My name’s Katy. I am a member of the Bristol Feminist Network, which is a group of men and women who formed about a year and a half ago. We originally got together just to have discussions about feminist ideas and now we have moved onto activism.

What do you do?

Last year we were involved with ending the pay gap between men and women, a campaign in College Green during the winter, and also in the representation of women in the media campaign, but and tonight, we are Reclaiming The Night.

Reclaim the Night is an international campaign and has been going on since the 70’s. There have been “Reclaim the Nights” in Bristol but not for a few years, but now, after the spate of sexual assaults in Clifton, and the gang rapes in Easton it is important that they start up again. Quite a few people have called for this march to take place to highlight the fear which people feel that keeps them in at night, it stops them from going to places, and limits the way they move around the city.

We are also having “Reclaim the Night” specifically, today, because it is the opening of the Bristol Sexual Assault Referral Centre. The centre opened its doors a few hours ago and is hoping to provide 24hrs care for men, women, and children, who have been sexually assaulted.

What do you hope to achieve by this event?

It was important to the organizers that “Reclaim the Night” will be more than a march, more than a protest; and to that end we have three aims that we want to achieve in Bristol…..

1: to secure long term, increased, sustainable funding for the Bristol Rape Crisis Centre so that we can keep the Bristol centre going and continuing to look after women and girls for years to come.

2: to educate the public about respect and safety, consent and sexual violence. We want to highlight these kinds of issues for schools and communities because we believe that by educating, and raising awareness of abusive behaviour, we can prevent sexual violence.

3: to raise awareness in Bristol of the convictions rates of rape cases. Bristol has one of the lowest conviction rates in the country, only 4.2 percent of rape cases end in a conviction! So we want to raise awareness of this figure in order to encourage initiatives which will address the low rate.

What level of support have you received from this campaign?

We have received a huge amount of support; people have responded really well. It was important to us that men were included. At other Reclaim the Nights, there have been women only space which is understandable, but it was important for us to recognize male victims of sexual violence as well.  We also wanted to celebrate male support for the event. We are particularly grateful for the council, police, and Amnesty, as well as dozens of voluntary services which support victims of rape and sexual assault. These people are amazing, hardworking, and it’s just tragic that so many of them do it voluntarily and do not receive any money.

What advice would you give the people of Bristol to stay safe on the streets?

“Reclaim the Night” is not encouraging anyone to go out alone at night or to go against their instincts; you have got to trust your instincts. If you feel unsafe anywhere, take precautions, be accompanied, and maybe take a taxi. We want to address the causes of the fear which might prevent people from venturing out but of course we don’t want to encourage people to be unsafe and take risks. So take all the precautions you usually would but also think, during this campaign for long term change; you do not have to stay in scared. We think that people, particularly women, do not need to be protected. We want to encourage a culture of respect so that these assaults don’t happen in the first place.