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“There is power in numbers – band together to do bigger things”

 

“There is power in numbers – band together to do bigger things”

 

Sara Naseem is a women's rights and social justice advocate from the Maldives. She stands up for abuse of power and calls for justice and accountability in an increasingly conservative environment. In 2015, she co-founded Nufoshey, an anti-street harassment movement that raises awareness and demands access to safe spaces for all. Since its inception, Nufoshey has conducted the first baseline survey on street harassment in the Maldives, trained over 120 girls in basic self-defense and conducted training for male allies on being better bystanders and supporters for the cause of women’s equity. 

 

“It was through conversations I had with friends about how just being a woman in public spaces in this country is difficult, especially as a young woman,” she says. “I think it was something that I was understanding more and more, and then being able to think about the difference between being here and being somewhere else.”

Sara wanted to do something that would help bring about change: “With a couple of friends, I started an online space where women could come and talk about their experiences of street harassment.”

 

“In the Maldives, like in a lot of other places, we have this idea that a lot of the harassment and abuse women face is just the cost of being a woman.”

 

Sara says that this simple gathering place became transformative. “It was the first time that women had been able to talk about these issues,” she explains. “In the Maldives, like in a lot of other places, we have this idea that a lot of the harassment and abuse women face is just the cost of being a woman.”

 

 

Sara says that the reality of being a woman in the Maldives is attracting unwanted attention. She believes that men feel entitled to use unsolicited sexual language and make advances to any woman they want. “I think Nufoshey really helped a lot of women to be able to say, ‘No, this is not OK and it shouldn’t be happening to me!’”

According to Sara, there are several reasons for this epidemic of harassment in the Maldives. “It is an unquestioned cultural attitude,” she says. “People use excuses like ‘cultural values’, as if it’s something that’s ‘in our culture’.”

 

“I think Nufoshey really helped a lot of women to be able to say, ‘No, this is not OK and it shouldn’t be happening to me!’”

 

She points to the growing extremism in the Maldives and the 50-year decline in women in public roles to demonstrate that the oppression of women is not inherently cultural and that, rather, assault and harassment are encouraged by retrograde conservative beliefs. She says, “For me, street harassment is also symbolic of a lot of root causes in our society – the power imbalance, the denial of bodily autonomy and the normalization of abuse against women, especially in public spaces – which allow so much worse to happen behind closed doors.”

Sara says that gaps in the education system play a role in harassment. “We have an education system that has ingrained the stereotypes that we associate with men and women,” she explains. “Children are taught to answer questions by rote and they aren’t taught about themselves or their bodies. There’s no sexual and reproductive health curriculum.”

 

“Children are taught to answer questions by rote and they aren’t taught about themselves or their bodies.
There’s no sexual and reproductive health curriculum.”

 

She says that these gender-normative roles encourage predatory behaviour in boys and reinforce notions that girls are docile. “Huge changes need to happen in how we educate children,” she argues. “They need to know about who they are themselves, they need to know about consent. These gender identities need to change for people to start respecting each other more.”

Nufoshey started out by creating spaces where women were able to tell their stories, and this would start conversations. The initiative moved on to campaigns where the focus was on bystanders. The idea was to share ways in which people could intervene in abusive conversations and what they could do to help women facing harassment in the streets.

 

 

“We started creating spaces where men could talk about these issues,” Sara says. “The ideas that they have about harassment, how they felt when they were in a group of friends who were doing it and how they weren’t able to take a stand because sometimes they just didn’t know what to say.”

The responses from young men who also wanted to shift the culture of harassment gave Sara hope. “A lot of it is about giving people the language to talk about these issues,” she says. “I think sometimes when you’re brought up in a community where some of these issues aren’t even identified as issues, you lack the language to talk about it.”

 

"When you’re brought up in a community where some of these issues aren’t even identified as issues, you lack the language to talk about it.”

 

While she is inspired by more young people speaking out against violence, Sara points out that odious beliefs still dominate politics in her county. “A member of the parliament in one of his speeches said, ‘Women’s rights activists are like termites and they should be eradicated,’” she says. “This language is pervasive in every aspect of society, even in parliament. It’s not just online.”

Despite veiled threats of violence from political leaders, Sara is hopeful about the progress she’s seen in just five years. “Things have really changed,” she reports. “This shift has given me the space to work with other women’s rights groups. We connect on this issue of harassment that women face and then join them on campaigns where we protest and work together.”

 

 

Sara says that the first step is building a shared understanding that harassment is not OK: “By raising awareness that harassment is something that happens and that it is wrong, we were able to start a lot of other conversations that equip people with the language to respond to it.”

 

"By raising awareness that harassment is something that happens and that it is wrong, we were able to start a lot of other conversations that equip people with the language to respond to it.”

 

Nufoshey is working to create conversations and to engage men and other allies. It is part of an ongoing campaign called Fund Our Safety, demanding that the state adequately fund women’s services such as clinics and shelters.

Sara’s advice to other activists? “There is power in numbers – band together to do bigger things.”

 

 


 

Learn more

 

My Body is My Body, My Life is My Life: Sexual and reproductive health and rights of young people in Asia and the Pacific

My Body is My Own: Claiming the right to autonomy and self-determination - State of World Population Report 2021

International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education (ITGSE).

Nufoshey

Maldivian Women say #MeToo

See Sara speak up for Maldivian Women at the UN Human Rights Council, UPR Report Consideration

UNFPA Maldives