A presentation of the book «Ayaldama» about harassment in public transport will take place in Bishkek. Soros Foundation — Kyrgyzstan reported.
«Ayaldama» is a research-based book with illustrations based on real stories of the everyday experiences of girls and women in public transport. «But this is not a book of complaints! This is a project illustrating our society as a whole. After all, being in such a situation is not a woman’s choice; staying silent and continuing to live with it is also not a woman’s choice,» the author Alexandra Titova said.
According to her, this book was written because none of the men who harassed children, teenagers and women on public transport, as a rule, were held accountable. That’s why the characters of this book could rarely hope for support.
«My goal is to give the reader an opportunity to think how close this problem is to them, or to help those who doubt it to see it in reality. It can also be an important reminder for parents to talk openly with their children about harassment so they can clearly say: «They touch me without my consent,» the author said.
Alexandra Titova collected these stories by conducting a survey on social media. In just one week, 90 stories were collected, of which 55 are presented in the book.
55 out of 90 stories are harassment experienced in childhood and adolescence from 6 to 16 years old (the most common age is 10-13 years old), the remaining 34 stories are experienced at the age from 17 to 30 years old.
In each story, the personal boundaries of the victims were maliciously violated, some of them still live with some psychological trauma and, perhaps, the fear of a crowded minibus will never leave them.
Alexandra Titova
The electronic version of the book is presented in three languages.
You can also share your story by writing on @ayaldama_kg page on Instagram.
