#Balancetonbar (Report to your bar) became in recent weeks the battle cry and hope for many women in Brussels who report having been sexually assaulted.
In October and with that hashtag, complaints began to occur on social networks that ended with a manifestation mid November. They denounce that after being drugged in certain bars from the Belgian capital, they were sexually abused, either in the same bars, on the street or in their homes.
The feminist collective of the “European capital”, mainly powerful among university students, launched a boycott campaign against certain bars and nightclubs. It accused its owners of handwashing, of doing nothing while his premises allowed him to drug himself without their consent to women and then abuse them.
The university neighborhood around the Ixelles Cemetery, near the Free University of Brussels and where thousands of students live, is the center of the movement. The Belgian press carries weeks reporting cases of young women that after going out at night they ended up waking up alone with vague memories of having had forced sexual relations with strangers.
The Belgian feminist collective, strong among university women, launched a boycott campaign against certain bars. Photo: Reuters
The complaints to the Police, which at first dismissed them as those of some simple sorry erasers of a bad nightly decision, and medical reports show how many of those women were drugged and raped. Since October Twitter, Facebook or Instagram were filled with testimonies with names and surnames and in which it was pointed out to certain bars in particular.
Beyond individual complaints to the Police, in very complex cases to prove because the drugs used to force women they hardly leave traces A few hours later and they are difficult to detect in current analyzes, the feminist movement wants the public powers to force nightlife establishments to take action.
They consider that they are accomplices and that some of its staff allow young women to take drugs against their will.
An Instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/balance_ton_bar/) that adds 28,500 followers serves to bear witness. In it the women explain the use of GHB, the so-called “rape drug” and the sexual assaults they suffered. The Inclusive and Self-managed Feminist Union (UFIA) assures that “we cannot speak of isolated cases but of systematic sexual violence”.
Balance Ton Bar’s Instagram account. Photo: Instagram @balance_ton_bar
This organization has already asked the local authorities to take various measures, such as a mobilization greater number of Police officers in nighttime recreation areas and more pressure on the hospitality industry to take action with their staff.
Certain bars are singled out, including ‘The coffee’, a food and drink place with a Tex-Mex aesthetic, very crowded at night and with a privileged location in the university district. Two young men denounced a waiter from that bar for rape and his case was the origin of the movement.
‘El Café’, like ‘Warf’, in the area of the Ixelles Cemetery, are locals that open practically all day, in which during the day you have the feeling of being in a simple snack bar and fast food and during the night in a disco.
They are especially popular with college students or young professionals tempted by college nightlife. For years they had a more diverse clientele than in recent years, especially since the outbreak of the pandemic, it was limited to university students.
The case, pending trial, served to unleash the complaints. The feminist movement accuses waiters and security agents to be part of the problem for being the perpetrators of sexual assaults or for having looked the other way when they occurred.
Advice to girls: “do not drink”
The reaction of some establishments worsened the situation. A famous disco, ‘The Winter Games’, he even published a list of advice … to girls: not to drink excessively, to eat before drinking … implying that the whole problem lay in young alcoholic women who provoked men.
Some young women also denounced that in certain hospitals the emergency services they refused to perform tests to detect the presence of drugs in the blood.
The Government is already preparing a reform of the Penal Code to broaden the notion of consent, which for now is “the absence of resistance from the victim”, which leads in extremis to the fact that if a rape victim did not physically resist, her aggressor could be exonerated, although to avoid that resistance he would have drugged her. The use of inhibitory substances such as aggravating.
The authorities also promise to create specialized centers with the presence of doctors, police and psychologists, open 24 hours a day and to which women could go to be treated and at the same time report.
Belgium is going to the European tail in the treatment of gender violence. The country does not even have an official statistic of murdered women and in the press it is still commonplace to find news about “Crimes of passion”. The government promises to catch up by 2022.
Brussels, special for Clarín
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