Guest Blog by Mussarat Rahman, explaining why she ran a protest art workshop for women as part of Refugee Week in collaboration with Biasan in Bradford.

As a single female, living alone, I have been targeted a lot by males. So much so that I’ve either had to get my brothers to help me to stop the harassment, or the police. Either way it shouldn’t happen. 

I’ve also seen a lot of male violence towards women, mostly by spurned males, spouses or partners where on occasion I have intervened and helped them to leave or had the police involved.

Me, I don’t hate  men, why would I? I’ve been brought up with 6 brothers so it’s not about hating men, but calling out  violence towards women. It’s calling out the demonising of women, of girls, of being a female. It’s calling out violence in all its forms, particularly when it’s affecting someone’s life. 

This demo wasn’t about blame but a  rage. A rage that’s been building up by the lack of understanding  when women are perpetuated by violence and not given enough support. By that I mean support by their own  communities,  families, by extended networks and just looking for a safe space to be. 

With the lack of police presence, the violence on the  streets or homes has become the norm, an everyday act but it shouldn’t be seen or regarded as a normality.  A majority of women are either abused,  murdered or attacked by people they know, statistically 2 a week. 

The crunch for me has been the recent attacks on women in broad daylight; the man who attacked a woman in the carpark and the recent death of Kulsama Akhter in Bradford.

I would say minority communities don’t report domestic abuse as much as its seen as a cultural thing,  as humiliating or shameful.

But I really wanted to do something to highlight DV, violence, rape, attacks, and harassment by hosting a Protest Art Workshop. Here I  designed a range of stencils with slogans and images  and with these, taught a woman-led workshop on how to make banners and signs. I did this in collaboration with the Biasan community with some support from Counterpoints Arts.

A group of women then marched into the city centre and demonstrated on the City Hall steps. We chanted and sang protest songs and chalked messages of hope, love, unity and empowerment on the floor.

To finish it off, we made a loveheart  tribute to murdered women and then peacefully left the city centre.

I felt compelled to do something. With the government reducing funding to public  services,  our rights to basic freedoms /protest being eroded and finding myself in a place where all I wanted to do was scream about social injustices. I felt that my rights as a women had been  held  to ransom by violence in society and I wanted the freedom to Reclaim the Streets.

I did it through this workshop and demo.