Don't be silent, Speak Up!

Today, I am going to share my experience with an eve-teaser with you all. So being a gender equality activist, I got the chance to work on a project of UN Women during 2016, when I had to make field visits in different areas of Bangladesh. One day I went to a local girl's school for collecting some data with my two female team mates. While we were waiting outside the school (as we had an appointment), some young men were constantly staring and whispering something among themselves. Suddenly a man with black shades approached towards us and crossed by us, almost trying to touch my friend's body. She got enraged at this and decided to go away from that place. But, I decided to raise a voice and make him uncomfortable. While he kept on staring like a street dog, we planned something very unusual & unique. Keeping in mind that guy is a local goon & our safety was at stake, we approached him with a fake smile. Then we said to him, \"Can we talk to you for a moment?\" Being ecstatic, the guy blissfully came nearer, \"Sure!\" he said. \"We are taking a survey and we need to ask you some questions as interview\", said I. \"Yes, but what sort of questions?\" he curiously asked. \"Well, like, What is your opinion about eve-teasing and women harassment?\" asked my friend Anamika (whom he tried to harass just few moments back). All of a sudden, he instantly turned pale and started blabbering, \"Actually I was trying to help you girls, don't get me wrong...\" blah blah \"Not at all brother, we are conducting this research for UN Women and you looked like a friendly figure to us, hence we are asking you. It has nothing to do with what you did.\" said I, showing him our certificates from UN Women which was clearly enough to intimidate him.       \"No, please...actually I'm not prepared today, can I give you interview some other day? Well, you can ask me for any help! I didn't know about your work....um..you won;t go to the police, will you?\", the abuser kept on saying such things after getting caught red-handed, and repeatedly refused to take any videos. So we recorded his voice instead. However, by intimidating him, we were saved from any further danger or abuse. Just because we were working on the cause of gender based violence , he was scared to even talk with us, because he knew we were confident enough to raise our voice in case of any violence since we are totally aware of our rights. This very idea of getting punished made him uncomfortable and soon he left the place with his gang. Therefore, I would suggest all the girls to raise their voice always. Without getting intimidated, they should make the abusers intimidated instead! This will definitely reduce the number of #MeToo worldwide.