Expo 2020 Dubai: Aishwarya Rai joins hands with Mona Zaki, other global stars to end street harassment

Dubai - Eighty per cent of women around the world have been harassed at least once in a public place.

Bollywood royalty Aishwarya Rai Bachchan on Tuesday conveyed a strong message as she took the Expo 2020 Dubai stage: It’s time to stop turning a blind eye to street harassment that most women face.

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The Expo’s Millennium Amphitheatre drew massive crowds as Rai and other celebrated women — like Aja Naomi King from the US court drama How to Get Away with Murder; Arab star Mona Zaki; and Saudi Arabia’s Aseel Omran — led a conversation about ‘standing up against street harassment’.

“According to the statistics made available to me, 80 per cent of women around the world have been harassed at least once in a public place, and 86 per cent of bystanders have no idea of what to do. However, 79 per cent (of the women) say the situation improved when a bystander intervened. Sadly, only 25 per cent of victims say someone helped,” Rai said.

“To all the mothers out there...we simply cannot accept raising our daughters in a world where people witness this unacceptable behaviour and look away because they don’t know what to do.”

Rai then urged everyone to share their experience of the Expo training on fighting street harassment, and help invite others to take the course themselves.

To ensure the campaign’s success, organiser L’Oréal Paris partnered with Hollaback! — an NGO dealing exclusively with street harassment.

Experts educated the public about the 5Ds: Distract the perpetrator; delegate by asking some help; document the harassment; direct by speaking up; and delay by comforting.

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