Reclaim the Night is a movement started in Leeds in 1977 as part of the Women's Liberation Movement. Marches demanding that women be able to move throughout public spaces at night took place across England until the 1990s. Later, the organisation was revived and sponsors annual and national marches against rape and violence against women.
The Reclaim the Night marches were part of the Women's Liberation Movement in England. [1] The inspiration came from marches that had taken place in America throughout the 70s, such as in Philadelphia, 1975, when Susan 'Sue' Alexander Speeth was murdered walking home from work, or in San Francisco, 1978, following a conference organised by the radical feminist group Women Against Violence and Pornography in Media. [2] [3] [4]
On 30 April 1977 in Germany, synchronised marches took place in several cities, protesting against rape and violence against women. [5] [6] In July 1977, the idea of UK marches was discussed at a conference on Radical Feminism in Edinburgh. [5] Feminists from Leeds were present at the conference and the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group organised the first Reclaim the Night marches. [7] One of the co-founders of the 1977 march was Al Garthwaite, who later became a Leeds councillor. [8]
The first Reclaim the Night protests took place in Leeds on 12 November 1977. [9] [10] The marches were in part a response to the "Yorkshire Ripper" murders, and the police response which instructed women to stay out of public spaces after dark. [9] A dozen marches took place that same night in other cities, encouraged by the efforts of women in Leeds. [10] These cities included: York, Bristol, Brighton, Newcastle, Bradford, Manchester, Lancaster and London. [5] In Leeds, the marches started in two locations: one in Chapeltown and one on Woodhouse Moor. [5] [10] The Chapeltown march consisted of approximately 30 women; the Woodhouse march of 85. The marches converged on City Square. [5] Women carried signs such as "No Curfew on Women – Curfew on Men." [11]
In October 1978, a march in Soho led to women being injured, and 13 women were arrested after they had a "clash" with the police. [12] [13] A later march in Soho in January 1979 had 2,000 women attending. [12] Some attendees did not agree with the radical tactics of participants, who were sometimes seen "hissing and swearing at innocent male bystanders" and who shouted "Curfew for Men", "Death to Rapists" and "Castrate Men". [14] Others emphasized the importance of women being able to come together to call out violence and rape, and take back public spaces for themselves. [15]
A Reclaim the Night protest took place in Belfast in 1987. It marched on City Hall and was made up of women from a variety of organisations including Belfast Rape Centre and Stranmillis College. [16]
Eventually, the marches ceased around the 1990s. [9] Al Garthwaite attributed the reduction in activity to two issues: "gradually the original activists started to get jobs and just had less time and there was also a general climate of repression as Thatcherism began to bite". [17]
Women decided to revive the organisation in 2004. That year, only 30 women turned out in London, but in 2005, approximately 1,000 women protested. [9] In 2006, a Reclaim the Night protest was organized in Ipswich in response to the murders of five sex workers, which had between 200 and 300 attendees. [18] The first Reclaim the Night march in Birmingham took place in October 2009. [19]
In November 2010, marches took place in London and Leeds. In London, over 2500 women marched through the city, and the following week more than 200 women protested in Leeds. [17]
The first Reclaim the Night march in Northampton took place in 2013, and allowed both men and women to attend. The march was also meant to raise awareness for the Northamptonshire Rape and Incest Centre (NRICC). [20]
On 25 November 2017, hundreds of women — inspired by the #MeToo movement — marched across the United Kingdom in London, Bristol and Newcastle. [11] [21] [22]
In 2021, Reclaim the Night Leeds tried to stage a vigil in response to the death of Sarah Everard, but this was stopped by police; the protest turned virtual and took place online. [23] Over 28,000 people attended the online event, which was streamed across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. [24]
In 1978, Reclaim the Night marches were held in the Australia for the first time, first taking place in Perth and Sydney, with Melbourne following in 1979. [25]
Events aimed to "take back the night" took place in India in response to the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder. [5] [26] In 2017, hundreds of women from twenty Indian cities marched in protest at the mass molestation of women in Bangalore on New Year's Eve. [27] In 2024, thousands of women and men in West Bengal marched for several "Meyera Raat Dokhol Koro" events (the Bengali translation of Reclaim the Night) in protest of the 2024 Kolkata rape and murder incident. [28] [29] [30]
On 24 November 2017, a Reclaim the Night protest was held in Ljubljiana. [31]
In 1978, Reclaim the Night marches were held in the US for the first time. 5,000 women from 50 states marched through the red light district of San Francisco. [25]
The march has inspired a work of theatre called The Darkest Corners, which was part of the Transform 17 festival. The show took place in an outdoor car park on the edge of Leeds' managed red light zone. [6]
According to Finn Mackay, accusations of racism were made against Reclaim the Night shortly after the first events in 1977. Claims were made that the original marches "purposely and unthinkingly chose routes through urban areas with a high proportion of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) communities; demanded increased policing; and made links between Black men and the crime of rape." However, an examination of the first Reclaim the Night protests has found no evidence supporting these claims. [5]
Peter William Sutcliffe, also known as Peter Coonan, was an English serial killer who was convicted of murdering thirteen women and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980. He was dubbed in press reports as the Yorkshire Ripper, an allusion to the Victorian serial killer Jack the Ripper. He was sentenced to twenty concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which were converted to a whole life order in 2010. Two of Sutcliffe's murders took place in Manchester; all the others were in West Yorkshire. Criminal psychologist David Holmes characterised Sutcliffe as being an "extremely callous, sexually sadistic serial killer."
Take Back the Night is an international event and non-profit organization with the mission of ending sexual, relationship, and domestic violence in all forms. Hundreds of events are held in over 30 countries annually. Events often include marches, rallies and vigils intended as a protest and direct action against rape and other forms of sexual, relationship and domestic violence. In 2001, a group of women who had participated in the earliest Take Back the Night marches, came together to form the Take Back the Night Foundation in support of the events throughout the United States and the world.
South Wales Police is one of the four territorial police forces in Wales. It is headquartered in Bridgend.
Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. is an American serial killer, serial rapist, burglar, peeping tom, former police officer and mechanic who committed at least 13 murders, 51 rapes, and 120 burglaries across California between 1974 and 1986. He is responsible for three known separate crime sprees throughout the state, each of which spawned a different nickname in the press, before it became evident that they were committed by the same person.
Bangladesh Chhatra League ; abbr.BSL/BCL), formerly known as the East Pakistan Student League, simply called the Chhatra League, is the student wing of the political party, Bangladesh Awami League, founded by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on 4 January 1948. The organisation is banned and designated as a terrorist organisation by the Interim Government of Bangladesh.
Julie Bindel is an English radical feminist writer. She is also co-founder of the law reform group Justice for Women, which has aimed to help women who have been prosecuted for assaulting or killing violent male partners.
Prison rape or jail rape is sexual assault of people while they are incarcerated. The phrase is commonly used to describe rape of inmates by other inmates, or to describe rape of inmates by staff. It is a significant, if controversial, part of what is studied under the wider concept of prison sexuality.
SlutWalk is a transnational movement calling for an end to rape culture, including victim blaming and slut-shaming of sexual assault victims. Participants protest against explaining or excusing rape by referring to any aspect of a woman's appearance. The rallies began on April 3, 2011, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, after a Toronto Police officer suggested that "women should avoid dressing like sluts" as a precaution against sexual assault. Subsequent rallies have occurred globally.
Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, is a British anti-Islam campaigner and one of the UK's most prominent far-right activists.
Punishment for rape in Pakistan under the Pakistani laws is either death penalty or imprisonment of between ten and twenty-five years. For cases related to gang rape, the punishment is either death penalty or life imprisonment. DNA test and other scientific evidence are used in prosecuting rape cases in Pakistan.
The 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder, commonly known as the Nirbhaya case, involved a rape and fatal assault that occurred on 16 December 2012 in Munirka, a neighbourhood in South Delhi. The incident took place when Jyoti Singh, a 22-year-old physiotherapy intern, was beaten, gang-raped, and tortured in a private bus in which she was travelling with her male friend, Avnindra Pratap Pandey. There were six others in the bus, including the driver, all of whom raped the woman and beat her friend. She was rushed to Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi for treatment and, as the public outrage mounted, the government had her transferred to Mount Elizabeth Hospital, Singapore eleven days after the assault, where she succumbed to her injuries two days later. The incident generated widespread national and international coverage and was widely condemned, both in India and abroad. Subsequently, public protests against the state and central governments for failing to provide adequate security for women took place in New Delhi, where thousands of protesters clashed with security forces. Similar protests took place in major cities throughout the country. Since Indian law does not allow the press to publish a rape victim's name, the victim was widely known as Nirbhaya, meaning "fearless", and her struggle and death became a symbol of women's resistance to rape around the world.
Jessica Rose Phillips is a British politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Yardley since 2015. A member of the Labour Party, she has served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls since July 2024.
Sisters Uncut describe themselves as a British feminist direct action group that is opposed to cuts to UK government services for domestic violence victims. It was founded in November 2014, and came to international prominence in October 2015 for a protest on the red carpet at the London premiere of the film Suffragette. The group identify as revolutionary feminists and police and prison abolitionists, and is open to women, nonbinary, agender and gender variant people. The group aims to organise non-hierarchically and uses consensus decision-making. Sisters Uncut originated in London but has regional groups throughout the UK including Manchester and Leeds.
Mass sexual assault is the collective sexual assault of women, men and sometimes children, in public by groups. Typically acting under the protective cover of large gatherings, victims have reported being groped, stripped, beaten, bitten, penetrated and raped.
Carl Benjamin, also known by his online pseudonym Sargon of Akkad, is a British right-wing YouTuber and political commentator. A former member of the Eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP), he was one of its unsuccessful candidates for the South West England constituency at the 2019 European Parliament election.
The Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group was a feminist organisation active in the United Kingdom in the 1970s and 1980s. While there were a number of contemporary revolutionary feminist organisations in the UK, the Leeds group was 'internationally significant'. The group is remembered chiefly for two reasons. The first is organising the UK-wide ‘Reclaim the Night’ marches in November 1977. The second is the publication of the pamphlet Political Lesbianism: The Case Against Heterosexuality, which advocated political lesbianism. British activist Sheila Jeffreys was closely involved with the group, while UK feminist Julie Bindel has spoken of the group's influence on her, as have many others.
The murder of Jayne MacDonald is a British child murder case dating from June 1977 in which a 16-year-old girl was murdered by a combination of bludgeoning and stabbing in Chapeltown, Leeds, while walking home from an evening socialising with friends. Her murder was rapidly attributed to a series of murders committed by a serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper.
On the evening of 3 March 2021, 33-year-old Sarah Everard was kidnapped in South London, England, as she was walking home to the Brixton Hill area from a friend's house near Clapham Common. She was stopped by off-duty Metropolitan Police constable Wayne Couzens, who identified himself as a police officer, handcuffed her, and placed her in his car before transporting her to Kent. Couzens subsequently raped and strangled Everard, before burning her body and disposing of her remains in a pond in woodland.
On 9 August 2024, a 31-year-old female postgraduate trainee doctor at R. G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, was raped and murdered in a college building. Her body was found in a seminar room on campus. On 10 August 2024, a 33-year-old male civic volunteer working for Kolkata Police was arrested under suspicion of committing the crime. Three days later, the Calcutta High Court, transferred the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) stating that the Kolkata Police's investigation did not inspire confidence. The junior doctors in West Bengal undertook a strike action for 42 days demanding a thorough probe of the incident and adeqaute security at hospitals. The incident has amplified debate about the safety of women and doctors in India, and has sparked significant outrage, and nationwide and international protests.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)