UN Women and the Government of Mexico City launch the campaign #NoEsDeHombres to tackle sexual harassment in public transport

UN Women, in partnership with the Government of Mexico City launch a campaign to prevent and eliminate sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence against women in public transport in Mexico City as part of the Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces for women and girls programme.

The official launch of the campaign was attended by Ana Güezmes García, Representative of UN Women in Mexico; Patricia Mercado, the Deputy Mayor of Mexico City; Teresa Incháustegui, Director of the Mexico City Gender Equality Mechanism; Gabriel Vázquez, the Creative Director/Vice President of J.Walter Thompson; Tamara de Anda, Blogger and Journalist; Alfonso Herrera, Actor; El Hijo del Santo, Mexican Wrestler and; Francisco Palencia, Technical Director of Pumas football team.

Globally, studies show that 50-100% of women have been victims of sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence against women in public spaces. In Mexico City, according to the national violence against women survey (ENDRIEH) carried out by the National Institute for Statistics and Geography (INEGI), the forms of violence that were most frequently reported were offensive or sexualized comments (74%), unwanted touching and groping (58%), fear of being assaulted or abused (14%). According to the National Survey of Victimization and Perceptions of Safety (ENVIPE 2016), 87.7% of women aged 18 years and over feel unsafe in public transport and 79.4% feel unsafe on the streets in Mexico City.

Sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence are a global pandemic that continue to be under-recognized. Men often normalize their violence, women often do not report, and there are insufficient interventions to prevent and respond to sexual violence. Violence against women and girls violates their freedom of movement, their ability to participate in education, work and public life. This is a universal problem that occurs in both developed and developing countries and there is no city in the world that is free of this scourge.

Faced with these alarming figures, UN Women, in partnership with the Mexico City government and with the support of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and the advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson, launched a campaign targeting men aged between 20 and 50 years old that use public transport on a daily basis. The campaign aims to end the normalization of sexual violence against women in public spaces and to promote a more respectful form of masculinity.

The campaign was divided into two stages: during the first stage, the Mexico City Metro was strategically used to undertake social experiments that were filmed and made into two videos which challenge the normalization of sexual violence by placing men in similar situations to give them an idea of what women experience in their daily lives. To date, the videos have been viewed more than 10 million times on sexual networks, reaching more than 108 million users on Twitter with the hashtag #NoEsDeHombres (This is not what being a man is about). The second stage consists of posters that aim to raise awareness of the sexual violence experienced by women and girls on public transport everyday and seek to deter men from committing these forms of violence by informing them of the possible sanctions for sexual violence. This phase consists of a series of posters that will be placed in different public spaces including the metro, metrobus, under bridges and buses.

This is the first time that UN Women and Mexico City has implemented such an innovative campaign that targets men. The objective of this initiative is to create relationships between men and women that are more equal and free of violence.

Hashtag: NoEsDeHombres (This is not what being a man is about)

Campaign videos: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p5pp1pcOPs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvebzI_egJc 

Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces for Women and Girls Mexico City scoping study 

https://mexico.unwomen.org/es/digiteca/publicaciones/2017/03/diagnostico-ciudades-seguras 

Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces for Women and Girls Mexico City leaflet

https://mexico.unwomen.org/es/digiteca/publicaciones/2016/01/folleto-ciudades-seguras

ONU Mujeres México: www.mexico.unwomen.org/es

For more information:

Roxana Flores-Communication Responsible

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Tel: +5255 85250919