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Coventry Women launch harassment project

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CHP3, coventry, harassment, public spaces, women's rightsA new initiative to map the harassment women experience in Coventry.

To coincide with Anti-Street Harassment Week 2013 women’s organisation Coventry Women’s Voices (CWV)  is launching a new initiative to map the harassment women experience in Coventry.

The Coventry Harassment Project will give women the opportunity to share their experiences of street harassment in Coventry.

This project launches off the back of a survey conducted by CWV and Coventry University which examined women’s experiences of harassment in public spaces in Coventry.

The report produced from this survey, ‘An Everyday Occurrence (pdf)’ was published last night at an event hosted by CWV and Coventry Feminist to coincide with Anti-Street Harassment Week. The report contains quotes that may be triggering to survivors.

The survey found that 61 per cent of those asked had experienced sexual harassment in the last 12 months; incidents which included unwanted sexual comments (37 per cent), wolf-whistling (32 per cent) and being groped (12 per cent).

Author of the report, Jane Osmond, said, “When we began the data collection back in October, I don’t think any of us expected to be shocked by the findings, but we are.

“Most shocking is how routine and accepted public sexual harassment of women is and also the range of incidents, from wolf whistling to rape.”

The international movement Stop Street Harassment says that around the world between 70-100 per cent of women have experienced some form of harassment in public.

This harassment can include anything from leering, wolf-whistling and sexual comments to groping, masturbation and assault.

The Coventry Harassment Project hopes to create a fuller picture of the scenario when it comes to harassment in Coventry.

People will be able to share their experiences of harassment in two key ways.

People can follow, and submit their stories, via the Twitter account @CovHarassment and Tweet with the hashtag #CovHarassment.

Or people can submit longer anecdotes to this email address. These submissions will be posted on a regular basis on Coventry Women’s Voices’ blog. Anonymity can be requested.

Coventry Women’s Voices will collect and share these stories to create a fuller picture of what happens in Coventry, and where.

This information will add to that collected in the survey and begin to map where, and how frequently women experience harassment in the city.

Coventry Women’s Voices member Mary-Ann Stephenson said, “The findings of the survey showed us that harassment in public spaces is a concern for many women living and working in Coventry.

“We hope that the launch of The Coventry Harassment Project will give women a voice to share their experiences and will allow us to extend the reaches of the survey in mapping what women experience and where.”

 

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