Hush Hush!!! No One Can Help You…

This being my first post and all, I was initially considering a political satire but I guess that will have to come later. This post was inspired by an experience some days back and I thought to myself a number of ladies must be faced with the same problems every day.  My experience was in a public transport means to be precise a long distance travelling “matatu”. Being a woman of colour in an Arab country already distinguished me, I so happened to be the only young lady in the taxi seated at the extreme end with two other male travellers. To cut the long story short, I discovered that when I texted or looked at my phone the guy next to me kept looking at me and peeping at my phone screen. He began infringing on my personal space, coupled with the use of sexually explicit language! I had to use my stuffed laptop bag to create some space between us. After sending signals to declare the interaction was unwanted he decided to swap seats. At a point I felt helpless because I could not communicate and describe what was transpiring between the male traveller and I to others and the driver. It took constant territorial bounds declaration on my part to get him to stay clear, but I could tell the message wasn’t fully understood. I kept at it until my ride ended, and of course I didn’t have a joyful ride! 

During my trip it occurred to me that I probably wasn’t the only one faced with such a challenge, but the voices are being suppressed. Have you ever walked down the streets and felt unwelcome? Rather than have a peaceful stroll in the neighbourhood you are greeted constantly with comments on how hot your body looks and how enticing you are. These inciting remarks and more of such challenges like catcalling are what women all over the world hear and are faced with while trying to get around the hustles and bustles of life.

Street Harassment can be described as unwanted interactions in public spaces between strangers that are motivated by a person’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, or gender expression and make the harassed feel annoyed, angry, humiliated, or scared. What makes it even more dangerous is that unlike other forms of harassment it is between strangers, hence there is little or no legal recourse. We are left to defend ourselves, how do you sue the guy on the street for screaming about your shape and embarrassing you or for stalking you to the extent that you are almost hit by a bus. Who do you go to? how do you communicate these little drops of water filling the mighty ocean that is slowly drowning you? To think that some cultures still see women as the lesser sex is strong enough foundation for such a hostile environment.

According to a survey conducted in USA by Stop Street Harassment (SSH) approximately 65% of women had experienced some form of street harassment. 23% of the women had been sexually touched, 20% had been followed. In another survey of 811 women, an alarming 99% had experienced street harassment including leering, honking, whistling, sexist comments, vulgar gestures, sexually explicit comments and kissing noises. These stats only give a tip of the iceberg, the street sexual harassment is deep rooted in most societies and this is because it is treated as a non-issue. It has been allowed to grow into a multi-headed hydra.

Some victims of such verbal abuse tend to fend it off as mere annoying remarks while others who are exposed to such hostility and abuse daily, without strong social structures or the ability to handle the situation could fall into depression. Why in the first place should you have to deal with these? Why are there no local channels of expressing such verbal abuses? It is time to take a stand to stop street harassment we need to create the awareness!!! LEND YOUR VOICE, SHARE YOUR STORY AND SPREAD THE WORD.