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A Woman is Murdered in Trinidad, the Mayor Blames Her

February 13, 2016 By HKearl

Trigger Warning – Rape and Murder

Asami Nagakiya, a 30-year-old Japanese professional musician. Image via Change.org

Tragically this week, Asami Nagakiya, a Japanese women who attended the Trinidad Carnival celebration as a professional musician, was murdered — and likely raped. Now there’s a petition you can sign calling for the local mayor’s resignation after he blamed HER for it.

Via the Washington Post:

“‘She had a laceration on her elbow and black and blue marks on her waist,’ Adams told reporters. ‘It look like a rape/murder to me.’

Authorities released an autopsy report Thursday stating that Nagakiya had been strangled, according to television station CNC. They have not commented on the suspicion that Nagakiya was sexually assaulted.”

To make matters worse, the local mayor blamed HER for her own death.

Also via WaPo:

“‘You know before Carnival I did make a comment about vulgarity and lewdness,’ Raymond Tim Kee said during a Wednesday press conference, according to local media station Loop. ‘The woman has the responsibility to ensure that [she is] not abused.’

Kee’s cringe-worthy comments kept getting worse, as he tried to link the Japanese musician’s killing to Carnival culture.

‘And my argument was you could enjoy Carnival without going through that routine … of prancing and partying,’ he asked. ‘Then why you can’t continue with that and maintain some kind of dignity?’

‘You have to let your imagination roll a bit and figure out was there any evidence of resistance or did alcohol control?’ he told reporters. ‘Therefore involuntary actions were engaged in, and so on ….

‘It’s a matter of, if she was still in her costume – I think that’s what I heard – let your imagination roll,’ he added, before casting the killing less as an outrageous crime than as an ’embarrassment’ for the city.”

Fortunately, there has been huge outcry over his comments.

“Within hours, a woman had launched an online petition calling for Kee’s resignation. By early Friday morning, it had gathered nearly 7,000 signatures. (That equates to roughly 10 percent of the population of Port of Spain.)

‘Victim shaming is an irresponsible thing for anyone to do, far less a leader in a society,’ wrote Rhoda Bharath, a St Augustine resident who signed the petition. ‘[The] Mayor has shown himself to be both insensitive, preemptive and ignorant. He must go.’

‘Tim Kee is an example of everything wrong with leadership in this country,’ added Ryan Ramoutar, a signatory from Point Fortin. ‘His thinking is archaic and his opinion essentially exonerates the perpetrators of any responsibility. He has, effectively, endorsed murder.'”

Our thoughts go out to her family and friends and hope there will be justice for her death. And we applaud everyone who is calling out the outrageous victim-blaming!

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Filed Under: News stories Tagged With: Asami Nagakiya, mayor, murder, rape, trinidad, victim blaming

USA: Five Reasons Why I didn’t Report Street Harassment

January 27, 2016 By Correspondent

Julia Tofan, Connecticut, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

I’ve experienced street harassment. The first time I did, I was 12 years old on a Girl Scout trip to New York. The most recent time, I was 16 years old hiking at a park with my mother and my sister. Both times, and every time in between, it felt wrong and it made me angry. Worst of all, however, it made me feel powerless. There have been so many incidents, and I have not reported a single one. I believe in being empowered, practicing self-confidence, standing up for my rights, and fighting for equality and justice, so I have to ask myself why I haven’t reported street harassment. These are five answers that began to explain it.

  1. Victim blaming: That’s the typical response to street harassment, even sometimes by police. Discussions on street harassment frequently involve a discussion of the victim’s modesty, clothing choices, and the time and location of the incident. Less frequently do these discussions involve the conscious decision a street harasser made. The truth is, street harassment is experienced by individuals in all types of clothing, all types of locations, and all types of times. The only factor consistent in every single case is that someone infringed on their right to safety. The last thing any victim wants to hear is “you were asking for it,” and that’s all too common a response.
  2. Street harassment can be dangerous, yet society doesn’t acknowledge this. A man in Queens, NY, slashed a woman’s throat for declining a date and walking away. In the news, he was referred to as a “ruthless Romeo,” equating his murder with a fictional romance of young teenage lovers. That same month, a woman on her way home from a funeral was shot after refusing to give her number to a male and explaining that she had a fiance. In the news, the criminal was described as “not fighting fair” when he fought with the woman’s fiance and pulled out a gun. The problem with this statement is that it implies fighting without a gun for a woman who did not want his advances was somehow acceptable. These situations are not unique. Victims of street harassment live in constant fear of retribution. It’s not just the cases that are featured on the news though. More than that, it’s the daily occurrences.
  3. Police officers don’t always help. The very people victims should be able to go to for help are engaged in blaming victims, and that doesn’t give victims access to the caring and understanding support that they deserve. Finding examples isn’t difficult. Just look at the 2011 incident in which Brooklyn NY police officers stopped women in short shorts and skirts and warned them that they could become victims of street harassment and sexual harassment. An alarming number of police officers — like Daniel Holtzclaw in Oklahoma — even are harassers and sexual abusers.
  4. Street harassment is not taken seriously. “Boys will be boys,” “it’s just a compliment,” and “lighten up” are embedded in our culture. Reporting an issue that is not taken seriously is infinitely more difficult than one that is labeled as a certain crime. To equate stalking, assaulting, catcalling, and objectifying females with the nature of boys and the nature of relationships is to erase a victim’s right to feel pain and dehumanization in a situation that is in every way painful and dehumanizing.
  5. Women grow up with street harassment and become groomed to accept it. Studies show that 65% of women have experienced street harassment with half reporting it starting by age 17. In a survey of students in grades 7-12, 48% reported sexual harassment. Forty-four percent of individuals in the same survey who admitted to sexually harassing another individual did it because they believed it was not a big deal, and 39% were trying to be funny. These are the viewpoints children are raised with, and changing that understanding of sexual harassment, a form of which may be street harassment, does not happen overnight.

These five answers helped me come to terms with the fact that I stayed silent. I hope to feel safe and supported next time I experience street harassment, and to feel comfortable enough to speak up and make myself heard, but I am not blaming myself for not reporting what happened. I am not displacing the blame from an adult to a minor, someone powerful to someone intimidated, and most importantly, a criminal to a victim.

Julia is a student in a rural town in Connecticut. She writes for Givology, a nonprofit dedicated to improving access to education, and Dreams That Could Be, an organization telling the stories of students facing great challenges but persevering in their education. Read her blog posts on Givology and Dreams That Could Be and follow her on Twitter @Julia_Tofan!

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Filed Under: correspondents Tagged With: boys will be boys, police, reporting, victim blaming, young age

Mid-January 2016 News Roundup

January 18, 2016 By HKearl

Here are some recent stories I thought were interesting and good:

Via Broadly
Via Broadly

“When Taking a Nap Is a Political Act,” Broadly

“What is it like to sleep under a blue sky? To stretch out on the grass and feel the earth under you? To close your eyes and hear the quiet hum of traffic or the chirp of a sparrow?

I have no idea.

The freedom to rest or sleep in a public space is one that women in India don’t enjoy—being idle in public is not something we do. Not because it is illegal, but because we are vulnerable wherever we go. This is increasingly true in recent years,when the country has seen a spate of violent rapes and street harassment.

This weekend, small groups of women across the country (and in neighboring Pakistan) will fight their fear and vulnerability and head to a local park to do nothing but take a siesta. They will carry a mat, a bottle of water, perhaps a snack or a book to read. Then, they will then take a nap. Or try to.

Hosted by the Blank Noise Project, an all-volunteer collective that campaigns against street harassment, this seemingly subtle protest event is called “Meet to Sleep,” and it asks citizens to come together to reclaim public spaces and make cities safer. Started in 2003 by Jasmeen Patheja as part of her graduation project, Blank Noise mobilizes citizen “action heroes” through its projects, events, and campaigns, and it has played a major role in the snowballing discussion surrounding street harassment in India. The organization has been hosting Meet to Sleep events in cities across India since November 2014.”

“The Politics of Being “Ugly”: Between Being Catcalled and Erased,” For Harriet

“….There is a hierarchy of deservingness put on women, girls, femmes, and non-masculine bodies that delegate a culture of misogyny on a violent spectrum. Women who are categorized as beautiful should expect to be sexually harassed, while those who are categorized as ugly should be grateful for the attention and consideration. In addressing this spectrum of violence, we need to complicate our understandings of street harassment and catcalling. Erasure is an equally violent form of misogynistic brutality against our bodies.

We are affected everyday when our safety is based upon someone else’s sexualization or beauty positioning of our bodies in order to determine our worthiness and humanity. Let’s challenge spaces to include narratives and experiences that speak to being ignored, marginalized, or violated for not being “pretty enough” to be humanized. We must demand that our value as human beings—whether we identify as woman, girl, or femme—exist outside of the dominant scope and gaze of rape culture. Our humanity is not currency for survival. We deserve to exist free from fear, free from expectation, and free from misogynistic violence. “

“Uber Says It’s Fighting Sexual Harassment In Egypt But The Causes Aren’t Going Away,” BuzzFeed News

“This October, Uber Egypt partnered with Harassmap, one of the country’s pioneering anti-harassment organizations, to train drivers to fight against sexual harassment — a rarity in Egypt, where sexual harassment of women in Cairo’s chaotic and neglected public transportation is rampant.

“We know that there are big problems here,” Anthony Khoury, general manager of Uber Egypt, which provides only privately-owned cars, a service known as UberX, told BuzzFeed News. “We want to be the safest drivers around.”

Uber Egypt, based in Cairo, committed itself to a zero-tolerance policy against sexual harassment — a phenomenon criminalized under Egyptian law only in 2014, the same year Uber opened here. The move was also savvy branding for the popular car-hailing app, a more than $62 billion franchise, which worldwide has faced waves of legal cases and protests over drivers preying on female passengers and the company’s worker practices.

For Uber users in this megacity — where traffic is notoriously bad and taxis often a hassle — the app is a much-welcomed upgrade to safely navigate daily life. Since October, Khoury said his team has implemented the short anti-harassment training and even suspended and deactivated a few drivers for incidents of verbal harassment, follow-through unheard of with regular taxis, and had no reported cases of physical harassment.

In Egypt’s struggle against sexual harassment, it’s also still a drop in the bucket.

Uber is largely a luxury of the elite — most people in Cairo can’t afford private taxis — and the barriers preventing women from reporting and prosecuting sexual harassment remain terrifyingly tall.”

“‘Make a Grown Man Cry’ Pepper Spray CTA Ads Upset Women Commuters,” DNA Info

“While riding the CTA Blue Line on Tuesday, Jessica White, a Logan Square resident, spotted the ad for Sabre pepper spray.

White said she was “struck by the casual way the ad seemed to make light of violence against women, by not only cracking a joke about making ‘grown men’ cry, but also implying I would be interested in a powder blue keychain attachment as a form of necessary self defense.

“Considering how many assaults occur on and around CTA property, I would think the CTA wouldn’t post ads reminding women not only how dangerous it is to use their services, but also that they’re on their own when it comes to personal safety,” White said…

Kara Crutcher, an Uptown resident whose Courage Campaign tried to raise money to pay for ads to discourage harassment on public transit, said she is “very disappointed” to hear about an ad that makes light of having to use pepper spray.

“Nothing about a person, male or female, carrying mace as a form of protection in public spaces is comical,” Crutcher added. “I’d much rather see an ad that aims to move us past the existence of violence in public spaces, not an ad joking about mace sales, which is counterproductive to the goals of the ‘Courage Campaign: CTA’ and functions solely as a Band-Aid for the greater issue at hand.”

Good work Courage Campaign: CTA for speaking out.

“NYC police boss urges ‘buddy system’ for women in cabs,” AutoBlog

“14 of the city’s reported rapes last year, and two already this year, were committed by for-hire cabbies. And Police Commissioner William Bratton raised eyebrows with comments on the phenomenon that some felt blamed the victims.

‘One of the areas of concern that we have is particularly young women coming out of clubs and bars,’ Commissioner William Bratton said during a radio interview on WNYC. ‘They’re by themselves and intoxicated getting into a cab … and we’ve seen an increase in assaults in those instances. So we’re encouraging women to adopt the buddy system.’

Some women who spoke to The Associated Press about taxi safety said Bratton’s suggestion smacked of sexism.

“It’s the idea that somehow we have a hand in this,” said Jamie Lopez, 20, who works in retail and often takes cabs late at night because she finds them safer than the subway. “It’s not the victim’s fault.”

“Amsterdam men to don miniskirts in support of Cologne women,” NL Times

“Male members of the PvdA, D66, SP and GroenLinks’ youth movements will be protesting in mini-skirts on the Spui in the heart of Amsterdam on Saturday afternoon. They want to show support for women’s rights and their displeasure with Cologne mayor Henriette Reker’s statements following the large number of sexual assaults in the German city over New Year’s…

On Facebook the youth movements invite men, and women, to join their protest on Saturday, wearing miniskirts. “Not women, but men must keep away at arms length. Too often sexual violence against women is put down as a woman-problem: don’t wear short skirts. That is never the solution. Short skirts are not at fault.” they write.

“Therefore we are reversing the rolls and we celebrate the skirt and the freedom that goes with it. We deploy our hairy knees for a free society in which women can walk the streets undisturbed, day and night, on short-skirt day or in the middle of the winter.”

“One in three people in south east bullied in street over looks and weight,” Chichester Observer

“A third of adults living in the south east have received negative comments about their weight or appearance in the street, reveals a survey released this week.

The shocking results come from the survey “Fat Shaming Britain 2016”, for diet company LighterLife – which reveals the scale of the epidemic faced by those with weight issues, and the damaging impact this is having on their live.

The poll, which looked at 1,000 adults, revealed that more than a third of people (39 per cent) lack confidence due to their weight or appearance, which is made worse by the negative comments they have endured from strangers – face to face, via social media, by text and in the street.

And the accusers are closer to home than you might think. An alarming 78 per cent of people abused by strangers had also received derogatory comments, face-to-face, from someone they knew.

Weight was overwhelmingly the main subject of comments – good or bad – confirmed by two thirds (67 per cent). And almost one in three (31 per cent) felt the comments they had received were “maybe” or “definitely” street harassment.”

“This Is What A Feminist Cat Call Sounds Like,” Bustle

“Ubiquitous and nasty, street harassment is an experience most women are intimately acquainted with. Now, thanks to the incisive folks on Twitter, feminist cat calls are a thing, revealing the true absurdity of this misogynistic practice as only humor can. Although it’s unlikely real men out there will start yelling informed and intelligent twists on the usual sexist garbage talk, with enough support, maybe, just maybe, these tweets will start a revolution.”

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Filed Under: News stories, offensive ads, street harassment Tagged With: Amsterdam, chicago, CTA, Egypt, India, male allies, NYC, offensive ads, uber, UK, victim blaming, weight

UK: This Doesn’t Mean a Yes Campaign

April 21, 2015 By HKearl

4.11.15 London - ThisDoesntMeanAYes“A short skirt is not a yes.
A red lip is not a yes.
A wink is not a yes.
A slow dance is not a yes.
A walk home is not a yes.
A drink back at mine is not a yes.
A kiss on the sofa is not a yes.
The only ‘yes’ is a ‘yes’.”

On the eve of International Anti-Street Harassment Week, our friends Rape Crisis UK teamed up with fashion photographer PEROU on new campaign #ThisDoesntMeanYes to dispel the myths around what constitutes consent. They photographed nearly 200 women and officially launched the campaign at www.thisdoesntmeanyes.com on April 15.

In their press release they wrote: “PEROU photographed women who were chosen at random in a pop-up street studio, capturing and empowering each individual in a composition that each felt natural to them. Our aim: to show through our collection of images, that no matter what a woman is wearing, she is never ‘asking for it’ and the mentality ‘she wants it’ is fundamentally wrong.”

Rape Crisis UK explained: ‘No one should be able to blame rape on a short skirt. A short skirt can’t talk – a short skirt can’t say yes’.

Join the campaign by posting your image on social media using #thisdoesntmeanayes.

4.11.15 London - ThisDoesntMeanAYes from PRThe four women behind the campaign are: Nathalie Gordon is an Advertising Creative, Lydia Pang is a Creative Art Commissioner, Abigail Bergstrom is a Commissioning Book Editor and Karlie McCulloch is an Illustration Agent.

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Filed Under: anti-street harassment week, Resources Tagged With: rape culture, thisdoesntmeanayes, victim blaming

We were at SlutWalk DC 2013!

August 10, 2013 By HKearl

For the third year, Stop Street Harassment tabled at SlutWalk DC to support the end to victim-blaming and slut-shaming. No one “asks” to be harassed, sexually assaulted, or raped!

This year, we had the pleasure of sharing a table with our friend Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS) and we had lots of great conversations with attendees about the street harassment.

Zosia from CASS and I also had a chance to briefly talk in front of the audience. I asked people to raise their hands if they had been street harassed this week – and most of the audience raised their hands! When I asked if they’d been harassed today, about a fourth of the audience said yes. Street harassment is a HUGE problem and we need to work together to end it!

Here are resources and check out what we do and what CASS does.

Here are a few of the photos. You can see more via our Twitter and Instagram accounts, both have the username @StopStHarassmnt.

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Filed Under: Events, SSH programs, street harassment Tagged With: collective action for safe spaces, rallies, slutwalk, Slutwalk DC!, victim blaming

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