WHAT IS RECLAIM?

Reclaim the Night is a historical campaign that marches for safety on the streets for women. The campaign will look at tackling sexual harassment in the night time economy and ensuring efficient reporting and supporting systems. Our campaign is in partnership with West Yorkshire Police, to raise awareness of Hate Incident Reporting Centres and Safe Zones (endorsed but not supported by the Police).

It’s targeted towards the vast majority of women who feel unsafe walking alone at night, who feel unsafe on the streets of Huddersfield today. With this campaign we are ‘reclaiming’ the streets at night as women’s own to demand more provisions to help women feel more safe walking alone at night.

ITS HISTORY

The Reclaim The Night marches started in the UK on the 12th November 1977, when torchlit marches were held across England in Leeds, York, Bristol, Manchester, Newcastle, Brighton and London. They were called by the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group, who were inspired by news of co-ordinated women-only ‘Take Back The Night’ marches against sexual harassment, held across towns and cities in West Germany on the 30th April 1977.

Inspired by the news from Germany, women in Leeds formed a Reclaim The Night group to take collective action against rape and male sexual violence against women. This was particularly significant to women in the area because of the serial murders by Peter Sutcliffe, dubbed by the press as the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’, who sexually attacked and murdered thirteen women across Yorkshire between 1975 and 1980. Women in the area were angry that the police response to these murders seemed slow and that the press barely reported on them when it was mainly women involved in prostitution who were murdered. But when a young student woman was murdered, the press and the police seemed to take more notice. The police response was to tell women not to go out at night, effectively putting them under curfew. This was not a helpful suggestion for any women, those working late shifts or night shifts, or those involved in prostitution who often had no choice about whether they went out at night or not. Feminists and a variety of student and women’s groups were angered by this response and also by the sensationalising of the serial murders, which they felt hid the real fact that all too many women are affected by male violence and that this was in fact common. The Leeds Revolutionary Feminist group called for women to march in cities across the UK on the night of 12th November 1977 against rape and for a woman’s right to walk without fear at night.

VOLUNTEER

Reclaim The Night is a historical campaign that marches for safety on the streets. It campaigns against violence towards women, in particular sexual violence. It’s targeted towards the vast majority of women who feel unsafe walking alone at night, who feel unsafe on the streets of Huddersfield today.

You can get involved with: 1.Organising the Campaign 2. Flyering & Reclaim The Night Stalls 3. Lecture Shoutouts 4. Campus and Community Postering 5. Stewarding 6. Event Volunteers

Fill out this volunteers registration form and we’ll contact you about how we can get you involved!

Or email r.ward@hud.ac.uk to find out more about how you can get involved!