Tonight, are we going without a drink to advance the cause of women? A movement to boycott bars, clubs and other nightclubs this Friday evening was launched by feminist collectives following recent testimonies from young women who were drugged with GHB in these places.
Following the recent wave of testimonials from young women who have been drugged with GHB, under hashtags #MetooGHB and
#Balancetonbar, the Self-managed Inclusive Feminist Union (UFIA) calls for a boycott in Belgium. The movement was taken over in France by Héro. ïnes 95, a feminist collective based in Val-d’Oise. “It’s a good way to attract attention and encourage establishments to take their responsibilities. But it should not last too long and that it inflicts a double penalty on women by preventing them from going out, ”warns the feminist collective Nous tous.
Many complaints for gender-based and sexual violence have been lodged in recent days in Parisian police stations. Located near the Pigalle district, which has many bars and nightclubs, the 18th arrondissement police station is particularly concerned and is currently working to consolidate these complaints to draw up an inventory of the situation. For this district alone, the Héro collective. Ines 95 lists 33 potential victims of GHB poisoning since July, including 21 between October 22 and November 6.
Solutions to remedy it
“Sad to say, but it’s not a new situation. GHB has been commonplace for 20 years, ”explains Laetitia, manager of the bar Le Klub. So, to help women protect themselves, many devices have been invented. Among them, the “glass top” and the nail polish which detects the presence of GHB in a liquid. A means of “making the victims feel guilty by telling them that it is up to them to do more to protect themselves”, denounce by common accord the feminist collectives.
“We’re not going to start going out with a tear gas canister, a glass condom, an anti-GHB varnish. It’s exponential, we can always do more to protect ourselves. At that point, we end up not going out at all ”, protests Eina, activist of the Héro collective. Ines 95. In any case, “that does not offer real security,” adds Laëtitia. A girl may have put on a glass condom and be drugged through a syringe, this is a phenomenon that we see more and more. “
The purpose of this boycott is precisely to put pressure on the bosses to encourage them to take measures to make their establishment more secure. According to Laetitia, this first requires awareness. “The bar staff must feel involved” and by a control at the entrance. “With us, the guards do a lot of work upstream to control the people they let in, that’s why we have relatively few problems of this kind,” she adds. His words echo the petition launched in England to request excavations at the entrance to these festive places.
State responsibility
“If we want bars to change their way of doing things, for example by making searches at the entrance mandatory, this can come from a strong motivation of bar owners. But it would work better if it was an obligation imposed by the State ”, explains the collective Nous All. The activists of Héro. Ines 95, at the origin of the boycott in Paris, would like a system for the prevention of gender-based and sexual violence to be a mandatory condition for the opening of a night establishment, in the same way as emergency exits or the conditions reception of disabled people.
The lack of taking charge of the situation by the public, police or health services comes up regularly in the testimonies on the networks. “When a person is drugged with GHB, they are the victim of an attempted poisoning. People with poor health or specific treatment can die from it, warns Eina. The police should investigate as seriously as an attempted murder. “Henriette, a 21-year-old student, is proud to say that she is taking part in this movement to denounce sexist and sexual violence” because it is omnipresent and we do not feel that the police or the justice system do not mobilize to fight against. “
“We are doing a general boycott because there is no point in boycotting one bar more than another. It’s a systemic problem, it can happen anywhere, ”explains Taeko, a Hero activist. Ines 95. And the boycott will be renewed as long as it is necessary ”. We are therefore at the beginning of the mobilization.