Lubna Hussein Archives | Stop Street Harassment

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.

From AP — Women protesting at the trial. Image from AP

Today was the trial for Sudanese journalist Lubna Hussein, one of the women I reported on earlier who were arrested for wearing trousers in public. Most of the women received a flogging, but Hussein and two others elected to have a public trial in the hopes of raising awareness about the oppressiveness of the laws and to try to change them.

According to the AP:

“In an attempt to rally support, Hussein printed invitations to diplomats, international media, and activists to attend her trial which opened last week. She also resigned from her job in the U.N.’s public information office in Khartoum, declining the immunity that went along with the job to challenge the law.

Around 100 supporters, including many women in trousers as well as others in traditional dress, protested outside the court Tuesday.

Witnesses said police wielding batons beat up one of Hussein’s lawyers, Manal Awad Khogali, while keeping media and cameras at bay. No injuries were immediately reported.

‘We are here to protest against this law that oppresses women and debases them,’ said one of the protesters, Amal Habani, a female columnist for the daily Ajraas Al Hurria, or Bells of Freedom in Arabic.

While the police broke up the demonstration outside the Khartoum Criminal Court, the judge adjourned Hussein’s trial for a month to clarify whether her resignation has been accepted by the United Nations.”

How every brave of her and the other women. I hope their efforts won’t be in vain.

Also, as I said in my previous post: while this isn’t directly “street harassment” per say, a lot of discussion about street harassment ends up touching upon “what was she wearing” so I think this story is relevant from that aspect. Also, street harassment can be viewed as a kind of social control that keeps a lot of women off the streets at night and/or when they are alone and this incident in Sudan shows blatant and extreme forms of attempted social control over women.

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Trying to Change the Law