Sexual Harassment - Greater Greater Washington

Banning vans as rape prevention?

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 08:35:00 EDT

Vans are a popular public transit option in Rio de Janeiro. When a tourist was raped in one of them, the city banned the vans from the touristy areas. Is that good precedent? (Atlantic Cities)

Comment

WMATA taking steps to curb sexual harassment

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 12:04:00 EDT

by Holly Kearl

After advocates testified a year ago about sexual harassment on Metrorail and Metrobus, blogs like GGW covered the issue, and members of the public submitted many stories. After some initial resistance when we brought up the topic, WMATA formed a task force last March to address sexual harassment on its system.

Anti-harassment ad campaign on Metro. Photos by the author.

Despite the glacial speed government agencies sometimes work, WMATA has successfully taken a number of steps to fight the problem, and is poised to follow with a few more.

Tracking and trends: In March 2013, WMATA began tracking all forms of sexual harassment and they now look for trends. Previously they only tracked harassment that was considered, by law, to be criminal.

So far, the biggest trend they see is that most harassment happens on the Metro cars, compared to the buses or stations. Metro train ridership is double that of bus ridership.

Online forms: In March 2012, WMATA launched a new online form and e-mail address (harassment@wmata.com) to make it easier for individuals to report incidents. Transit police respond to everyone who submits a report and if the incident is illegal, they see if the person wants to file a police report.

Staff awareness: In the spring, there was an internal awareness campaign among WMATA staff carried out through company-wide emails and brochures.

Posters: Over the summer they launched a transit-wide public service poster campaign in Metro stations, on buses, and on train cars. I've personally seen them many places and numerous friends, colleagues, and acquaintances have let me know they've seen them and are happy they exist.

New law: When WMATA informed us that indecent exposure was not a probable cause misdemeanor in the District of Columbia, we spoke with Councilmember Muriel Bowser's office, and she introduced legislation in April 2012 to make it a probable cause misdemeanor.

In February 2013, the law quietly passed as part of the omnibus crime bill and will make it easier to report and prosecute indecent exposure incidents. (This law was already in place in Maryland and is not in place in Virginia.)

As Collective Action for Safe Spaces says, "Although we do NOT support more people getting arrested, we do want Metro to be safe for all, and not have to watch individuals doing obscene things while staring at you."

Reports: Between March and December of 2012, there were 126 reports of harassment. Because this was the first year verbal harassment was tracked, it's impossible to say if this is higher or lower than in years past.

Of the 126 reports, 99 used the online form. Of those, 9 reports were not sexual, 38 were non-criminal harassment, and 52 were criminal harassment. Out of the 52 incidents, only 22 people said they wanted to file a police report once WMATA followed up with them. Only one arrest was made out of the 22 reports.

WMATA suggests that people make reports directly to Metro Transit Police at (202) 962-2121 or via the online form. Unless you're in danger and need immediate help, reporting it to a station manager may delay the process because they may not be quick to respond and they would still have to report it to MTP.

Artwork by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh.

More steps are coming

It's great that WMATA is committed to continuing to address sexual harassment on their system this year. There are several more plans in place for doing more to address sexual harassment on the transit system:

Improved online form: Because most people who made reports did not provide enough information (including about the perpetrator) to press charges or to look for repeat offenders, within two weeks, WMATA will launch an improved online form that will have more drop down options which they hope can help lead to better reporting. (Note: If you plan to make a report, try to provide as many details as you can about the perpetrator/s.

Posters: There will be a second phase of the PSA campaign this summer or fall, tailored specifically for DC (the current campaign was adapted from a Boston campaign).

Training: Every single WMATA employee will receive training this year about how to not be a harasser and what to do when people report harassers to them.

Law: WMATA wants to work with Virginia legislators to pass legislation to make it easier to prosecute indecent exposure so there is consistency across the jurisdictions Metro serves.

Spread the word: In partnership with CASS and my organization Stop Street Harassment, WMATA plans to undertake more efforts to inform riders how to report harassers and why this is important. For example, during Sexual Assault Awareness Month and International Anti-Street Harassment Week (April 7-13), WMATA will likely partner with our groups to hand out fliers at busy Metro and bus stations.

You can help spread the word too and encourage people you know to say something when they see harassment happening and do something by reporting it to WMATA.

17 comments

Metro fights harassment

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 08:40:00 EDT

by Steven Yates

After two months, has Metro's anti-harassment program worked? It's probably too early to tell, but at least one anti-harassment advocate seems pleased with the progress so far. (DCist)

Comment

WMATA takes action to fight sexual harassment (Mar 12, 2012)
End sexual harassment on Metro (Feb 23, 2012)
Metro closing Red Line for 8 months to accelerate repairs (Apr 1, 2012)
Readers finding success bridging Metro gap with CaBi (Oct 10, 2010)
Weekend station closures will become common on Metro (Jul 14, 2011)

Anti-harassment campaign kicks off

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 08:26:00 EDT

by Steven Yates

Metro launched its anti-sexual harassment campaign on Monday. In addition to a website and email address for easier reporting and special training for employees, the campaign features advertisements from Boston's MBTA that the agency is licensing free of cost to WMATA. (DCist)

Comment

WMATA takes action to fight sexual harassment (Mar 12, 2012)
End sexual harassment on Metro (Feb 23, 2012)
Metro set up autoresponder for all email from GGW (Jan 22, 2009)
What should appear on the RAC site? (Apr 6, 2009)
Metro suffers complete blackout (Jan 27, 2012)

WMATA takes action to fight sexual harassment

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 10:19:00 EDT

by Holly Kearl

Just 2 weeks after advocates and members of the public testified about sexual harassment to a DC Council oversight hearing, WMATA has taken concrete steps to address the problem.

Image from WMATA.

WMATA officials invited representatives from Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS)/Holla Back DC! to a meeting on the issue. We had low expectations going into the meeting because in the preceding days, WMATA released statements like, "one person's harassment is another person's flirting" and gave the impression that they thought sexual offenses weren't a big deal.

Directly after the hearing, a top WMATA official talked to us in the hallway and said that the First Amendment protects remarks including verbal sexual harassment. We anticipated having to spend time explaining how sexual harassment was a problem and why they should care about it. But we didn't.

Instead, CASS co-founder Chai Shenoy and board members Ben Merrion and I listened to, and were pleasantly surprised by, what they had to say.

In the 2 weeks since the hearing, WMATA had formed an internal task force consisting of about 10 people, including communications director Lynn Bowersox, spokesperson Dan Stessel, government relations director Regina Sullivan, and police chief Michael Taborn. They invited us to join the task force as well.

We were pleased to hear they wanted to implement all of our recommendations. They were eager for more feedback from us. They also were sincere, polite, and appreciative for bringing this issue to their attention and offering suggestions.

Our first recommendation was for WMATA to do a better job tracking sexual harassment incidents and to allow people to report verbal sexual harassment. In response, they launched both a new email address (harassment@wmata.com) and an online portal where people can easily report incidents. You can also continue to call Metro Transit Police at 202-962-2121.

For the first time, they are including verbal harassment on the list of crimes people can report, and they are encouraging people to submit photos of their harassers if they can take one safely. They will create quarterly reports detailing incidents. Once WMATA has a better sense of the amount, type, and locations of incidents, they will be better able to perform targeted prevention.

Our second recommendation was a public service announcement campaign to inform people how and what they can report. To implement this recommendation, WMATA turned to their transit counterparts in Boston, a city which has a successful anti-sexual harassment PSA campaign.

We learned that Boston is willing to let DC adapt their campaign as soon as they want. WMATA provided us with copies of the campaign, and over this past weekend we went through the different PSA options and offered feedback. WMATA hopes to roll out the campaign as early as the first week of April, in the spirit of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Our third recommendation was better training for employees so that when people report incidents, employees respond appropriately. WMATA officials plan to draft training materials soon and will let CASS review it to provide feedback. And, on Friday, CEO Richard Sarles wrote in his regular newsletter to the 11,000 employees at WMATA about the seriousness of sexual harassment and assault on the Metro.

We know government agencies, including WMATA, are notoriously slow at changing and responding to complaints, and it is both surprising and commendable to see them move so quickly on implementing changes. We also know they took action so fast thanks to the outpouring of stories and supportive comments from people who emailed, tweeted, blogged, and wrote comments on articles, including the article here about the Metro oversight hearing.

I want to thank everyone who spoke out about this on and off-line. You helped make this happen.

WMATA wants more feedback and constructive suggestions about what else they can do. Several WMATA staff members will join CASS's "The REAL Metro Forum" event on Thursday, March 22, 5:30 pm at AAUW, 1111 16th Street NW. Members of the public are welcome to attend this free event, which is one of 8 events occurring in DC (PDF) for International Anti-Street Harassment Week.

So please come, voice your opinion, and be part of the exciting and fast-moving efforts to end sexual harassment on the Metro system.

30 comments

End sexual harassment on Metro (Feb 23, 2012)
Give input on new railcars, WMATA governance (Jun 30, 2010)
Senators threaten WMATA takeover; NTSB holding hearing on June crash (Feb 23, 2010)
Sign up to testify at Wednesday's WMATA budget hearing (Jan 22, 2010)
Catoe promises action (Dec 17, 2009)

End sexual harassment on Metro

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:57:00 EDT

by Holly Kearl

Unwanted sexual comments, indecent exposure, groping, and public masturbation: sexual harassment happens often on transit in DC. Local grassroots activist group Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS)/Holla Back DC! has been tracking and speaking out on this issue for 3 years.

Pascale Leone testifies to the DC Council about harassment.

Of the hundreds of stories of public sexual harassment submitted to their blog, 30% take place on the transit system or at Metro platforms or bus stops.

After unsuccessfully trying to meet with WMATA and not receiving responses to inquiries about statistics of sexual harassment, CASS board members, including myself, decided to organize a group of people to testify at yesterday's WMATA oversight hearing at the DC Council, chaired by Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser.

Six of us testified and we were the only members of the public who testified about anything relating to WMATA, so we had their attention and the attention of the media. After laying out the facts, sharing stories of harassment, and informing them about what transit systems in Boston, New York City and Chicago are doing to address sexual harassment that WMATA is not, we gave our recommendations.

Better tracking and reporting of incidents
A public service awareness campaign so people know what their rights are and how to report incidents
Better training of Metro employees so they don't harass passengers and so they respond to reports of harassment more appropriately.

Councilmember Bowser was very receptive to these suggestions, especially the PSA campaign. WMATA CEO Richard Sarles said he would talk with his counterparts in the three cities that have PSA campaigns, to get advice on how to bring one to DC. Their responses were very encouraging, but of course we won't call it a success until we actually have a campaign.

Anti-harassment PSA in Chicago.

And there is still work to do around WMATA's responses to and treatment of harassment.

While WMATA keeps painting harassment as flirting in their statements to the press, we're not talking about flirting, and the testimonies illustrated what's really going on. Here are two examples.

Ami Lynch testified about a Metro bus driver who harassed her. After small talk about how tall she was, he launched into inappropriate territory by saying, "Hey baby, it doesn't matter that I'm not tall, because when we're lying down it's all the same anyway," and as he laughed he gestured from his crotch to her crotch. She said she was stunned, stepped off the bus, crossed the street, and began to cry. After she reported it, the Customer Relations Manager told her how the bus driver would never have said that and didn't have time to talk to customers on his route. The case was closed.

She said she no longer takes that bus and it has cost her nearly $1,000 in cab fares to commute to her weekly appointment for which she previously used the 10B bus.

Pascale Leone shared how the following happened to her when she left a Metro station: "In a flash, the young male in the white T-shirt came onto me saying derogatory things about my body and proceeded to—in what felt like the longest seconds of my life—fondle my chest and buttocks unremittingly and then walked away as if nothing had happened. My shock wore off and anger quickly set in. I was pissed. I turned around with clenched fists and caught my assailants vacant eyes as he muttered, "You f---ing b-tch" and calmly turned around and continued to walk away."

When she reported him to a nearby Metro employee, he said, "Oh him. He just grabbed that girl's butt" pointing at a woman going up the escalators. Then he laughed. She said the next day she read in the DCist and the Examiner that minutes before her assault, he had punched a woman in the back of her head and after he groped her, he grabbed a woman on K Street and tried to rape her until a group of passerby's heard her scream and held the suspect until the police arrived..

Metro says they are doing a good job addressing sexual crimes since there were only 84 reported "sexual offenses" last year. We disagree. We know that sexual crimes are vastly under-reported to begin with and then, when people do try to report it, how many of them are like Ami and Pascale? Instead of having their incident handled and recorded, they're met with laughter or disbelief and their incident is left off the record.

Additionally, after our testimonies, we were told by someone in from the transit police office, that unless verbal harassment is directly threatening, it is not recorded at all and is a matter of free speech. So none of the verbal sexual harassment that we know is so prevalent is tracked.

It's funny how unwanted sexual comments constitute sexual harassment in the workplace and schools, but, according to the police officer, they are free speech on the Metro system.

Clearly, our work is just beginning. We plan to bring a larger group to testify at the WMATA budget hearing in April and we likely will launch a petition or advocacy campaign in March, so stay tuned.

88 comments

Weekend station closures will become common on Metro (Jul 14, 2011)
Rock-throwers meet indifferent Metro employee (Nov 12, 2009)
911 dispatchers not aware of Metropolitan Branch Trail (Jun 16, 2010)
It's not the (escalator) crime, Metro, it's the cover-up (Nov 9, 2010)
Why doesn't Metro post the police phone number? (Jul 14, 2010)

Stop harassment on Metro

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 08:50:00 EDT

by David Alpert

Several women have been harassed on Metro, and told the DC Council yesterday they think the agency isn't doing enough about it. CEO Richard Sarles and Police Chief Michael Taborn promised action. (WAMU)

Comment

Richard Sarles will make safety top priority, ride Metro (Mar 4, 2010)
Metro discontinues bag searches (Apr 1, 2011)
What would you ask WMATA's new CEO? (Feb 2, 2011)
Sarles promises action, Board mixed on bag searches (Jan 27, 2011)
5 top issues for Richard Sarles (Jan 30, 2011)

ART strike over sexual harassment, bathrooms

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 08:23:00 EDT

by David Alpert

ART bus operators explain why they struck: they say the bus company ignored sexual harassment complaints, then fired the union leader, and refused to let drivers use the bathroom. (TBD)

Comment

DC2NY says DDOT rules will kill their business (Jun 23, 2008)
Strike two for NoVa transit (Mar 2, 2008)
Greyhound terminal may move to Union Station (May 12, 2008)

WMATA not protecting women enough?

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 09:44:00 EDT

by David Alpert

11th grader Brittnie Smith writes about the inadequacy of Metro's response to verbal and physical sexual harassment. (DC Women's Issues Examiner via Hollaback DC)

Comment

Bus driver harasses, not punished?

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 09:09:00 EDT

by David Alpert

A Metrobus driver sexually harassed a 16-year-old girl, but police say they can't do anything because he didn't touch her, keep her on the bus, or explicitly ask for sex. (The Sexist)

Comment

Not top employee

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 09:24:00 EDT

by David Alpert

A group of guys harassed a young woman at Union Station Metro... including a Metro employee. (Holla Back DC)

Comment

Too much work to listen?

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:05:00 EDT

by David Alpert

A woman was sexually harassed at Friendship Heights Metro last week. In order to report it, she'd have either had to wait a long time for police to show up in person, or go to the station. It's understandable that the police like complete, in-person reports, but it also deters reporting of incidents. (Holla Back DC)

Comment

Stop it, guys

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 08:11:00 EDT

by David Alpert

Many women who ride bikes experience constant harassment from catcalls and even groping. Add together harassment of women with the generalized harassment of cyclists, and women cyclists have it extra tough. Ugh! (TheWashCycle, City Paper)

Comment