Belgian women’s rebellion against sexual assault in Brussels bars

“It was November 2019 in The Latin Invasion. I went with friends. There were a lot of people. An hour later he couldn’t find them. I only had one drink. Total black hole. Two girls find me in anguish, lying on the bathroom floor. They ask me what I was doing. I didn’t remember anything. I was without panties. I’m sure I was drugged and abused & rdquor ;. This is one of the many anonymous testimonials that are repeated incessantly these days on the Instagram account of #BalanceTonBar, a movement born in Brussels in mid-October with the aim of denouncing the multiple sexual assaults suffered by young women in bars or clubs in the Belgian capital, given the silence of the establishments and the lack of response from the police and government authorities.

It all started in the past October 10th As a result of a message that denounced the sexual assault of several young women, “drugged and raped & rdquor ;, by a waiter at a bar in the Ixelles cemetery neighborhood, a marching area near the Free University of Brussels where students go . Four days later dozens of people gathered to report “A culture of rape & rdquor;. Although the case is in the hands of the Brussels prosecutor’s office, Maite Meeus, a 23-year-old young woman and founder of the movement, that day her body was turned to the point that she decided to take a step forward and create an Instagram page in which to collect similar testimonies to make visible a problem that, like many of the victims report it is not isolated but systemic.

In just one week he collected the first 200 testimonials and youth messages. The first mobilization in the streets, supported by other feminist organizations, brought together 500 people. Political pressure increased so much that the federal government was forced to convene an emergency meeting with the justice minister and the interior minister to analyze the situation. By the end of October they were more than a thousand anonymous stories received from touching and rapes in different bars and nightclubs in the capital, from victims of abuse drugged with GHG, known as la ‘rapist’s drug’, without odor or taste, which initially causes side effects like alcohol but which can override the will, with loss of consciousness and deprivation of memories.

Release the word

Since then the number of messages has not stopped multiplying nor the rage of the survivors, as they call themselves. “There are so many messages. It is the volume that has surprised me. The nature of the stories is not so much because they are things that we understand and know & rdquor ;, confesses Meeus about the testimonies that speak of “complicit establishments & rdquor; or that “they close their eyes & rdquor; before this type of aggression. “I’m happy with the release of the word though not so much of the success of ‘Balance ton bar’ as such. A movement like this shouldn’t exist & rdquor ;, she says.

An added problem is that there are few cases that result in a complaint -according to the calculations of the web. violencessexuelles.be, more than 90% of aggressions or rapes are not reported, only one in ten occurs – and many others are closed due to lack of evidence even though the victim has identified the aggressor. “There are many complaints that do not come to fruition due to lack of evidence. It should be taken into account that a victim drugged with GHB has a difficult time proving rape because the drug only remains in the blood or urine for 12 hours. That is, if she has been drugged at 11 o’clock at night, at 11 o’clock in the morning she has disappeared from her body & rdquor ;, they point out from the movement.

That is, the time between waking up, realizing what happened, and going to the hospital is too late. An argument that perhaps explains why the number of complaints in the Bruxelles-Ixellles police area, according to the authorities of the commune, is limited to 192 in the last 8 years. “I was treated at the center against sexual violence in Brussels, whom I thank. I filed a complaint, spent a four-hour hearing, I recognized my attacker from different photos that they showed me. The police made a search at his house and then came to mine to collect a sample of my hair and then nothing. Business closed. Thanks to justice & rdquor ;, denounces another young woman attacked at the Jeux d’hiver club.

Boycott bars

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Since the movement went viral, there have been several demonstrations and a boycott of bars and clubs called by the feminist union self-suggested intersection (UFIA) and that took place last Friday and managed to gather 1,300 people. “Let us understand that enough is enough & rdquor; they yelled. In a letter addressed by this group on November 8 to the 19 communes of Brussels they complain to the authorities measures to sensitize the bar sector, mobilize the police as well as a “Zero tolerance & rdquor; in the face of “a pervasive rape culture and a toxic patriarchal postcolonial system & rdquor ;. The phenomenon, in any case, is not limited to Brussels. In recent weeks, numerous Instagram accounts have been created to collect testimonies in other cities in Belgium and also in France in cities such as Nice, Grenoble, Montpellier, Paris or Lyon.

The new movement coincides with the reform of the penal code in Belgium that will lead to changes in relation to sexual assaults and prostitution. The government’s plans, which are being debated in parliament, have already received strong criticism from feminist organizations who believe that it will weaken the rights of women and minors. According to the Minister of Justice, Vincent Van Quickenborne, in Brussels the center against sexual assault receives 44 victims a month.