Egyptian Center for Women's Rights: In 2005 the center launched Campaign Against Sexual Harassment: Making Our Streets Safe for Everyone" in response to the many complaints that the ECWR received from Egyptian and foreign women who experience sexual harassment on the streets.
In 2008, they conducted a survey of 2,000 Egyptian women and men and 109 foreign women. Eighty-three percent of Egyptian women reported being sexually harassed in public and nearly half said this abuse occurs daily. Ninety-eight percent of foreign women reported being seuxally harassed by strangers in public. Sixty-two percent of Egyptian men voluntarily reported engaging in the harassment of women.
INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. Read their street harassment pamphlet
NYC SafeStreets, formed in 2004, is a group of volunteers working to make the streets safer for women. They provide maps to neighborhoods in New York City that show where subway stops are, where past assaults of women have occurred, and where there are “SafeStreets Havens.” NYC SafeStreet Havens are businesses where women can go if they feel unsafe from which they can call for a ride or company walking home. SafeStreet Havens can be identified by a NYC SafeStreets Haven sticker in the window and there are about 35 businesses designated as such on the NYC SafeStreet website. NYC SafeStreets has an online form where people can provide feedback about walking home safely at night and provide tips or warnings for others. NYC SafeStreets also includes a list of resources on sexual assault on their website.
RightRides in New York City offers free rides to women, transgender and “gender queer” people late at night on Saturdays. Their motto is: “Because Getting Home Safely Shouldn't Be A Luxury.” They started in 2004 in direct response to assaults of women walking home late at night in various neighborhoods around the city. The two founders already had a car, so they bought a cell phone for use as a dispatch phone, printed fliers, and then used their own car to start driving callers who felt unsafe walking home free of charge. They recruited other volunteers and between 2004 and 2005, they drove over 200 people home safely. During 2005, they became a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit and secured a fleet of cars for their volunteer drivers to use. In May 2006, Zipcars donated three cars for use as a permanent fleet. During 2006, RightRides drove over 600 people home safely. RightRides now serves 35 neighborhoods across New York City and has over 150 active volunteers. RightRides helps support Neighborhood Safety Meetings on crime prevention. Additionally, RightRides partners with the Center for Anti-Violence Education to provide low-cost, sliding scale self defense classes to women and transgender people.
Rogers Park Young Women's Action Team (YWAT) in Illinois is a group composed of teenage girls combating issues like street harassmetn in their community. The YWAT conducts several ongoing collective actions against street harassment. They hold weekly leadership meetings for the project; host “Girls’ Leadership Camp” for middle school aged girls; present workshops for youth and adults on street harassment throughout Illinois; and conduct various community research efforts and action events. For example, in May 2006 and May 2007 they helped organize the Citywide Day of Action against Street Harassment Campaign that included a community march through Chicago and confrontation demonstrations. Thousands of people participated in the day’s activities and people participated in 150 recorded individual and collective actions against harassment.
Street Harassment Project
