• About Us
    • What Is Street Harassment?
    • Why Stopping Street Harassment Matters
    • Meet the Team
      • Board of Directors
      • Past Board Members
    • In The Media
  • Our Work
    • National Street Harassment Hotline
    • International Anti-Street Harassment Week
    • Blog Correspondents
      • Past SSH Correspondents
    • Safe Public Spaces Mentoring Program
    • Publications
    • National Studies
    • Campaigns against Companies
    • Washington, D.C. Activism
  • Our Books
  • Donate
  • Store

Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • Blog
    • Harassment Stories
    • Blog Correspondents
    • Street Respect Stories
  • Help & Advice
    • National Street Harassment Hotline
    • Dealing With Harassers
      • Assertive Responses
      • Reporting Harassers
      • Bystander Responses
      • Creative Responses
    • What to Do Before or After Harassment
    • Street Harassment and the Law
  • Resources
    • Definitions
    • Statistics
    • Articles & Books
    • Anti-Harassment Groups & Campaigns
    • Male Allies
      • Educating Boys & Men
      • How to Talk to Women
      • Bystander Tips
    • Video Clips
    • Images & Flyers
  • Take Community Action
  • Contact

New Transit Ads in Boston Focus on Persons with Disabilities

November 4, 2016 By HKearl

bostontransitadnov2016Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) has launched a new wave of ads! 800 posters will be on public transit until February.

Via Boston Globe:

“The campaign is explicitly inclusive of people with disabilities, both as people who may experience sexual harassment and as people who can intervene to prevent sexual violence,” Yen-Ewert said. “National and state studies show that people with disabilities experience sexual violence at two times the rate compared to people without disabilities.”

Karen Schneiderman, the senior advocacy specialist at the Boston Center for Independent Living, said the campaign “raises awareness about the issue of sexual violence against people with disabilities and the importance of having services that are accessible to all. I also appreciate that this campaign highlights people with disabilities in the role of assisting others, not just as people who are victimized.”

Learn more at MBTA.com.

bostontransitadnov2016-2

Way to go, Boston! I also appreciate how they say they can be people who intervene, as well people who experience sexual harassment, recognizing they can have agency and take action.

MBTA has a nearly nine year history of anti-harassment ads. The first wave of ads went up in 2008, the next in 2009 and then the next in 2013. I’m glad to see them continue tackling this issue. Kudos also goes to the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center for their partnership on the ads over the years.

bostontransitadnov2016_4

Share

Filed Under: disabilities, public harassment, Resources Tagged With: Boston, MBTA, transit campaign

Nov. & Dec. 2015 News Round-Up

December 29, 2015 By HKearl

I haven’t made time to do news round-ups over the past two months (!!) but finally, here are some global highlights of stories about street harassment, broken out by country.

Afghanistan:

“On one recent weekend in Kabul, I sat on a ratty couch in one of the city’s beauty parlors, one of the few safe spaces for women in Afghanistan. Squeezed between a pile of handbags and a five-year-old boy waiting for his mother’s curls to set, a dozen women turned to look at me.

“Repeat your question,” one of them commanded. “Have any of you been sexually harassed in public?” I asked. The parlor exploded in bitter laughter. “Get ready,” Mariam said to me. “If you ask each of us, you’re going to fill that notebook of yours.”

The types of public harassment they described ranged from sexually charged comments about appearance, indecent whistling, and physical attacks like groping, pinching, and slapping. In Afghanistan, this objectification and mistreatment of women is all too common. Research shows that nearly nine out of ten Afghan women are forced to endure such treatment. And there’s seemingly nowhere for them to go. Women are harassed and assaulted in quiet areas when no one else is around, but also in busy public places like bus stations, markets, shops, and parks, where there are plenty of aiders and abettors.”

 

Australia:

Congrats to our ally MP Fiona Patten whose proposed legislation passed. The legislation “makes it an offence to film people without consent or block access to footpaths, roads and vehicles within the zone around GP clinics, hospitals and other health services offering abortions.”

 

Brazil:

“How old are young girls when they are “first harassed” by men? Women in Brazil are reflecting on their own childhood experiences – and sharing these stories on the internet in big numbers….

The tag ‪#‎primeiroassedio has been used more than 90,000 times, with women and girls sharing the stories of their first encounter with public sexual harassment. “At 11, I was heading to my dance class and a man touched my bottom,” tweeted one. “13 years old. I was going to the supermarket. Heard from a gentleman that I already had ‘beautiful boobs.’ ‪#‎firstharassment,” said another.”

 

Costa Rica:

“Cruz was best known as the man who confronted another man for filming an upskirt video in San Jose. He was then stabbed multiple times two days later while walking through San Sebastian…The upskirt videographer has been caught before and even received death threats. Mr. Cruz spent weeks in intensive care and was only able to communicate with blinks and eye gestures. He passed away in the hospital. He is survived by his partner Karol Zúñiga who is expecting a baby girl in 12 weeks.”

So tragic! A life that never should have ended this way or for simply challenging street harassment. Our thoughts go out to his loved ones and friends.

 

Egypt:

“Uber has announced it will start collaborating with HarassMap خريطة التحرش الجنسي, an Egyptian anti-sexual harassment initiative founded in 2010, to train its drivers in how to “recognize, prevent and take positive action” against inappropriate behavior. The training, which will be compulsory for all the app’s drivers, will be particularly important for female drivers, according to Uber’s Cairo general manager, Anthony Khoury. “This partnership has been done as a response to the general education and training needed against sexual harassment here in Cairo,” he said. “Education is key, which is why this partnership – and the training that comes with it – is a crucial step in stopping sexual harassment.”

 

ParisAnti-HarassmentTransitCampaignDec2015France:

“Stop – That’s Enough!” This is the tagline used by the French government in an active push to stop sexual harassment on public transport.

The government launched the awareness campaign on Monday together with rail operator SNCF and Paris transport chiefs RATP. It will see flyers handed out and a set of posters put up in key places around the capital, encouraging victims and witnesses to speak out with confidence about sexual harassment. The campaign also aims to remind the culprits that sexual harassment is punishable by law and groping can lead to five years in prison.”

 

India:

“What do women do when faced with sexual harassment on the streets [of Mumbai]? According to a recent survey of 1,000 women conducted by the We the People Foundation, 34 per cent glared or reacted verbally, 15 per cent asked bystanders for help and 35 per cent did nothing.”

 

Iran:

“TNS: What should be done then to counter the problem of street harassment? How can we ensure safety of women in public spaces in a broader sense?

HH: The fact is that veil isn’t the solution. The political will to end harassment is the solution because in the context of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the veil hasn’t actually helped. Today if a veiled woman walks in a street in Egypt, relative to the 1980s when I was there, she would face as much harassment as a woman wearing western style clothing… because most women are also wearing the veil anyway. So it no longer signifies class like it used to. It was adopted in a way to negotiate, but when everybody does it, the value of negotiation comes down.”

 

Italy:

“Over 10 million tourists are expected to visit Rome during the Holy Year of Mercy. Hundreds of security men in uniform are patrolling our streets in order to protect the citizens. But when it comes to a girl strolling all by herself, it appears that the stereotypical Italian male traits take precedent over any official role. It’s an attitude that may Italians are used to, but it could prove uncomfortable for foreign visitors. We filmed a young woman walking on the streets of Rome all by herself, and we asked women – both Italian and foreigner – what do they feel when comments come from law enforcement men (video by Fabio Butera)”

 

The Philippines:

“The ‪#‎FreeFromFear social media campaign is part of the program that aims to resolve the problem of women experiencing street harassment. Through the campaign, women share their experiences to raise awareness and join calls for the end of street harassment. The incidents are very common in crowded spaces like public vehicles where people are sitting or standing very close to each other.”

 

Morocco:

“A man was reportedly left unconscious for more than two hours after being knocked out by a woman whose bottom he had pinched. CCTV footage taken in the town of Inezgane in Morocco shows the woman wearing yellow robes and standing next to a motorcycle when the man approaches. The balding attacker then moves close to the victim and appears to grope her bottom. Without missing a beat, the woman spins around and delivers a single punch to the back of the unidentified man’s head, sending him careering into a stack of rugs in a nearby shop.”

 

UK:

“What traveling with a man taught me about street harassment à ‘Not having to deal with this bullshit and all the other seemingly harmless infractions in between has made me realise just how pernicious it is, just how unfair. These past four months of freedom have taught me that what I accept as life in London is unacceptable. I’m not yet sure if this realisation, this newfound intolerance, is a good or a bad thing. All I know for sure is that I’m not looking forward to finding out.’”

 

UK:

“A group of teenage girls are taking action to stamp out groping at venues – in a drive to make live performances safe spaces for music fans of both genders. The five girls aged 15 to 17 – Hannah, Ava, Anna, Anni and Bea – launched Girls Against last month to raise awareness of sexual assaults at concerts. Their ultimate aim is to eliminate mosh-pit groping “for good”. In the short term, they want to see the perpetrators identified and stopped from entering future gigs. With several indie bands including Peace, Slaves and Wolf Alice backing the campaign, and more than 7,000 Twitter followers, the girls are already claiming practical results in their drive to create a zero-tolerance approach. ”

 

USA:

“In the window of a gallery in San Francisco’s Mission district, Mirabelle Jones paced the enclosed space in nothing but nude underwear. Razor blades suspended from balloons hung just over her head. In this pink-tinted, claustrophobic exhibition, the San Francisco performance artist stripped down and endured a barrage of real (recorded) catcalls. For eight hours. The idea behind the exhibition To Skin A Catcaller is to change what we see when we hear the term “catcall.”…

In its rawness and brutality, Jones’s performance showed the reality of street harassment that women encounter everywhere, especially in supposedly pedestrian-friendly cities like San Francisco or New York. This is why women have a newfound sense of urgency in the ongoing effort to effect change by, say, criminalizing street harassment and finding effective ways to prevent these all-too-common attacks on our personal safety. Misogyny in America is not a neat and tidy issue. It’s the kind of trauma that sticks with you and festers until you’re a little afraid to go anywhere alone.

Jones’s exercise in exposure speaks to the sad fact that most victims of a sexual assault do not file a police report. When people try to excuse catcalling as harmless or downplay it as a compliment, it only increases trepidation about seeking help for fear of being blamed or slut-shamed. The reality is that being sexually harassed makes women feel exposed, vulnerable, defensive. Catcalling is ultimately somewhere between micro-aggression and actual threat, the kind of imperative grey area that sometimes only art alone can translate.”

 

USA:

“Gay, bisexual, transgender and queer men need to elevate their own narratives and use the examples provided by feminism to stage sustainable interventions and engage in consciousness raising about eradicating toxic masculinity from the community once and for all.

The community has long prided itself on celebrating and enjoying an array of sexual proclivities, but not every unsolicited advance, or act of sexual aggression, is fun for every man. The only reason that’s hard to recognize is that we’re still being held back by the heterosexual masculinity that so much of queer culture has worked to reject. We must foster community that celebrates a healthy, pleasurable sexuality – one that respects bodies and boundaries.”

 

USA:

“”We do an annual Halloween rally every year to protest against street harassment and rape culture [in Santa Barbara, CA],” fourth year global studies and feminist studies double major and TBTN Co-Chair Ashley Morgan said. “It gets pretty hectic during the holidays; there’s a lot of grabbing and sexual comments that are very much unwelcome. We just want to make sure that people understand that’s not a joke, it’s not a compliment — it’s violence.”

The demonstration began at 11 AM at Harold Frank Hall, and students marched to the front of the UCen. Several groups of people touring campus looked on as participants chanted “Hey-Ho, Hey-Ho, Catcalling has got to go,” “Whistles are for dogs, not for women,” “However we dress, wherever we go, yes means yes, no means no,” among other statements.

“We’re having a safe space this Friday and Saturday from 10 PM to 2 AM in the Pardall Center,” Morgan said. “We’re going to have…advocates there as well as CAPS counselors for anyone; it’s specifically for sexual assault, but it’s also for anyone that’s feeling unsafe or triggered.”

Share

Filed Under: LGBTQ, News stories, street harassment, weekly round up Tagged With: bystander murdered, girls, performance art, story sharing, transit campaign, young age

Update on Washington, DC-Area Anti-Harassment Transit Campaign

November 23, 2015 By HKearl

Anti-Harassment Transit Ad, Washington DCIt’s been more than 3.5 years since we began working with Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS) and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) on an anti-harassment campaign.

Periodically, we meet with the sexual harassment taskforce at WMATA to discuss the campaign and next steps, etc. Today was one of those meetings, with myself, four WMATA staff members, and CASS’s interim executive director Jessica Raven.

For a status update on what the campaign currently entails:

* A second wave of anti-harassment ads are up across the system.

* More trainings are underway to ensure that all 4000 front line employees know what to do if they witness or experience street harassment or if someone reports an incident to them.

* There is an online reporting form that makes it easier to report incidents.

* We jointly hold annual outreach days, distributing materials at metro stations during International Anti-Street Harassment Week. This year, we were at five metro stations across VA, DC and MD.

Metro outreach day, April 2015

I am excited that today at our meeting, WMATA committed to a third wave of ads next year. They will survey riders before the end of this year to better understand their experiences with harassment and their feelings about the first and second waves of ads, and ask for their thoughts for the next wave. We discussed having a message focused on bystanders and/or the community-of riders generally, but we will see what riders have to say.

11.23.15 WMATA - SSH - CASS meeting. (L to R): Jason Minser, Jessica Raven, Lynn Bowser, Holly Kearl, Deputy Chief Leslie Campbell, and Morgan Dye
11.23.15 WMATA – SSH – CASS meeting. (L to R): Jason Minser, Jessica Raven, Lynn Bowser, Holly Kearl, Deputy Chief Leslie Campbell, and Morgan Dye

WMATA wants to collaborate on four flyering/outreach events at Metro stations in 2016: 1) during Anti-Street Harassment Week in April, 2) mid-summer, 3) around the back-to-school time, and 4) on December 10 for Human Rights Day.

We discussed a few other ways that we may collaborate to help spread the word about the campaign among WMATA staff and the larger Metro-area community. More on those ideas when they are solidified.

All in all, it was a productive meeting.

I am so proud and happy every time I see one of the Metro ads (and on my metro ride to/from the meeting I saw two different ones), not only because I am part of the campaign, but also because I feel great pride in knowing that my city takes this issue seriously and is expending significant time, resources, and staff power to help people feel safer on public transit. Thank you, WMATA!

Also of note –

* The history of how our collaboration came about is featured in my new book Stop Global Street Harassment: Growing Activism Around the World.

* If you’re in the DC-area, join WMATA, CASS, Defend Yourself, the DC Rape Crisis Center, and SSH staff and many community members in testifying about street harassment before the DC City Council next week, Dec. 3.

 

Share

Filed Under: SSH programs, street harassment Tagged With: DC-area, transit campaign, WMATA

France: New Anti-Harassment Transit Campaign

November 9, 2015 By HKearl

A member of Stop Harcèlement de Rue - by the new French anti-harassment transit campaign
A member of Stop Harcèlement de Rue – by the new French anti-harassment transit campaign

France just rolled out a nationwide anti-harassment transit campaign!

Info via The Local FR:

“Stop – That’s Enough!”

This is the tagline used by the French government in an active push to stop sexual harassment on public transport.

The government launched the awareness campaign on Monday together with rail operator SNCF and Paris transport chiefs RATP.

It will see flyers handed out and a set of posters put up in key places around the capital, encouraging victims and witnesses to speak out with confidence about sexual harassment.

The campaign also aims to remind the culprits that sexual harassment is punishable by law and groping can lead to five years in prison….

Outspoken French feminist group Osez le Féminisme! was one of the organizations behind the push to get authorities to take notice, and welcomed the move on Monday.

“I’ve seen the posters everywhere in the subway now, it’s great that the public service takes this point so seriously,” one of the group’s members, named Aurelia Speziale, told The Local on Monday…

The campaign has taken to several channels to push the message, including encouraging women to share their experiences on social media with the hashtag #HarcèlementAgissons (“Act now against harassment”). The topic was trending on Twitter in Paris on Monday morning.

Other measures saw the implementation of the emergency number 3117, which can be used to report cases of harassment, and to trigger the intervention of security staff. It will soon work via text message too for situations when women aren’t able to speak on the phone.
Night buses in western France’s Nantes have also introduced “on demand” bus stops, meaning people can get off the vehicle as close to their home as possible rather than at the bus stop with everyone else….

When its survey of 600 women in Seine-Saint-Denis and Essonne, two areas in the outer suburbs of Paris, revealed shocking responses. It found that 100 percent of the women said they had experienced at least some form of gender-based sexual harassment in their life while riding the train.”

In Lille in northern France, Ville Sans Relou released a video showing some of the comments that people have been subjected to while out and about in Lille. The video, with English subtitles below, sees one woman recount how someone asked her “Hi, can I rape you please?”…

 

Share

Filed Under: News stories, public harassment Tagged With: france, transit campaign

Egypt: Comic Stories Against Harassment

October 29, 2015 By HKearl

Imprint Movement's new campaign. October 2015

Our friends at Imprint Movement, in collaboration with Al-Moltqa for Consulting and Training, launched a new anti-harassment campaign in Cario’s subways yesterday.

Their press release says:

“The campaign aims aims to communicate to subway passengers and security personnel how sexual harassment affects the entire Egyptian society and not only the girl or the woman who gets sexually harassed.

Imprint has chosen a new approach to draw attention, “Comic Stories”. The comic stories address the challenges that women face created by sexual harassment, the victim blaming culture, to what extend do women and girls feel safe in public space, reactions of the public, its reflection on her personal and professional life and how that effects the entire society. Many posters will be put up to show how the crime of sexual harassment increases when the public don’t interfere to support the girl/woman who get sexually harassed.
The comic story will be circulating around the Cairo subway, It’s Now at Al-Shohadaa, Then it will take place at Mohamed Naguib then Al-Sadat and finally Al-Attaba  metro stations. Twelve posters will be put up at Helwan University station, Manshyet Al Sadr Station and Cairo university station as these station are considered to have the most activity and gets huge amount of people daily.

The launching of “What will you do?” campaign is 24th of October, 2015 and ends on the 15th of February 2016.”

Congratulations to them on this innovative campaign!

Learn more about the campaign and see photos here.

Via the Guardian: An illustration depicting a young woman’s experience on a minibus. Illustration: Ahmed Nahby/Mada Masr/Imprint
Via the Guardian: An illustration depicting a young woman’s experience on a minibus. Illustration: Ahmed Nahby/Mada Masr/Imprint

UPDATE: The Guardian has a great feature article about their campaign. Here is an excerpt:

“Imprint, the organisation behind the campaign, has been raising awareness of sexual harassment through events ranging from one-on-one conversations to workshops, co-founder Abdel Fattah al-Sharkawy explained.

He said participants – both male and female – often found they weren’t aware of what constitutes sexual harassment, and rarely related the term to their own day-to-day experiences.

‘We wanted to make that link’ through the comic campaign, he said.

The group decided to work with comics because ‘they’re catchy and colourful’, drawing people of all ages in to explore the stories they tell, Sharkawy added.

Another image from the series shows male passengers on a minibus reacting to the young woman.

‘This woman can be an influential person in your life,’ the illustration reads. ‘Sexual harassment doesn’t harm her alone, it harms us all.’

They differ from typical public service announcements because they rely on storytelling instead of propagandistic slogans, so they ‘make you think and form an opinion,’ he said.”

Share

Filed Under: News stories, Resources, street harassment Tagged With: Egypt, imprint movement, transit campaign

Share Your Story

Share your street harassment story for the blog. Donate Now

From the Blog

  • #MeToo 2024 Study Released Today
  • Join International Anti-Street Harassment Week 2022
  • Giving Tuesday – Fund the Hotline
  • Thank You – International Anti-Street Harassment Week 2021
  • Share Your Story – Safecity and Catcalls Collaboration

Buy the Book

  • Contact
  • Events
  • Join Us
  • Donate
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Copyright © 2025 Stop Street Harassment · Website Design by Sarah Marie Lacy