Mapping Street Harassment This Women’s Day
Featured image courtesy Streetharassmenthurts
- - on 03/08/2016
“Virtually unreported, condoned and invisibalised”. These are the words used in Women and Media Collective’s December 2015 Country Profile on Universal Access to Reproductive Rights to describe street-based sexual harassment.
Yet it is a daily reality for most women in Sri Lanka.
The latest published statistics on street harassment date back to 2011.
Deputy Minister of Transport, Rohana Dissanayake alleged in July 2011 thatone in four women are subject to sexual harassment in public transport on a daily basis. A survey conducted by the Legal Aid Commission (LAC) in 2011 revealed that 70% of women between the ages of 15 and 45 years have experienced sexual harassment while using public transport. Amarasinghe et al (2004) in a study at Maradana railway station found that as many as 94% of women – from school girls, to working women and girls studying in higher educational institutions – had experienced harassment in public transport.
There have been numerous events conducted to raise awareness against street harassment, and in the social media era, people’s stories are quick to reach a wide audience.
Recently, a father posted a story online about his two young daughters (aged 13 and 17) and a group of drunk beachgoers who passed lewd comments at them, much to his discomfort and anger. What was interesting was one response to this article, by a young man who claimed that ‘boys will be boys’ and suggested that the women secretly felt ‘psychologically validated’ by the attention.
March 8 (Tuesday) marks International Women’s Day, and this yearGroundviews decided to highlight the widespread nature of street harassment, by mapping it.
Each marker tells a story – a story of a woman trying to go home, to work, or just about her day – only to be made to feel uncomfortable, or even unsafe.
View the map directly here:
