04 Aug 2016 - Kavyaa Rizal
About a week ago, I, along with three other friends, all girls, decided to go for a quick dinner in Durbar Magh. It about 9.00 pm that we were all done and started heading back home.
As we were walking back, a group of men started to walk along with us, slowing their pace with ours and almost surrounding all of us in their group. Frightened, we quietly attempted to hurry past the group to which they responded by saying things like “Oho! Esto K hattar? (What’s the hurry?)” and “Kata Bhageko? (Where are you running off to?)”.
After minutes of surrounding us, they finally decided to leave us alone and went off to another venture, having succeeded at using us to entertain themselves for a few minutes. Not long after that, just as we started to get into the car, a middle-aged man walked past us and “accidentally” groped my friend’s little sister from the back.
We all look at him as she screamed, he looked back at us, smiled, simply said “sorry” and made his way ahead. These two incidents occurred within 10 minutes of one night in Kathmandu.
Feeling frightened, helpless, and violated in the streets is almost a daily occurrence for women in Nepal. Be it getting constant stares from men in the streets, the supposedly “flattering” words we are quietly forced to hear, or on many occasions the “accidental” gropes that we have to pretend never happened, all leave us feeling helpless and terrified in the same streets we have to walk everyday. The worse part of it all, though? It’s how it’s hardly ever talked about let alone addressed this problem.
Being tired of the street harassment, I, and Code for Nepal, have decided to start a campaign to at least start talking about street harassment and how we can combat it in Nepal. This project is called “I Walk Freely” and is created to help the many out there who are unable to do so today. Over the next few weeks, we will be refining this project and releasing little bits and pieces along the way. We will also launch a survey to gather data on street harassment.
However, #IWalkFreely is in its initial phase right now, and what it needs the most to develop is you!
We need you to start talking about this project, and about street harassment in Nepal. If you have faced any forms of street harassment, share it with us and show your support. If you are not comfortable doing that, just show us your support by sharing this message and using the hashtag #IWalkFreely.
If you don’t have a harassment story, share this message and pledge that you will not support any forms of harassment against fellow men or women and do you best to fight against it.
Together, I believe that we can build a Nepal where every person, man or woman, has the ability to walk freely. But for now, let’s simply start talking about it. #IWalkFreely
