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A couple who were the victims of a violent and homophobic attack on a London bus is calling for misogyny to be turned into a hate crime, as a report reveals that women are three times more likely to experience sexual violence and threats than men. mens.
Melania Geymonat and her partner Chris, who were inadvertently thrown into the spotlight last year when they were beaten by a gang of young men after refusing to kiss, have joined forces with a former police chief, parliamentarians, religious leaders and the organization. Citizens UK charity. to pressure the government to introduce the new law.
“We were beaten by a group of young people, who demanded that we kiss. It started with aggressive harassment and quickly turned into assault and robbery, ”the women said in a statement. “In the wake of being subjected to a homophobic hate crime, we have been looking for ways to ensure that we prevent other more vulnerable people from having to go through the horrors we went through.”
The new Citizens UK study, based on the findings of more than 1,000 respondents in England and Wales and focus groups in Birmingham, Cardiff, Newcastle, Manchester and London, showed that 45% of women had been threatened with sexual violence, in compared to 16%. of men, while 43% of women had suffered a sexual assault, compared to 12% of men.
The women told the study about their experiences. One, Alison Branitsky, a Citizens UK leader in the Jackson Row synagogue, Greater Manchester, said she had been beaten against a wall, threatened with sexual assault and subjected to anti-Semitic abuse in Manchester. “I was walking down the street in my yarmulke when two men started yelling anti-Semitic insults at me,” she said. “One of the men pinned me to the wall and told me that if I wasn’t going to run her business for her, I should sleep with her.”
In Birmingham, a Muslim woman said she was punched in the face at a traffic light.
Pressure is mounting to change the law after Labor MP Stella Creasy introduced an amendment during the “upskirting” bill in 2018, resulting in a review by the Law Commission, which will undergo a public consultation in September. Scotland has already started the process of taking hate crimes for misogyny through Holyrood. .
Creasy said the change in the law was needed more than ever after a sharp increase in violence against women during the lockdown. “Making misogyny a hate crime would give them the same protection and ensure that no woman of any background is asked to check a box for the police and courts to act when she is the victim of a crime,” she said.
The move is supported by a retired police officer, Sue Fish, who filed the complaint of misogyny as a hate crime in Nottinghamshire in 2016. “Turning misogyny into a hate crime was one of the simplest tasks that I have done in the police And yet, the results we saw were incredible, ”he said. “Some of the feedback we had was that women, for the first time, described themselves as walking taller and holding their heads high.”
