Holla Back DC—-a blog chronicling street harassment in the District—–turns a year old this month. (Make a wish!). One of the reasons that Holla Back has been such a valuable resource over the past year is that it reveals how big of a reporting problem we have in D.C.
Since last March, Holla Back has recorded hundreds of instances of sexual harassment and assaults that were never reported to police. Imagine how many more incidents are never reported to Holla Back D.C., either.
This month, Holla Back is taking a look at just how large the gap is between reports to Holla Back and reports to D.C. authorities. Over the past year, Holla Back has received 200 reports of incidents of sexual harassment and assault in the D.C. area. Last week, they crunched the numbers on how many of these self-reports occurred on public transportation. A look back at the year in sexual harassment, as reported to Holla Back:
* 40 reported incidents occurred on the Metro
* 8 reported incidents occurred at a bus stop
* 4 reported incidents happened on a bus
* 3 reported incidents were on a Metro station escalator
* 1 reported incident happened on the Circulator
Guess how many of these incidents were reported to authorities?
Five.
If you’re wondering why so few victims report their public sexual assaults to police, perhaps this next figure will provide a clue. Guess how many of those five reported incidents a positive response?
One (we chronicled her story here).
Holla Back DC analyzes the data better than I could: “These numbers mean that a) public sexual harassment and assault IS occurring on public transportation choices in the DC metro area, b) there are resources to address it, c) but when utilized it doesn’t bear positive results for the victim.”
Here’s to another year of speaking up; now submit your street harassment experiences to Holla Back DC.