Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Egypt: Personal Account from Jan. 25 Protest

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Editor’s Note: HarassMap, an anti-harassment group in Egypt, posted the following on their Facebook account over the weekend. They, and the author, gave me permission to share it here. Please share it widely and follow their work: Website | Facebook | Twitter.  Also, here is a Guardian article about the attacks on women on Jan. 25.

THIS IS A HARASSMAP STAFF MEMBER’S PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF MOB SEXUAL ATTACKS IN #TAHRIR ON #JAN25 DURING OUR EFFORTS TO COUNTER THEM AS PART OF Op Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault قوة ضد التحرش/الإعتداء الجنسي الجماعي

By Hussein ElShafie

When I joined the second round of OpAntiSH, as a core team member and a Midan team participant, I wasn’t anticipating the nightmare we all went through! I expected our mere presence in the heart of the protests to be an important warning sign for the mobs not to approach the protesters. I walked through the square distributing flyers and I was met with cooperation and gratitude from the side of the people. However, in certain instances I would get completely encircled by groups who would grab my shirt, poke me and snatch flyers from my hands. I didn’t give their attitude much attention and I attributed it to the Adrenalin rush they must be experiencing.

While I walked I saw two girls from our Safety team running towards me asking for help dealing with a report from the Omar Makram side. We all three ran across the square bumping into everyone until we arrived to Omar Makram and we found nothing going on! Later we were informed that while we mobilized our efforts to that area a girl was being mob-attacked by the Mohamed Mahmoud side.

I went back to our headquarters in Talaat Harb and shortly afterwards our rescue team arrived to the building. The girl was among them semi-comatose. A huge crowd appeared to accompany them to the door and then they tried to break in. We half-closed the door and pulled in our volunteers. They were all being squeezed, grabbed and unable to breathe. While I was pulling in one of them I felt as if I was pulling out a tissue from a tight tissue box. We got them all inside, shut the door and locked it. Harassers tried to break the door and they started a small fire. The numbers were insane. The armed mob was infuriated by the sight of the girls indoor and by the fact that they (harassers) could not reach them. I asked one of them from behind the door what is it that they wanted and he answered “What are all those women doing inside?!”. We turned off the lights and sent the girls upstairs trying to minimize our visibility. The nightmare kept going on for 2 hours until their energy faded and we managed to gather some help from outside to disperse the mob. Police was non-existent.

When it was a little safer to get out I went with another volunteer from the Intervention team to survey the square, and by the time we could make out the Mohamed Mahmoud area a tear gas canister was thrown at us. We ran back to the building suffocating, falling off every few seconds and unable to open our eyes. That very canister could have saved us a lot of terror and harassment if it had been thrown at the mobs that had attacked us perseveringly for two hours earlier.

We were specifically targeted by the mobs while the police kept a deaf ear to our situation. However, our brave men and women managed to survive it. We were getting fake reports to waste our efforts and yet we managed to interfere in more than a dozen mob harassment cases. Seeing the relentless efforts of our volunteers was but an affirmation of the nobility of our cause, and an inspiration for every human being who wants to voice out their right to be free, safe and respected.

بلغوا عن حوادث التحرش الجنسي | Report sexual harassment: SMS 6069 | http://harassmap.org/reports/submit

تطوعوا | Volunteer: bit.ly/ZsFKcL

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We Leave the World Outside

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Editor’s Note: This blog post is cross-posted with permission from Cris’s blog Go the Way Your Blood Beats.

Preface: This is an older poem that addresses street violence and harassment. As a gender non conforming person of color, street harassment is an everyday reality.  It always astounds me how much the violence increases when I am traveling with a perceived “femme.” I can write some of the violence off as patriarchy, homophobia, fear, but intellectualizing it still doesn’t take away the after effects of violence, my body literally tenses up.

I am constantly thinking about negotiating space, when not to hold hands, which group of cis-men I should avoid, I constantly think about my safety and my partner/lover’s safety.  I also think about how as queer people this effects our interpersonal relationships.   When the outside world DOES creep into our beds, how do we take care of ourselves?  How do we empower ourselves in a world that strips us of dignity and attempts to make us feel ashamed of who we are.  What psychological and physical effects does this have on our community as a whole?

I have done searches online on safety planning specifically for street harassment for Queer folks and I’ve yet to find any.  Most resources are centered on intimate partner violence (straight & queer), but what about stranger violence? If you have resources please share. I will repost.

be safe.
-Cris

Cris Izaguirre is a Latin@, queer, poet, farmboi, producer, wanderer, lover of green things.  Raised in Brooklyn, NY, born in Nicaragua. Follow Cris on twitter @criswordsmith.  Check out their blog.
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We Leave the World Outside
for M

Beneath my red, pink, yellow stripped sheets

trace your flushed

cheeks with my thumb

kiss the corners of your mouth

Leave the world outside

 

See, outside in the world

our kind of love

is met with purple bruises

crimson splatter concrete, fists and broken teeth

bones split so easily

words shatter sternum

“Bitch! Dyke! Faggot!

You wanna be a man?

I’ll show you what a man is”

 

Inside, we mend love

suture muscle and flesh

using lips and tongue

“Saturate me” you say

I let the tears fall

heavy as sin

onto your collarbone

Leave the world outside

 

Lover, I fear

my skin and bones

aren’t steel

aren’t enough

to protect you

To risk a kiss on the Q train

to risk touching your face

on Ocean Avenue

before the change of a traffic light

to hold your lifeline in mine

 

At night I dream

the world is trying to get inside

underneath our sheets

onto our bodies

I wake up gasping for air

You pull me by my chin

Pull the red, pink, yellow stripped sheets

Over our heads

“Leave the world outside.”

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“We won’t let the city move unless justice is done.”

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Protest – I Stand for Safe Delhi

Trigger Warning!

Sunday night, a gang of men raped and hurt a 23-year-old woman on a bus in Delhi, India, and then threw her off. She had been traveling with a male friend and he was hurt too.

International Business Time reports:

“The pair, who were returning home from an evening at the cinema, were beaten, stripped and tossed out of the vehicle and are now at the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi, where the woman is listed in critical condition, suffering from head injuries, cuts, abrasions and sexual assault wounds. Indian media reported that she was placed on a ventilator with injuries in her stomach and intestines.

 D.K. Mishra, a relative of the young man who was attacked, told Indian media: ‘Five to seven people started harassing her. The boy protested and made every effort to come to her aid, but some people caught hold of him. Then three to four people took her and gang-raped her in the cabin of the bus.””
“JNU students lead the way in asking for justice.” Photo from the I Stand for Safe Delhi campaign

The brutality of the life-threatening attack has drawn widespread outcry. One of the many actions taken since Sunday night was a massive protest organized by I Stand for Safe Delhi Campaign yesterday during which students and community members blocked roads saying, “We won’t let the city move unless justice is done.”

Today, the Home Minister has promised to look into this matter himself and said that four of the men have been arrested.

Many other government officials spoke out, including MP Jaya Bachchan who reportedly, “was on her feet to raise the gang-rape issue as soon as the House met for the day.

She kept standing for a long time demanding suspension of Question Hour to take up the issue of safety of women. “I am deeply disturbed,” she said…An act of sexual assault should be treated on par with murder and section 307 of IPC be amended to include rape under it, she demanded.

Maya Singh (BJP) termed the incident as the “ultimate brutality” …. “This is not the solitary case…women are not safe in Delhi, an infant of even six years is not safe here, elderly women are not safe here,” Maya Singh said, demanding stringent punishment for those guilty of committing the barbaric act.

Renuka Chowdhury (Cong) said the terrible atrocity committed on the young girl cannot be “compensated by cash”. Underlining that it is the “business” of police to instill confidence among citizens, she wanted to know how the perpetrators of such crime “get away with the cowardice act”.

She called upon all women members to collectively meet the Home Minister, Commissioner of Police, Chief Minister of Delhi and top officials to find out their “action plan” to check such incidents.”

If you’re in Delhi, I hope you can join the mass protest planned at India Gate at 5 p.m. In less than a day, over 1,000 people have RSVPed to attend. Details.

Stop Street Harassment stands with the young woman survivor and with her friend who tried to protect her. We hope for the speedy recovery of both.
May Delhi, India— and the rest of the world—one day be free from sexual violence so incidents like this will never happen again.
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16 Days: Day 6, South Africa

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During the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence (Nov. 25 – Dec. 10), Stop Street Harassment is featuring activists who took action against street harassment this year, one new country per day.

via Africa Review

Day #6: South Africa

After two teenagers wearing miniskirts were harassed and groped by a group of 50-60 men at a taxi rank, around 3,000 South Africans marched through Johannesburg in protest. The ruling African National Congress Women’s League organized the march to emphasize “that women had the right wear whatever they wanted without fear of victimization.”

During the march, Women’s Minister Lulu Xingwana warned that she would close down the taxi rank if such harassment continued. She also said, “The scourge of women abuse threatens to erode many of the hard-earned gains of the liberation struggle. It denies women their birth rights. It condemns them to a life of fear and prevents them from being productive members of society.”

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Really, Bowlmor?: “Getting jumped in an alley has never been this much fun”

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This unacceptable ad was seen and photographed on the Q train in New York City by someone at Equality Now. She added the “Trigger Warning” message.

The full text of ad reads, “Getting jumped in an alley has never been this much fun.”

Clearly, the writer has never actually been jumped in an alley, nor has someone they care about. It is not fun.

Has anyone else seen this ad? I’m thinking about doing a Change.org petition to ask that it be taken down because of how offensive it is, but I want to know more about it first.

UPDATE: After the Huffington Post covered the ad, Bowlmor emailed them this response:

“We are surprised and disappointed that our recent advertisement – intended to be a humorous play on the words “bowling alley” – has been misinterpreted to advocate violence against women. Our company – consisting of hundreds of talented men and women – does not support abuse or violence in any form. Since its inception, Bowlmor Lanes has strived to be socially responsible and offer a family-friendly environment to our customers. We offer our sincere apologies to anyone who was offended by this advertisement. The campaign in question was scheduled to run throughout Aug. 2012, and is no longer in circulation. There are no plans to generate this campaign again.”

It’s too bad they don’t understand why this ad is offensive, but hey, at least they say they wont use it again.

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