Sarah Everard vigil planned as women share concerns
A vigil highlighting women's safety on the streets has been organised following the disappearance of Sarah Everard in south London.
The Reclaim These Streets event will be held in Clapham on Saturday near where Ms Everard was last seen on 3 March.
Organisers said it was "wrong that the response to violence against women requires women to behave differently".
Thousands of women are sharing online their anxieties and anger about their safety when alone in public places.
Following the arrest of a police officer on suspicion of Ms Everard's kidnap and murder, the head of the Metropolitan Police Cressida Dick said: "I know Londoners will want to know that it is thankfully incredibly rare for a woman to be abducted from our streets.
"But I completely understand that despite this, women in London and the wider public - particularly those in the area where Sarah went missing - will be worried and may well be feeling scared."
'Violence every day'
Organisers of Saturday afternoon's vigil on Clapham Common said local police had "told women not to go out at night this week", but they say "women are not the problem".
"This is a vigil for Sarah, but also for all women who feel unsafe, who go missing from our streets and who face violence every day."
The disappearance has prompted discussion on social media about the precautions women feel they have to take when they go out on their own.
"We take the longer, better-lit route, push the fear aside for the voice that says 'don't be daft, you've every right to walk home alone at night and be safe'," Sky News journalist Kate McCann wrote.
What happened to Sarah Everard has hit home hard for so many women because we make the calculations she did every day too. We take the longer, better-lit route, push the fear aside for the voice that says ‘don't be daft, you've every right to walk home alone at night and be safe’
— Kate McCann (@KateEMcCann) March 10, 2021
"Keys gripped between fingers we map the corner shops we could duck into en-route. Swap shoes for trainers in case we need to run. Keep our music low or turned off," she added.
"You're a grown woman and in no other area of your life do you feel so vulnerable. You resent it even though you understand there is a risk - however small. It is frustrating and tiring and constant. And yet sometimes, despite all those calculations, it still isn't enough."
Home Secretary Priti Patel said the concerns shared by women "are so powerful because each and every woman can relate".
"Every woman should feel safe to walk on our streets without fear of harassment or violence," she added.
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said "there will be few - if any - women who don't completely understand and identify" with Ms McCann's words.
Another tweet asking women if they have ever faked phone calls, changed route, or even run in fear after feeling threatened by men in public spaces has been liked more than 120,000 times.
'Forced to change'
Maya Tutton, who created the Our Streets Now anti-harassment campaign, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme she first experienced harassment in public at the age of 12.
"What these incidents make you do is… that they make you fear going outside and they make you feel that you are not an equal citizen to your male counterparts and that you don't have those fundamental human rights to go about your everyday life without living in fear," the 22-year-old said.
"We're so at the end of our tether with violence against women and girls never being a priority and never being an issue that we put money and resources into tackling."
Ms Tutton added: "By not putting the emphasis on the perpetrator and on really tackling that culture, what we're doing is we're not getting to the root of the problem - we are being forced to change our behaviour."
Labour MP Jess Phillips, the shadow domestic violence minister, said there should not be a message to women "where we're told what to do or what we have to do".
"The reality is that for most women they have had some sort of experience that they feel frightened of," she told the Today programme.
"Women aren't weak because of a fault in their personality, women are weak because of men's violence."
She added: "I'm not stereotyping women as weak, I'm not even stereotyping men as all being perpetrators.
"I am saying that the message has to be sent that male violence is something that has to be tackled - and the justice system and society has to wake up to that."
Julie Bindel, a campaigner on women's issues since the 1970s, said: "The message from wider society and from all police officers during these many operations on violence against women should be a message for men.
"Only men can stop male violence."
She praised a tweet from one man, Stuart Edwards, who asked if there were steps men could take to reduce women's anxiety.
I live less than five minutes from where Sarah Everard went missing. Everyone is on high alert. Aside from giving as much space as possible on quieter streets and keeping face visible, is there anything else men can reasonably do to reduce the anxiety/spook factor?
— Stuart Edwards (@StuartEdwards) March 9, 2021
Marian FitzGerald, a visiting professor of criminology at the University of Kent, said while women's fear was real, statistics showed women were less likely to be murdered than men.
She said Ms Everard's disappearance "shouldn't make women any more fearful than they already were".
"Yes, the fear is real and it is always heightened when something like this is in the news. That doesn't mean to say that the risk has changed," she said.
"It hasn't changed much over many years. Women account for about a third of all murders. Men are far more likely to be murdered.
"Men are far more likely to be murdered by someone they don't know. Men are far more likely to be murdered in public places."
Asked about young women who have said they should not have to be fearful, Ms FitzGerald said: "In terms of the risk that we face, I know that the current situation is frightening... the reason why we remember these cases is because they are so rare and we should hold on to that."
Ms Phillips disagreed that the issue was rare and said she will later read out the names of 118 women who have died at the hands of men in the past year - equal to more than one every three days - in the House of Commons.
The World Health Organization reported this week that one in three women across the world have been subjected to physical or sexual violence in their lifetimes.
- Support and resources for sexual abuse and violence and emotional distress are available via the BBC Action Line
March 11, 2021 at 10:37PM
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56357796
Labels: BBC News
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home