SHOW – Fighting Sexual Harassment In Buses
Seriously, almost every Sri Lankan woman I know has been harassed, masturbated at, or sexually assaulted. I’m not saying Sri Lanka’s a horribly rapey country, but we still have a ways to go on basic civility and respect. Sexual assault is much more prominent than you’d think, but let’s focus on sexual harassment here. I can say with some confidence that EVERY woman in Sri Lanka has been sexually harassed, be it on the street or in the mall or in public transport. Part of the problem is that other people stand by and don’t say anything. Thankfully, Sri Lanka Unites is doing something about it, starting today.
Why do I say EVERY woman? Well, I have never met a woman who hasn’t at least been hollered at on the street in an un-nice way (is there a nice way?). I have heard stories from my mother about the perverts who used to hang out outside her girls school. My sisters used to be harassed when they walked anywhere out of the house. This extends across class and creed. Politicians can be pervy as can priests. The rich as much as the poor (sometimes moreso, because the abuse of power for sex [as in office kukulas] is rampant and disgusting).
Are we as bad as India for what they innocuously call eve-teasing? No. But we’re not as good as China or, say, Singapore, not to mention the west. Sexual harassment and abuse is a social issue which pervades deep into the home, but we can start by ensuring some minimally social behavior in public and on the streets. And a lot of that is men AND women speaking up.
Anyways < /RANT >. Groups like Beyond Borders and now Sri Lanka Unites have been taking a stand on this issue, and something important is happening today. They’re assembling at Vihara Maha Devi park today (the 21st) at 1 o’clock for a briefing and to connect mentors with volunteers. The campaign itself starts on the 25th.
Chivalry is dead no longer! Young men in the city of Colombo decide that the time has come for them to stand up and promote the respectful treatment of women. They have decided that they will not turn the other way, they have decided that as young men they will S.H.O.W. values and principles that are not practiced or conveniently forgotten. They have decided that they will S.H.O.W. how a man ought to conduct himself, they will S.H.O.W. their mothers and sisters who have experienced harassment at the hands of other men, that they are different.
From June 25th to 30th in all bus routes in Colombo, students (from mostly boys schools) will board the buses according to a formulated plan and address the passengers in all three languages (Tamil, Sinhala, English): firstly, apologizing to all women for any incidents of harassment they may have encountered in the past, handing out leaflets highlighting the legal recourse available to women if they experience such treatment, making a general statement of the right of women to be treated respectfully and the men taking the responsibility to safeguard this right and the negative reflection on them, if they fail. These leaflets will also contain information regarding basic women’s rights and the actions that could be taken if one’s found violating them. (SLU blog)
It’s an interesting approach. I was at an event held by the Women & Media Collective and participants talked about the need to involve more men. Indeed, as long as these are seen as ‘women’s issues’ it’s easy to write them off, for men at least. Men (and boys) also need to take responsibility for ourselves, our behavior, each other, and out streets. In that way this is a good and productive campaign.
I continue to be impressed by the work of Sri Lanka Unites, Prashan De Visser and the whole SLU team. In other news, spelling harassment is hard.
Posted on Thursday, June 21st, 2012 in Sex, Sri Lanka, transport.
I’m happy to be featured in Echelon magazine’s 40 Under 40 feature, profiling young people who contribute to the economy in some way, mainly in business but also in terms of innovation and thought leadership. It’s an interesting article not just in that I’m in it (mainly for work on indi.ca and 
I won’t add too much commentary, but just read I guess. The youngest Rajapaksa, Rohitha (Chi Chi) has given an amazing interview to the 
In 2009 this strange character appeared on the Sri Lankan Internet scene, getting angry, flaming, trolling whatever. Then he started naming anonymous bloggers, posting comments as people’s kids, nasty stuff, for which I removed him from 
The chutzpah of this government knows no bounds. Every government since Independence has had to balance placating Sinhala nationalists (AKA racists) while at the same time actually running a sensible, inclusive nation that doesn’t send minority citizens, capital and foreign investment fleeing. Basically, they’ve had to pay lip service to nationalists while at the same time trying to run an actual nation. Every government has also generally failed, SWRD being killed by a nationalist monk and everyone after almost losing the country to various rebellions. In that context Mahinda is actually doing a better job by virtue of not being dead and not losing control of the country. But he’s still not doing a good job.
Why should those boys apologize for crimes committed by other men? How they be any more responsible for those crimes than women themselves?
Simply because more times than not they have watched and not helped. From school kids that throw rocks at a girl to the boy who sees it happen so decides to do it himself in the future. Grow up and accept some responsibility rather than just passing the buck.
So, boys who have neither committed the crime itself, nor watched it happening and done nothing, are responsible simply because they are boys, just like all Jews are responsible for killing Christ.
or how we are all responsible for some incident involving an apple, a chick and a snake
It’s called white guilt, or the sri lankan variant of it. I’ve been sexually harassed by women. When can i expect a long line of women lining up to apologize.
I believe it’s symbolic.
[...] wrote this post earlier today and I am like , yeah, I haven’t met a woman who has not been harassed on [...]
Whole Indians subcontinent is filled with perverts and sexually frustrated people. We see Americans have sex at 14, 15 when WE are the same age (TV, movies etc.) and you think that has NO physiological impact?? We marry now in our late 20s and early 30s. You marry and after 1 or 2 kids you wife starts bloating like a dead cow. Even if you don’t have kids, Sri Lankan women grow horizontally after hitting 40. They get fat and uuuugly. So there you go.
Legalize prostitution and regulate it. No need for this type of idiotic BS apologizing and what not.
Moron.
Although you’d be able to make a good argument for legalizing prostitution, I doubt this is it. People don’t rape because they have no outlet for their sex drives. They do it because of a crack in their moral compass. After downloading a pirated movie, do we feel bad about it? Not me. It’s just that we have not devoloped our morals to handle those kind of phenomena. Our morals developed in African Savannahs.
Same can be said about such things as tax avoidance schemes.
I think you are replacing one form of reductionism with another
I am a reductionist. But what exactly do you mean by I’m “replacing one form of reductionism with another?”
Reducing what causes someone to rape, or pirate movie, as a ‘crack in the moral compass’ is a little too lazy. Humans have all sorts of motivations and all sorts of justifications, and some people even function under a logic that doesn’t make sense. One size fits all descriptions will never work when describing human behavior.
I also think it’s wrong to assume that whatever morals we inherited from our ancestors are not malleable. it could very well be that we can easily leave behind one set or moral standards & adopt another.
BTW I’m not accusing you of being lazy, but argument seems too lazy & over encompassing
Lazy? Maybe. I did the best I can with a 5 line comment. I might be able to reduce the cognitive algorithm to atoms, and reduce them even further to quarks. In the end, there is nothing more than movements of those quarks. But then I’m not the author of this blog.
Anyway, I think your understanding of reductionism is different from what is meant by most self-proclaimed reductionists. Reductionism doesn’t state that everything is simple. Rather, it states that everything is made from simpler, basic parts, and things are nothing more than the some of their parts.
“some of their parts”
replace this with,
sum of their parts
Sorry about abuse of the abuse of the term.
So because Sri Lankan women get ‘fat and ugly’ after 40, men get sexually frustrated, and it becomes acceptable to harass women (and also children)?
Imagine you are 10 years old, in a crowded bus, going home after a long tiring day at school. There are many people pressing up against you, but there is one man in a sarong, old enough to be your dad, pressing his privates up against you. And there is really no where to go or turn, and you hope it’s an accident, as the bus is so full, but really you know it’s not. Imagine if this was you, or your daughter or sister?
Would you be so dismissive and accepting then?
The apologising is not idiotic nor is it ‘BS’. It is actually an innovative way of getting a vital message out, educating the public about their rights, educating young men that this behaviour is not ok and involving them in making changes.
At least these boys are willing to take a stand and help make changes instead of making dismissive comments about the situation.
My friend from college visiting Sri Lanka experienced this first hand. It’s an awful awful situation and her experiences on the bus has justifiably colored her perception of what Sri Lanka is about. I can have arguments with people all day and defend my country when people bring up the LTTE, but with this I’ve got nothing.
She blogged about the experience here http://bfang.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/sri-lan-cock-a-snag-in-solo-female-travel/
That post is funny. But you’re right I’ve seen it happen too. Sometimes kids here think that “westernised woman” are like free prostitutes. Its bloody embarrassing. How would they like it if their mothers, daughters and sisters were subjected to the same thing?
Not just westernized women. When I was in school ‘planting a jack’ was very popular among kids who take the bus. Planting a jack involves pressing your crotch against the ass of some poor girl and gyrating about. Many of these kids swore that a considerable number of girls would reciprocate their willingness to be jacked upon by arching their backs appropriately. I never believed this until I saw one of these mutually agreed upon ‘jacks’ happening first hand. it was hilarious & scary at the same time.
Well said.Most of the time its mutually supported.Seen in trains and buses.
This is such BS…Are you two morons implying that women actually LIKE being harassed in public transport?
Sharm,
I obviously can’t speak for all ‘women’ like you seem to able to. I’m simply talking about something i saw about a decade ago.
And you don’t seem understand what sexual harassment is. it isn’t two people consenting to fool around a little bit in the bus, . Don’t simply assume that all women have cloistered 50s outlook on sex.
But i do see a major problem with this behavior as it doesn’t establish consent in any meaningful way, and girl has no real choice in the matter. All they can possibly do is wriggle away somewhere else. And I’m sure most girls/women would feel horrifically violated after something like this. law enforcement should actively work to stop stuff like this from happening.
But none of that doesn’t mean there aren’t women out there who actually enjoy such activity.
The effort by SLU is for the 99.99% of females who abhor this kind of attention. Actually I’ve not come across the possible .01% of er, Shan’s aquaintance, though I’ve never taken a bus regularly. Could he have been conveniently imagining the supposed consent?
It happens in other places too, like queues and even on crowded trains, though you cant always be sure it’s deliberate. I’ve always managed to avoid being harassed, by either staring pointedly at the offender, poking him in the ribs with my bag or stomping on his toes. The tough part is the outrage you feel when no one cares about what is happening.
Once I was seated by the window and the man next to me was smoking and exhaling all over my face, and wouldn’t let me keep the shutter down saying the blowing was causing his cigarette to flare (“cigarette eke della enawa”). The conductor, when appealed to, simply asked ME to move to a vacant seat at the rear, and none of the other people supported me when I refused. Finally had to get off the bus in disgust.
[...] the culture is changing and young people from Sri Lanka Unites are organizing starting Monday to combat this problem. And it is a problem. Read bfang’s post for a first-hand report on how weird, gross, [...]
A very interesting piece. Living in Japan, I know a lot of women who have experienced the same sort of lewd and lascivious treatment. It’s a real shame, but it is always heartening to hear someone trying to do something about it. I think some of the other comments here really miss the point of this group’s actions.
It’s not so much about the boys giving a public apology – though that gesture is sweet and compassionate – the key is that they are acknowledging the problem openly in a public way. Awareness is always the first step towards resolving such embedded social problems. The perverts and malcontents that literally “get off” on these lewd actions are protected due to a lack of public awareness and concern. They can hide because the society allows them to do so. In bringing attention to the matter, in saying “This is terrible, and we are sorry if you had this happen to you,” you are bringing it out into the open and opening up conversations that might change how others react next time they witness these events.
Anyway, it was a good read – and you can trust I’ll be back to the blog more in the future!