Reclaim the Night Stroud: Women call for safer streets

Hundreds of women have taken to the street in a protest against gender-based violence.

The march in Stroud, Gloucestershire, was part of the national movement Reclaim The Night, which wants to make women and girls feel safer.

Sydney-Anne McAllister, co founder of This Ends Now, said "every single female friend of mine has experienced some sort of harassment".

The march follows a number of assaults and harassment cases in Stroud.

It was organised by Gloucestershire Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre and started at Stratford Park before heading to the town centre and back again.

Personal rape alarms were handed out, but the message from those attending was "we shouldn't need them, girls and women should be able to feel safe".

Trainee solicitor Ms McAllister and local author Nikki Owen, are members of the same running club and as sex attacks in Stroud increased last summer they said they decided to take action.

Out of those discussions was a local protest which has since developed into the not-for-profit This Ends Now.

Ms Owen said: "When I run there have been incidents where I have been followed, definitely where I have been shouted at by people in cars randomly.

"I always have to watch where I go."

Ms McAllister added: "I don't tend to run on my own much any more, which is really sad.

"Young impressionable boys that are seeing this, having these conversations, thinking that sexist comments and 'get back in the kitchen' and all these ridiculous comments that people still find funny are OK and acceptable, when in reality that is where it starts.

"It then gets this snowball effect whereby people think it is OK to cat-call and wolf-whistle at women who are just trying to run, just trying to do things that men can do freely without any attention or harassment."

Now they want to get more men involved in the hope they can also be part of the solution.

John Tierney said he now challenges men when he hears disrespectful "banter" language.

"It feels terrible that women are scared to run," he said.

The Reclaim The Night marches started in the UK in the 1970s and became more significant when Peter Sutcliffe began murdering women in and around the Leeds area.

Insp Paul Cruise, from Gloucestershire Constabulary, said they were now promoting the Flare app, which allows women to report locations where they feel unsafe, as well as a safe space scheme with businesses to provide places women can go.

He added: "But it is more than that, it is not changing the behaviour of women, it is changing the behaviour of men and we are focusing heavily on schools and our education officers are going out and teaching healthy relationships in schools, so that boys grow up and they know how to act towards women and they know what is appropriate and what is not."

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