Reclaim the Night Edinburgh 2009 on International Women’s Day
March To Reclaim The Night
Sunday 8th March @ 18.45 to march at 19.00
Assemble @ Festival Square through the City Centre and Old Town
On Sunday 8th March 2009, the 100th International Women’s Day will be marked in Edinburgh with a Reclaim the Night demonstration to protest the tolerance of violence against women in Scotland.
Female – and male – participants are invited to assemble in Festival Square at 6.45pm, and at 7pm they will set off on a route through the Grassmarket and Cowgate, led by representatives from local women’s groups and a band of drummers. The route has been planned specifically to pass through parts of the city where women feel unsafe, so that the streets where one woman might be afraid to walk alone can be reclaimed through strength in numbers.
A member of the Reclaim the Night group said: We’re not marching because the streets aren’t safe: women are safer outdoors than in their own homes. We need to we need to start challenging the myth of “stranger violence”. This is about challenging all men’s violence towards women – In the home from partners and ex-partners, rape from men we know and women’s fear to walk the streets alone because what might happen to them. This march is about reclaiming not just the streets and night but our lives – demanding the right to be safe and free from fear”
The march will finish in Bristo Square, with speeches from representatives of campaign groups and charities supporting women who have experienced physical or sexual violence. An after-party will be held in the adjacent Teviot Building (also known as Edinburgh University Students’ Association, or the Gilded Balloon during the Festival), which will be an opportunity to find out more about the different womens’ groups meeting in Edinburgh.
Why “Reclaim the Night”?
Women grow up with the knowledge that the world is a dangerous place, but we think this is normal and we teach them about all the things they have to do to stay safe. What most people don’t realise is that it’s very rare for women to harmed by strangers – men are three times more likely to be affected by this type of crime. Freedom of movement and freedom from fear are basic human rights, but when a woman tries to exercise these rights after dark she is called reckless, and told that she’s asking for trouble.
Attacks by strangers may be rare, but that does not mean women are safe from violence. One in four women will experience a sexual assault during her lifetime, and in 97% of cases the perpetrator is someone she already knows, most commonly a current or former partner. The rape conviction rate in Scotland is only 2.9%, and that’s 2.9% of the cases that are reported to police. Rape Crisis centres report that over 90% of the women who contact them never reported the attack. Justice is important, but a tenfold increase in number of convictions would still barely scratch the surface of the problem.
We put so many resources into teaching women about their responsibility to stay safe that we’ve forgotten where the real responsibility lies. Instead of blaming the woman who couldn’t fend off an attack, we should ask why a man thought rape was the appropriate response.
RTN Edinburgh
RTN Edinburgh is a voluntary collective of women committed to raising awareness of how violence, and the fear of violence, affects all women. We are not affiliated to any political organisation, but welcome interaction with anyone who has an interest in these issues.
Reclaim The Night is an international grassroots movement which started in the 1970s, and now consists of hundreds of independent groups in cities across the world.
Contact details:
Alyson Macdonald or 07751575990
