Hundreds of women to nap outdoors to protest street harassment

A woman relaxing by catching a few winks in a public park or ground is still a rather uncommon sight. But, this December 15, hundreds of girls and women will take up their space at public parks — alone and collectively. Through ‘Meet to Sleep’, an event led by Blank Noise, a community-led initiative to end gender-based violence, these naps aim at creating a new normal —where women can relax in public spaces, and questions like ‘What was she doing there?’ don’t arise.

“All of us are raised with fear, and we live with caution. Meet to Sleep is our work towards a future where the need to be cautious dissolves. We invite people to sleep in the open, under trees, skies, in parks, fields and open grounds —asserting the right to live free from fear and defenceless,” Jasmeen Patheja, the founder director of Blank Noise, tells us.

Conceptualised by Jasmeen in 2008, the first public action for Meet to Sleep was in 2014. Since then, the annual event that involves women sleeping outdoors as a protest against street harassment, has been held in 29 cities and towns across the country, including at Semmozhi Poonga in Chennai, at parks and open spaces in Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Srinagar, Jaipur, Jammu and Lucknow. This year, it is expected to be held abroad in cities like London and Helsinki as well. Besides Blank Noise’s volunteers known as Action Sheroes/Heroes/Theyroes, local organisations working against gender-based violence also take part.

Over the years, the act of women sleeping in public has led to starting many conversations, points out Jasmeen. “We see mothers bringing their daughters and daughters bringing their mothers. We manage to perplex and surprise people in the parks. People leave with the visuals of women being relaxed in public spaces and we want this to be the new normal,” she asserts. NGO ActionAid India’s 2016 study found that 73 per cent of women in India experienced some form of violence or harassment in a certain month.

“We Meet to Sleep in memory of Jyoti Singh (or Nirbhaya, who was gang-raped and murdered in Delhi on December 16, 2012), also known to the world as the fearless one…We Meet to Sleep in solidarity,” Blank Noise notes on its website. City-based Kirthi Jayakumar, a gender equality activist, says events like this make one feel part of the community. “Participation in campaigns like Meet to Sleep has given me a powerful sense of affirmation that I am a part of a sisterhood and a community, that not only has my back, but will walk the extra mile to ensure that wrongs are righted,” she remarks.

Refer to blanknoise.org to register for the upcomingMeet to Sleep.