Saturday 18 April 2009

Harassment


I have just walked in - Returning from a weekend away with my best friend in London. And after being stumped on the topic of my next post I decided to link an experience me and my friend had in London which links with recent activity in the news.

We were walking along Leicester Square around 9pm and along with every step that we took, we ended up having a leaflet shoved in our faces. Even when we politely declined the distributors, who were 99% men, continued to ask us to come into their club, etc... Eventually after 10 or so steps this began to get rather irritating and I found myself going out of my way to avoid the blighters.
Thinking back on that experience, the sort of behaviour that those men portrayed whilst I was trying to take a casual stroll to the Odeon, so that I could watch 17 Again, was completely out of order. They made us feel uncomfortable on the streets, especially the ones that followed us for around 10 minutes.
Understandably these people have to make a living by campaigning for clubbers to come and boogie at their particular venues BUT a polite decline shouldn't result in a man continuously following us and harassing us. That just ISN'T on.
Recently in the news the street fine for continuous harassment by leaflet distributors or campaigners is on the rise. As at the moment it stands at a pathetic £20.
Don't get me wrong - Sometimes I do not mind a leaflet or two, but only at my own discretion.
Street harassment is BAD. It is basically legalized harassment!

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