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm2cQ8wixPc&feature=youtu.be

Press Contacts

Observatory Against Street Harassment (OCAC Chile)

Javiera Contreras
comunicaciones@ocacchile.org
+569 8136 7869

Program to Strengthen Civil Society Organizations that Promote Gender Equality UN Women – European Union
Monica M. Maureira
maureira.monica@gmail.com
+569 9959 4156

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CSW and International Women’s Day 2015

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Happy International Women’s Day! This is an important opportunity each year for raising awareness about issue that particularly affect women, such as street harassment.

As the author of this Time magazine article notes, we’ve made a lot of progress in the past few decades regarding the education of girls, women’s access to water, women’s leadership, and maternal mortality. BUT there are still gaps in these areas and HUGE gaps in areas like gender-based violence. So as always, there is a lot more work to do.

The day coincides with the start of UN’s annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York City and I am en route to attend the NGO CSW Consultation Day today. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director, UN Women, will be one of the speakers and panelists from around the world will talk about the UN/international women’s movement from 1975-1995, the 1995 Beijing conference on women’s rights, what’s happened in the 20 years since then, and what comes next.

Starting at UN headquarters, an International Women’s Day march took place, concluding at Times Square around 4:30 p.m.

International Women's Day March
International Women’s Day March

Tomorrow I have various meetings — including at the UN — and also will attend the No Ceilings Full Participation Report release. From the event press release:

“The report is the culmination of a year-long, global data aggregation effort by the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in collaboration with The Economist Intelligence Unit, UCLA WORLD Policy Analysis Center and Fathom Information Design. The report identifies the significant gains women and girls have made – and the gaps that still remain – since the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, when Secretary Clinton called on the international community to ensure “women’s rights are human rights.” Benchmarking process since that landmark event, No Ceilings is making the data open and accessible, and is pairing the report with an interactive, shareable collection of data visualizations. The data visualizations will highlight key findings from the data through interactive stories, as well as allow users the ability to explore the data on their own.”

Speakers will include Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, Melinda Gates, Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia, Her Excellency Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, President of the Republic of Croatia, Malala Yousafzai, and Sheryl WuDunn.

I will tweet during (or soon after) the events (@hkearl) and blog about them on Tuesday, so stay tuned. 

CSW will last about two weeks and the parallel events hosted by NGOs are free and open to the public if you’re in the area and want to attend.

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International Women’s Day: Young Women’s Action Team Inspires

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The Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team in Chicago stands out to me as being a great organization for inspiring a positive future for girls in their community. Through the organization, girls were able to come together and collectively address issues impacting their daily life, including street harassment. They learned their power as a group and they learned the effectiveness of surveys, lobbying, rallying, and speaking out to create concrete changes. These are tools they can use their whole life to advocate for positive change and to stand up for their rights and the rights of others.

Here’s a synopsis of what they did to address street harassment in Chicago – their work continues to be very inspirational to me and I consider them role models.

From 2003 until 2011, members of the Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team (YWAT) led an anti-street harassment campaign in Chicago, Illinois. To start, the eight founding YWAT members surveyed 168 neighborhood girls, ages 13 to 19, about street harassment and interviewed 34 more in focus groups. They published their findings in a report titled “Hey Cutie, Can I Get Your Digits?” The results were astounding: 86 percent had been catcalled on the street and 60 percent said they felt unsafe walking in their neighborhoods.

With their report in hand, the young women began a successful and well-organized anti-street harassment campaign. For example, they worked with local business owners to let them know men standing outside their stores harassed them and made them feel unsafe. Over 120 business owners agreed to post signs in their windows that said, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T let me tell YOU what it means to ME! Respect my body. Respect my mind. Respect ME. STOP STREET HARASSMENT.” The efforts of YWAT led to fewer men loitering outside businesses, harassing girls and women.

YWAT also held public forums on street harassment and worked with local leaders, including police and elected officials, to address public safety. One of the YWAT’s major victories was the installation of more street lights along Howard Street and Morse Avenue. City officials also installed a camera on Morse Avenue to better monitor street activities.

In May 2006 and May 2007, YWAT organized a Citywide Day of Action against Street Harassment Campaign to convey the message “the streets belong to ALL OF US.” People participated in 140 forms of activism that day. (This in part inspired me to launch International Anti-Street Harassment Week.)

The young women also hold anti-street harassment workshops at high schools, conferences, and community events. Their latest initiative is working to make public transportation safer in Chicago.

During the spring of 2009, the group of teenage and college-age women surveyed 639 Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) riders, mostly young women. They found that sexual harassment is common on CTA buses and trains. Over half of the survey respondents said they had been sexually harassed and 13 percent said they had been sexually assaulted. Forty-four percent of those surveyed said they had witnessed harassment or assault.

Armed with their survey results, YWAT met with the CTA Board and other key decision makers and asked that CTA employees receive training on how to deal with harassment and that CTA post more information about how people can report harassers. In a major victory for YWAT, only one month later in July 2009, the CTA announced it would expand its policies on how bus and rail operators deal with harassers. The CTA said it would update its public safety tips brochures to include information about harassment and how to report it.

In November 2009, the CTA began to made good on their word and launched PSAs about harassment. Their new print PSA states, “If it’s unwanted, it’s harassment. Touching. Rude comments. Leering. Speak up. If you see something, say something.” At the bottom of the poster there is information for whom to contact if a rider is the target of sexual harassment.

Their work inspired me and others in Washington, DC, to testify before our city council and metro leaders last month to advocate for a PSA campaign too.

Teenage girls face the most frequent street harassment of any age group and I believe it is so important for them to have a big voice in speaking out about this issue and demanding changes that are realistic and will impact the specific problems they face.

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“If you ever walk alone to your car without thinking someone might attack you, this isn’t your day.”

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International Women’s Day (the 100th anniversary, no less) is a bonanza for events, articles, and activities on women’s rights! I love it.  What a day and it’s not even 10 a.m.

At 7 a.m. today, it was chilly with a beautiful clear sky when I joined three of my AAUW coworkers and a dozen other early-risers to participate in the Washington, DC, contingency of Women for Women International‘s Meet Me on the Bridge event. While we enjoyed bagels and coffee, we gathered at the base of the Lincoln Memorial to talk about women’s rights. Then we dodged bicyclist commuters to cross the Arlington Memorial Bridge. It was inspiring to be gathered so early and to know we were part of thousands of people all over the world crossing bridges to commemorate women’s rights.

Now that I’m online, my Facebook and Twitter feeds are flooded with International Women’s  Day events, articles, and campaigns. It’s fantastic! Here are a few that stood out to me:

And here are a few of my favorite tweets!

What are you doing for International Women’s Day?

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Stopping a harasser at an International Women’s Day event

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Today, my partner and I attended the Join Me On the Bridge event in DC (hosted by Women for Women International to mark International Women’s Day — I was there representing the women’s organization I work for) when a guy came up to our group harassing some of the women. My partner was the only man there until this other guy came along. I gave him the benefit of a doubt and thought maybe he was a male ally, too.

Wrong.

He went up to some of the women and was talking to them, then told the organizer of the event that she was “hot” while she was trying to explain what the event was about, etc. Then he went back to a couple of the women who were sitting down, and started to feel up one of their legs! She looked very uncomfortable and pulled her leg away from him. So, I ran over, and yelled, “Hey!”

He turned towards me, and I said, “Look, this is supposed to be a safe place for women. You need to stop harassing people.”

In his colorful language he told me he wasn’t harassing anyone because he didn’t have a weapon and his “dick [was] behind a zipper, behind a zipper.” And then he started to unzip his coveralls!

I told him that he was clearly harassing people, and that he shouldn’t be touching anyone, especially when it is obviously unwanted. He said fine and that he’d just leave. And he did, but not before telling a couple women that they were hot as he walked away.

My partner didn’t see what was happening at first, but when he heard me raise my voice he ran over to check if I was okay. He was incredibly bothered by what happened and gets upset whenever I’m street harassed.

I told him what happened and vented my frustration that a group of women (and men) can’t even gather together for a peaceful event honoring women across the globe without someone getting harassed.

I’m always scared when I speak out against harassing behavior because you never know when someone is going to be violent. My partner and I have seen a guy pull a knife on a bus before, so we both feel that it’s a real potential threat.

But I did feel a small victory today — and not just by stopping street harassment. I got to meet some other cool women’s rights advocates. It’s just a shame they had to experience that today.

– Katie B.

Location: Duke Ellington Bridge in Washington, DC

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue.

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