WUNRN
YEMEN - SAFE STREET
CAMPAIGN: THE FIRST STEP TO ENDING WOMEN'S & GIRLS' SEXUAL HARASSMENT
Asma
al-Mohattwari - November 3, 2013
After
several attempts to convince her father to allow her to study in an English
institute, Huda had finally convinced her father. She was twenty years old, and
was thrilled that at last she would be able to study in an institute. She
talked of her new opportunity as though it were a miracle. Huda’s father was
not a closed-minded man; he was educated and open, but he wanted to protect his
daughter from harassment on the street. Despite his worries, he did not want to
break his daughter’s heart by keeping her from studying. He did not know her
heart would instead be broken another way.
One
day, Huda was preparing herself for her trip to the institute. It took one hour
to travel from her home to the institute facilities. On her journeys to her
classes, she had heard different kinds of verbal harassment, but she always
ignored them, and never allowed them to disturb her well-being. As days passed,
Huda had become accustomed to the verbal harassment. Though it annoyed her,
there was nothing she could do “but ignore them.”
One
day, however, she noticed a strange man standing beside the institute’s gate,
gazing at her. Though she was unsettled by the man, she continued on her way.
The strange man continued to stand in the same place, day after day.
When, one week later, she entered the institute without passing the stranger,
she sighed deeply and whispered a “thanks be to God,” then entered in the
institute. That was when disaster struck: there stood the man in the stairwell.
Huda
was confused about what she should do, but decided the best course of action
would be to pass beside him to get to her class. In just a moment, she found a
reserve of strength and was prepared to pass the man without acknowledging him.
She had just passed him when she felt his hand make contact with her; she
turned to see that he was harassing her. Without thinking, she threw her books
down and raced to her class, where she broke down crying. Teachers, students,
friends all asked her “why are you crying,” but she could not find the strength
to respond.
Huda
stopped going to the institute after that day, and she found herself hating
that thing called “study.” She blamed herself for the incident as though it
were her fault, but in truth society was to blame. Society was at fault, and
the way that it forces women to keep silent in such situations, placing
responsibility on the victim instead of the criminal.
Thousands
of Hudas suffer from sexual harassment every day, on the street, in the
workplace, in shopping centers and anywhere that women go. To fight back
against this terrible occurrence, some Yemeni women activists have started a
Safe Street campaign. On 2 November 2013, the first conference against sexual
harassment was held under the slogan “For Safe Streets: Together Against Sexual
Harassment.”
The
Safe Streets Campaign currently operates in Sana’a, Taiz, and Aden in the
initial phase of its implementation. It aims to monitor harassment cases and
encourage society, and women in particular, to break their silence and talk
about acts of harassment in order to put pressure on decision-makers to develop
solutions to this destructive phenomenon.
Ghida
al-Abssi, Safe Streets Campaign Director, called on officials to develop a
national strategy to fight the sexual harassment phenomenon. She said that the
Safe Streets Campaign is determined to break society’s silence. The campaign
was launched in August 2011, and it has already become a well-known foundation
for its total devotion to bettering the future for men and women.
The
first regional conference on sexual harassment was held in 2009, with the
participation of activists and leaders women from 16 Arab countries. The
conference discussed crimes of harassment throughout the Arab region. The
conference described the phenomenon as the Arabic crime of the century for its
violation of the feelings and the bodies of 80% of Arab women, who confessed
that they had suffered from harassment at some point in their lives.
Despite
the spread of the sexual harassment in Arab countries, a small number of Arab
countries are paying special attention to the seriousness of this issue. Sexual
harassment is a global phenomenon afflicting all human societies, in both
developed and developing countries. Studies have shown that Arab countries tend
to suffer the most from crises of sexual harassment, which corroborates the
claim of 90% Yemeni women that they have experienced harassment in public
places or places of work.
Another
part of the problem is that few recognize the true effects of sexual
harassment. Experts at the conference discussed that terrible impact acts of
harassment can have on a woman’s psychology. Psychological effects experienced
by harassment victims can include frustration, anxiety, terror, nervous
tension, nightmares, a sense of guilt and shame, a lack of self-confidence,
depression and isolation. The situation is only when the victim is aware that
there is no legal basis by which she might fight the harassment.
Dr.
Mohammed al-Mikhlafi, minister of State for Legal Affairs, called on the Yemeni
community to address firmly and decisively the phenomenon of sexual harassment
in the streets and villages of Yemen.
“Society
needs a strong voice to address the phenomenon of sexual harassment. This
initiative of the Safe Street conference is necessary to address this
phenomenon, taking responsibility for providing a more secure life for women
and men”.
To
the fathers who prevent their daughters from going outside to protect them from
the harassment, al-Mikhlafi said that this prevention is no less dangerous than
the harassment itself. “We should fight harassment not by imprisoning women at
home, but by establishing legal provisions to protect women from harassment,
allowing them to leave the house and move about where they want safely”.
Sara
Ghanem, activist and member of the National Dialogue Conference, said that the
forces that try to prevent women from leaving the house harm women. “Women do
not require an escape from the problem, they require a solution. They should be
safe anywhere” said Ghanem.
The
percentage of sexual harassment claims has been rising strongly in closed
societies that encourage gender separation, as well as those that are open and
severe lawlessness. The core problem, though, is that society discourages
discussion of harassment incidents, particularly in Arab countries. Many prefer
to pretend that no problem exists, while others will talk about the issue but
only in secret.
Al-Abssi
said that the presence of Dr. Mohammed al-Mikhlafi, the Minister of State for
Legal Affairs, at the conference is a very good step to breaking the silence
and creating legal limits on this offensive behavior.
The
Safe Street Campaign is the first initiative to break the silence in Yemen. It gives
attention to the issue, and is working actively to confront harassment
legislatively, monitoring studies and reports on the scale and scope of the
phenomenon, its causes, and its effects on social, economic, and security.