Street Harassment: A Victim Shares Her Story

In the spring of 2013, and with graduation day around the corner, Rima Amin was going through a particularly stressful time as she prepared for her final year exams. On one particular night she decided to pop by a corner shop in the evening to get an energy drink, as students often do, hoping it would help her stay alert in order to cram some more information into her brain.

A trip to the shop takes a turn for the worse

Except her trip to the shop proved more eventful than she could have imagined. Out of nowhere, a middle-aged man in a Mercedes pulled up to her and rolled down the window. “Get in the car,” he said. He was drunk. He didn’t really need directions. He asked her if she was working, and it wasn’t long before Rima realised she was being mistaken for a prostitute.

He kept telling her to get in his car, but she refused politely and walked away. Yet he wouldn’t take no for an answer, kept chasing her and became increasingly aggressive. “I was constantly on edge,” Rima says. “My thoughts and feelings were focused on not wanting it to escalate.” From what she can remember, this lasted around 10 minutes, until the man seemingly got fed up and sped off in another direction.

Rima explains how this made her feel: “This person was chasing me and shouting at me, believing this was an acceptable way to treat another person. That hurt,” she says. “All I wanted to do was go to the shop in peace, and this man was preventing me from doing even that simple thing.”

The story could have ended here. Rima did manage to get her energy drink, but it turns out the man hadn’t exactly disappeared. He came back, shouted at her some more and once again started to drive beside her as she tried to make her way back home. This time, enough was enough: Rima decided to call the police. “I knew exactly what I wanted,” she says. “I wanted him to be accountable for his behaviour.”

Report it to stop it

Though she believes that it is up to each person to choose whether or not to report such an incident when it happens to them, Rima firmly believes that sharing your experience and reporting it can be extremely useful: “This happens to people every day. If we don’t report it, then it’s easier for people to believe it’s not an issue and it becomes the norm,” she says. “By reporting these incidents, we can make sure that the authorities are doing what they can to keep us safe.”

As well as reporting it, Rima chose to share her story in an article she published on the Huffington Post earlier this month. This exposed her to a variety of reactions, including less than desirable ones. One man even commented “how much is your going rate?”, making it clear to Rima that some people just weren’t taking the situation seriously.

She also became increasingly frustrated with people (both men and women) who insisted on asking her what she was wearing that night or what time it was when it happened. “It’s not about that,” she says. “It’s about being safe and not even having to face that kind of situation. Nothing I wear or don’t wear warrants this type of behaviour.”

Fortunately, Rima also received a lot of support and positive reactions after speaking out about her experience. Most people just wanted to make sure she was ok, and several male friends, as well as acquaintances and even people that she had never met before, were really encouraging about her sharing her story and were glad to know that the man ended up getting caught. One person was even shocked that something like this would happen. For Rima, “this was surprising because, as I said, street harassment is something that happens on a daily basis.”

The need to talk about the challenges women face

This is why she thinks it’s important to be vocal about harassment and open about these conversations. “People stigmatise them. That’s not ok because we all live in this environment and we’re all in these situations,” she says. “If we’re more conscious about it, we’re more likely to intervene if we witness it take place and we’ll be better equipped to help other people.”

Of course, statistics show that these situations tend to happen to women more often and Rima believes that it’s crucial for men to understand what they go through: “They need to know how this behaviour makes us feel, so they too know never to accept it or act like this,” she says. “By understanding and listening, they can also play a key role in supporting the women around them – their mothers, sisters, girlfriends…”

When asked whether she considers herself a feminist, Rima says that she does, conceding however that “feminism is a whole movement within itself” and that “different feminists push for different things”. Still, she agrees that feminism plays a key role in informing society as a whole on the challenges women have to face: “The word ‘feminism’ can turn men off but it’s all about how you deliver information, how you tell these stories and the significance of them,” she says.

“We need to make it very clear to them that this happens, how this behaviour makes us feel and that it’s not ok. There’s no other way for them to understand what we go through unless they see it directly.” But at the end of the day, Rima says that “it’s up to every individual to be open-minded. Once that happens, they will naturally explore and try to learn more.”