RANIAA KHREIS

ALGERIA_Sexual harassment in public transportation is no longer isolated individual behavior but has turned into a daily reality threatening women's safety. According to what circulates from time to time on social media platforms, a large proportion of women face daily harassment that reaches physical assault, which pushes feminist movements and human rights organizations to raise their voices to demand breaking the culture of silence and rejecting the justification of violence.

The "Ain El-Naaja" bus incident is considered a living model embodying the phenomenon of sexual harassment in public spaces and transportation. The dimensions of this incident exploded publicly after a video clip filmed by a girl spread on social media, documenting the moment a girl was harassed inside a passenger transport bus, a scene that sparked widespread condemnation among social media users. Last September, a woman documented being harassed inside a public transport bus by a man.

Daily Violations

This phenomenon was not confined to one region without another. In October 2025, a video clip spread on social media platforms documenting a woman being harassed publicly inside a public transport bus.

Official statistics from the General Directorate of Security and the National Center for Public Health in Algeria indicate that more than 80% of reported cases of violence against women occur within the family environment and private spaces. In contrast, a study prepared by United Nations offices covering Algeria shows that the proportion of women who report violence does not exceed 10%, with some of them retreating from pursuing judicial follow-up as a result of social pressures or economic and psychological vulnerability.

On the other hand, field reports issued by the "TBD ALGERIA" association (an independent and prominent feminist movement) reveal that sexual harassment has become "normalized and socially accepted, and an integral part of the daily life of Algerian women." According to the figures it monitored, 30.6% of women are subjected to harassment daily, 23.3% face it more than once a day, while 28% are exposed to it at least once a week, 12.1% once a month, and 11% once a year.

Psychological Motives

In an attempt to analyze this phenomenon, psychological specialist Reem Ben Bleish offers a deep reading that explains these behaviors. She says that "the perpetrator resorts to the mechanism of dehumanization, through which he reduces the victim to a mere passing being or a material object instead of dealing with her as a fully qualified human being with feelings, which completely eliminates in him any feeling of empathy or guilt toward what he commits."

She adds a behavioral dimension related to public transport, confirming that crowd dynamics play a dangerous role in this context; being amid the crowding of transportation fuels the phenomenon of diffusing or dispersing responsibility, as the individual melts into the human mass and dissolves from self-monitoring. In this climate, the perpetrator often interprets the passengers' silence or temporary passivity as a sign of implicit acceptance or disregard that does not call for deterrence, which gives him psychological safety and reinforces the continuity and ease of aggressive behavior.

Regarding the psychological and behavioral repercussions resulting from this phenomenon, Reem Ben Bleish explains the long-term health and social effects of harassment on daily users of transportation, confirming that "the repercussions go beyond the temporal moment of the incident to turn into chronic symptoms, as this experience imposes on women a state of hypervigilance and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of being forced into constant nervous alertness and monitoring of those around her throughout the trip, which causes fatigue mixed with general anxiety due to the doubled psychological effort. The behavioral impact extends to develop in some victims into agoraphobia and avoidance of closed and crowded places, which practically pushes them to change their daily travel routes, or bear additional financial burdens by resorting to private transportation, or even being forced to apologize for distinguished work and education opportunities to avoid repeating the experience."

Victim Blaming

The dimensions of the crisis are not limited to the psychological effects on victims, but extend to include the role played by the social environment in the continuation of the crime. She notes that the culture of victim blaming gives cover to the harasser to justify his actions. When society links harassment to the type of clothing or time of going out, the perpetrator relies on the mechanism of cognitive distortion and projection to convince himself that the victim's actions are what caused his behavior, which exempts him from moral and legal responsibility. On the other hand, this culture leads to silencing women and pushing them toward silence for fear of social stigma, which guarantees the harasser impunity and the repetition of his act without deterrence.

Regarding ways to combat this phenomenon and limit its spread in transportation and public transport, she confirms that "confronting harassment is not limited to the security aspect only, but requires cultural and psychological treatment that includes institutions and individuals to change prevailing concepts, starting from the complete abandonment of the culture of victim blaming, reaching the building of a societal safety network in which witnesses and passengers join forces to prevent assault practices."

In line with the vision that links societal awareness and the legal aspect, feminist movements and associations in Algeria continue to demand the activation, amendment, and tightening of penalties of laws to form a legal deterrent that keeps pace with the required cultural change. These field demands are topped by the necessity of abolishing the principle of pardon by deleting the legal article that allows the suspension of judicial prosecution against the perpetrator as soon as the victim waives, in order to reduce the social pressures exerted on women to withdraw complaints.

The associations also call for enacting a comprehensive and special framework law on gender-based violence to unify protection and deterrence efforts, while guaranteeing the right to work and providing a safe professional environment that protects female workers from harassment and molestation, in addition to enhancing women's financial independence and economic empowerment as a fundamental protection mechanism that enables them to confront violence and report it.