Men are not welcome!

[AYOUB]

Rio women applaud no-men, pink-striped metro cars

 

Reuters

 

 

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Women commuters filled female-only, pink-striped subway cars in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro on Monday on the first day of a scheme to avert groping and other unwanted sexual advances.

 

A law passed by the state legislature and signed by Rio Governor Rosinha Matheus last month obliged the underground Metro and above-ground railways to have separate passenger cars for women during the weekday rush hours.

 

“It’s the first day today and we had women applauding when men, who had entered their carriage without knowing about the rule, got off,†a spokeswoman for the private Metro Rio company said.

 

Frequent complaints from women commuters about sexual harassment in crowded railway cars had prompted state legislators to pass the bill.

 

One car in each of Metro Rio’s 33 trains is marked with pink stripes on doors and windows. The company said female passengers would themselves control men’s entry into the cars, seeking the help of security guards if necessary.

Railroad company Supervia, which serves Rio and its suburbs, identifies its female-only cars with signs similar to those on women’s restrooms.

 

Men won’t be barred from the female-only cars during an initial phase but after that railroad police would enforce the new rule, a Supervia spokesman said.

 

 

Mumbai Mirror

 

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Women-only subway cars get bumpy test drive in Rio

 

 

RIO DE JANEIRO, April 25, 2006 (AFP) - A law reserving select rail cars exclusively for women during the rush hour on Rio's Metro and suburban train routes got off to a rocky start on Monday.

 

Approved March 8, on International Women's Day, in a bid to curb sexual harassment, the law was only partially observed when it was taken for a test drive on Monday.

 

Many men boarded the reserved cars -- identified by a pink sticker on the subway cars, or by an icon depicting a woman on other trains -- either by accident, to escape more crowded train cars or simply to break the rules, MetroRio noted Tuesday.

 

Some 500,000 passengers -- 49 percent of them women and 51 percent men -- ride the Rio subway each day, according to MetroRio.

 

On Monday, each time a man entered the reserved cars, the women would rail against the intrusion. But some, undeterred, held their ground, despite shouts and boos from other passengers.

 

Reaction was divided largely along gender lines.

 

"If they don't respect women, how can you expect them to respect the laws?" 22-year-old student Debora Bianco told the daily O Globo.

 

"It's quite simply discrimination," a nurse fumed on television Tuesday, after a security guard asked him to leave a women-only car on a suburban route. The man claimed to have been "forcibly removed" from the train car.

 

"Separation (of the sexes) is a throwback to my grandmother's era. It's a big step backward in the fight for women's equality," complained Rogeria Peixoto, head of a Brazilian women's group.

 

 

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