Kay: “… The police told us to enter home and stay there. I got locked in my house, while my harassers are free in the street.”

Well, yesterday it happened again. I have suffered AGAIN a degrading, aggressive and menacing treatment from the men of my neighborhood, Molenbeek. During the last 18 months, I experienced at least four serious incidents although, as many girls in Brussels, every day I have to bear all kinds of comments and noises when I have the pretension to go in or out.

Yesterday my roommate and I wanted to go for a bike ride. When my roommate opened the door, she found a young man she knew, a boy with a cap: “oh, here you are, dirty bitch”. Some days ago my roommate (a lady who could be his mother) was riding her bike when this very boy said the traditional “you are beautiful”. My roommate ignored him, and he started to call her “dirty bitch” and other related adjectives. Yesterday the boy recognized her and he started to insult and threaten us saying that “our building was not safe anymore”. We entered again home and my roommate called the police saying that a very aggressive man had threatened us in front of our door, but the police did not come.

Some minutes later, we decided to go out. In the corner of the street there were, as usual, big groups of men staring at us. We did not feel very safe, so my roommate asked a young man from a garage next door to go with us to the corner. Meanwhile, I waited leaning on the door. Then the same man with the cap appeared with two more friends heading for a car. The guy with the cap said “have a nice evening” and I replied “have a nice evening too”. Then they started to say “you are beautiful” again, and several things I did not understand. I speak good French but I do not understand some expressions and accents, although I understand the attitude and the tone.

I was really angry. I took out my notebook and pen and I wrote down the car’s registration number. Immediately the three boys came to me shouting “What are you doing? What are you writing down?”. They surrounded me, they shouted at me ten centimeters from my face, and one grabbed my notebook and broke the cover. My roommate came with the man of the garage, and he almost came to blows with one of the boys.

Then I called the police, and two police vans arrived. When they saw the amount of men in the street, they asked for reinforcements. Only the car’s owner was still there, the other two, including the boy with the cap, had run away. The car’s owner shouted at the policed, saying that he was innocent, that he did not know the boy with the cap, that the only thing he had done was to say that I was beautiful, that he must say those things to the girls, otherwise “how was he going to get married”, that I was a liar and a paranoiac, etc… When the police released him, he shouted at me from a certain distance: “now we know each other, now we are real neighbors”.

A policeman asked to me what did I want to do, and I replied I wanted to report the thing. He said I could do it, but there were not going to be any follow-up, since the threatening man had run away. I said I would do it anyway.

The street was full of men. The police told us to enter home and stay there. I got locked in my house, while my harassers are free in the street.

2 Antwoorden

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1. hollaback! brussels zegt:

   september 5, 2012 om 20:06

   hollaback! brussels says:
   August 28, 2012 at 17:05

   Dear Kay,
   We’re so sorry you had to go through this, this is an awful story indeed. It confirms our point of view that fines probably won’t be the solution to the problem – because proving harassment is very difficult and the police can even get afraid of your harassers. Be assured that we’ve got your back and keep hollering back!
   Angelika for the Hollaback!Brussels team
   ——————-

   Kay says:
   August 30, 2012 at 11:06

   Dear Angelika,
   Thanks a lot for your message. Actually I have been twice in the police station, and the lady in the reception told me to report it to the same policemen that were in the intervention, so I had to wait one week. It is a little ennoying to see that sometimes they do not really want to tackle the issue, maybe because they have few policemen or they do not think that this is a real problem. I have nevertheless been supported by some policemen I already knew (since I this is not my first problem in the neighbourhood) and they promised to do something about this.

   Anyway I am really thankful to all the people who have “got my back”. After the event I felt really sad and I considered to move as soon as possible, but I feel really better now, and very happy to see how sympathetic and sweet people can be. Thank you, merci beaucoup, dank jullie wel!
   ———————-

   CouleurCafeFan says:
   August 30, 2012 at 14:31

   This is so shocking! And it shows the reality of things here in Brussels: authorities, the police and the courts do not even bother.

   What do we have to do? Take photos of the offenders and show them to police? In most situations this would put us even more at risk to be beaten and abused. It seems there is zero conscience / solidarity / help we can expect from authorities!

   Beantwoorden
2. hollaback! brussels zegt:

   september 5, 2012 om 20:08

   Dear All,

   Thank you for this thread and the support towards Kay.
   This story is so shocking, Kay’s final conclusion “The police told us to enter home and stay there. I got locked in my house, while my harassers are free in the street.” is difficult to read but so recognizable because haven’t we all felt this at one way or the other? Even though we did not experience the same, we sometimes feel that indeed we are ‘locked’ in our apartment while our harassers are free in the streets.
   In our experience, police or the law enforcement are truly at loss sometimes what to do in these situations. As we suggest in our recent post: Who wants to know. .. One of the solutions for this is: an Education program for law enforcement and public officials to provide them with tools and resources on how to react when people come to them for help with Harassment.
   This is currently completely absent. What is also absent is that there is no law that protects us from this violence. And again and again the authorities demand that we take our own safety into our own hands, because now with these new fines they expect us again; “to prove” our harassment.
   How can we do this, we ask?
   We really want to look into the fact if these fines really help, so if you had some experiences, please share them with us. And NO we cannot ask all women to walk around taking pictures of their harassers. ! If there is NO society at place that denounces sexism, sexist remarks, street harassment and gender violence, these kind of violence and discrimination will keep showing its ugly head.

   Please read our solutions for street harassment in “Who wants to know.”

   Kay, again our support, know that we will do whatever it takes to raise awareness on this issue and that we will continue to fight for a world where you can truly be free to walk on the street at whatever hour so you can come safe out of your apartment!

   Keep on Hollaback-ing, by doing so you help with this fight. We’ve got your back!

   Your Hollaback!Brussels team

   Beantwoorden