Reclaiming space: Women ride bicycles to ‘condemn harassment’

Organisers say they want to encourage the people to accept women’s presence in public spaces

LAHORE:

Many passersby stared in confusion at an all-women group of bicycle riders gathering at the Gulberg’s Main Market roundabout on Sunday morning. Questions were whispered into one another’s ears about the nature of the event. “Is this a race?” a passerby, who later identified himself as Muhammad Ahsan, asked the person standing next to him. His confusion remained as he found the pace of the group of riders heading towards the Main Boulevard too slow for a race.

The rally titled, Girls on Bikes, was a joint effort by the Critical Mass Lahore and Girls at Dhabas to raise voice against harassment of women in public areas. The group of 30 women rode bicycles from Main Boulevard towards Jail Road and returned to Main Market through the Canal Road.

“The purpose of the event is to increase acceptability among the public for women coming out in public spaces. We also want women to feel comfortable when they come out in public areas,” said Noor Rahman, one of the organisers.

She said most women felt uncomfortable coming out in public areas because of past experiences of harassment and of insecurity inculcated in them by relatives. The idea behind holding the rally was to condemn harassment incidents and to challenge the mindset that public spaces were unsafe for women, she said.

Staring at women or stalking them in public spaces is not uncommon experience for women in the country. At times, the harassment escalates resulting in physical intimidation or harm. Aneeqa Ali, a CML member, experienced such an incident over a week ago when she was riding a bicycle in the Defence Housing Authority area. In a blog post about the incident, Ali had said that she was followed by two men in a car. The men shouted at her and honked their horn to get her attention, she had said. When she turned into a service lane to avoid them, they followed her there. The car drivers hit her bicycle and fled the scene. Ali suffered multiple bruises and scratches in the fall.

Speaking to the Tribune at the rally, she said that she had stayed quiet about the incident for sometime thinking that speaking about it may discourage other women from joining causes like the CML. However, she said, she later decided that harassment of women in public spaces was too frequent and should not be ignored. “We need to talk about it. Staying silent will not solve the problem,” she said. “I want more women to join the cause,” she said.

Former National Commission on the Status of Women chairperson Khawar Mumtaz was also present at the occasion on Sunday. She said she had come to express her support for the cause. She said women also had a right on the roads. “I remember when I growing up women riding bicycles to schools and colleges was a common sight. So many girls used to ride bicycles to Kinnaird College,” she said.

Mumtaz said she felt that the society had become intolerant and conservative over the years. “There is a paradox in public attitude towards women. More people are now willing to let their girl children get education and seek employment because of the benefits it can bring to them but harassment still remains widespread,” she said.

She said a recent law on harassment at workplaces was an improvement on the previous legislation because an implementing mechanism was clearly defined in it. However, she said, there was still a need to make police stations safe spaces for women to go and lodge their complaints.

She said traffic congestion could be a reason why women were usually discouraged from using bicycles to commute from one place to another. She said the government should be urged to set up separate lanes for bicycle riding.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 28^th,  2016.