Riot, Don´t Diet! - Girls out on the Streets

  Women´s voices can be heard loud and clear on the streets of Oxford, drawing attention to such problems as human trafficking and sexual violence against women. I was lucky to attend two of those events here.

 On 18th October "Pretty girls" were for sale, to mark the UK’s Anti-Slavery Day and the EU’s Anti-Trafficking Day. It took place on the busy Cornmarket street in the heart of Oxford and introduced pretty girls in cages who were being auctioned by men in suits. The organisers of the event also recruited actors from the Oxford Student Union to give the performance a more realistic feel. Indeed, they succeeded. The aim of the event was to raise awareness of sexual trafficking and urge people to open their eyes against signs of it, because it is not a general problem that is somewhere "out there", it happens right here in Oxford.

 Two men were recently convicted for trafficking at least three young women from Romania into Oxford and forcing them to work as prostitutes. The men managed an escort agency "Fun Girls in Oxford" offering sex for money in hotels and clients´ homes. Sadly, this is not an isolated case, there are thousands of sex trafficking victims here in the UK, the majority of who are girls aged 12-25.
 The organisers urged people to look out for signs of human trafficking, such as:
  - Foreign nationals who rarely leave the house without a guardian or older unrelated males.
  - Frequent visitors to residential premises, often a stream of men.
 - Groups of men meeting regularly with girls who are not included in general conversation.
 - Commercial premises that survive despite the lack of regular business.
 - Sex workers who offer "special services" at a low price, who appear underage or speak little or no English.

Here you can see a BBC News report on the event and you can actually see me lurking in the background at 1:00 minute or so :)

Caged 'girls for sale' in Oxford

 Shortly after the "Pretty Girls for Sale" event, the Reclaim the Night march and rally took place on 28th October. Reclaim the Night is initially a feminist movement that has taken international dimensions. Today it has become a regular rally and protest march against rape and other forms of sexual violence. The movement can be traced back to the 1970´s in the US and Europe where women marched demanding the right to move freely in their communities at day and night without harassment and sexual assault. The marches are usually deliberately women-only in order to symbolize women's individual walk through darkness and to demonstrate that women united can resist fear and violence. In Oxford as well, the only women marched through the city streets, while men later joined us at the rally to raise awareness of the reality that violence against women is continuing, is inadequately addressed, and is the responsibility of all of us.