International Anti-Street Harassment Week, April 7-13

For the second consecutive year, The Women Worldwide Initiative (TWWI) is a co-sponsoring organization of International Anti-Street Harassment Week with Meet Us On the Street.

From April 7-13, 2013, thousands of women and men across the United States and throughout the world in cities such as Cairo, Delhi, Istanbul, Montreal, Oslo, and Sana’a will participate in International Anti-Street Harassment Week to collectively raise awareness about gender-based street harassment.

By collectively speaking out together, TWWI and other co-sponsoring groups and organizations will amplify each other’s voices, receiving global mainstream media attention for this pervasive and important issue.

Why this Campaign?

By age 12, nearly 1 in 4 girls worldwide experience unwanted sexual comments, leers, touches, and stalking in public places by strangers. Nearly 90 percent of women have that experience by age 19.

According to Stop Street Harassment, most women (more than 80% worldwide) and LGBQT folks will face gender-based street harassment at some point in their life. Street harassment is a human rights issue because it limits women’s ability to be in public as often or as comfortably as most men.

The mobility of all members of the LGBQT community is often restricted as well because of harassment and hateful violence motivated by the person’s actual or perceived gender expression or sexual orientation. While public harassment motivated by racism, homophobia, transphobia, or classism—types of deplorable harassment which men can be the target of and sometimes women perpetrate—is recognized as socially unacceptable behavior, men’s harassment of women motivated by gender and sexism is not.

Want to Connect?

■ For more information on street harassment, including statistics, check out HERE
■ Join us by taking part in online activism, sharing your story, and by organizing or attending an event. Visit HERE for more information about the week and how to be involved.
■ Facebook fan page HERE
■ Twitter: @NoStHarassWeek and @Women_Worldwide

April 7 – 13, 2013

International
Meet Us on the Street: International Anti-Street Harassment Week

Join thousands in a worldwide effort to end gender-based harassment by taking to the street. Participate in marches to reclaim public spaces and stop street violence.

More information: www.meetusonthestreet.org