Hands on the buttocks, insults, insistent remarks… Joséphine, a thirty-year-old, says she suffered several times in the metro, “like about 100% of women”, she assures. While a study by the National Federation of Transport User Associations (Fnaut) estimates that nine out of ten women say they have already been harassed in transport, the RATP organized on the occasion of the international day of struggle for women’s rights, Tuesday, March 8, an operation to raise awareness among users.
“Most of the time, people act like they don’t see anything, except if it’s really very serious”laments Joséphine, acknowledging all the same that it was “sometimes very difficult to react” when she found herself in the opposite situation. This is precisely the purpose of the operation carried out: to teach travelers to react because, according to the RATP, 80% of people do not know how to do it.
For this, they were five at the entrance to line 13, Gare Saint-Lazare, Tuesday. “Hello, sorry to disturb you, I just wanted to inform you that all RATP agents are trained on sexist harassment in transport”explains one of them to a user. “We have therefore put in place a methodology to know how to react in this situation, whether we are a victim or a witness.”
This “5D method” (distract, delegate, document, direct, dialogue) allows you to intervene when you witness a scene of harassment but without putting yourself in danger. If in doubt, Sandrine Charnoz, in charge of the fight against harassment at the RATP, recommends, for example, “drop your wallet or notebook between the two people” then go pick it up. “You look at them both apologetically. So you don’t take part in the scene but you have created a moment where the woman will be able to escape if she is assaulted or harassed.”
A total of 1,000 RATP agents have already received training in the 5D method, out of the 6,500 agents in contact with the public who are trained in gender-based and sexual violence. Thanks to her, Kamel learned to spot situations that he would not necessarily have seen until then. “They could seem normal to us because there were no cries or complaints”explains the one who has worked for seventeen years on line 13. “With this training, if something should happen we will be there and we can intervene. To strengthen intervention capacities, the RATP has recruited 2,000 private security agents since 2016 and will recruit 1,000 more.
Contrary to popular belief, these situations do not occur in isolated conditions: according to the RATP, the majority of attacks take place during rush hour and in crowded trains. However, at the end of the month, on-demand stops will be tested in ten bus lines, either noctiliens or lines that are still running after 10 p.m.