For many, social media can be a convenient way to keep in touch with friends and family across distances and stay up-to-date on people’s daily lives.
Others, however, are using social media and smartphones as a way to put a stop to injustices in certain parts of the world. Rebecca Chiao is one of these people. She cofounded HarassMap.org, a website and smartphone app launched in 2010 to help track and counter the sexual harassment of women in Egypt.
Originally from Pennsylvania, Chiao initially moved to Egypt to take a three-week volunteer job. She ended up staying for four and a half years. Still adjusting to the culture shock, Chiao was unsure at first whether the daily harassment she received from men and boys was something she unknowingly invited. After discussing these incidents with her female friends and co-workers, she discovered it was a social issue throughout the country.
According to a 2008 survey by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights, 83 percent of Egyptian women and 98 percent of foreign women living in the country say they have been victims of sexual harassment.
In an interview with Canadian publication The Toronto Star, Chiao explained that her breaking point took place during rush hour on the subway.
“A guy opened his pants and started masturbating while he was staring right at me. Nobody did anything. When this kind of thing happens, and people look at you as though it’s your fault, you wonder what else could happen.” HarassMap was then created.
According to an online article posted on Random Hacks of Kindness, an organization dedicated to using technology to solve local and global issues, HarassMaps is meant to end the sexual harassment of women by “engaging all of society to reestablish consequences for harassers by encouraging all people to be watchful against harassment and take action by speaking up against harassers.”
HarassMap allows women to submit incidents of harassment one of four ways. They can text the incident to 6069, submit it on HarassMap.org, tweet using the hashtag #harassmap or post to the organization’s Facebook page. The report is then verified with the location logged on the site’s map. This tracking system allows the organization to detect harassment hot spots where incidents occur most frequently. The reports are sorted into various categories: catcalls, comments, facial expressions, indecent exposure, ogling, phone calls, rape/sexual assault, sexual invites, stalking/following and touching.
When a hot spot is detected, HarassMap sends volunteers to the reported area to educate the public about sexual harassment.
“(The volunteers) ask people who have a presence in the street—shop owners, police, the guys that park the car, the doormen, the people who are hanging out in the street all the time—and ask them to be watchful guardians of their neighborhoods,” Chiao told CNN.
These volunteers inform the public and promote awareness.
“About eight out of every 10 people they talk to in the street agree by the end of the conversation,” Chiao said. “At the beginning, everyone disagrees, but by the time the conversation is over most people are not just agreeing but they are enthusiastic and want to take action.”
Approximately half of HarassMap’s volunteers in Egypt are men.
Since its inception, women from 19 countries have contacted Chiao to learn more about HarassMap and how it works.
