Reclaim the Night Movement continues to grow
Reclaim the Night was revived in Belfast in 2014, building on a long tradition of similar events both locally and further afield. The first Reclaim the Night march took place in Leeds in 1977, when women were advised not to go out at night by the police as a response to the Yorkshire Ripper murders. Feminists took to the streets in protest of this curfew on women, and similar events took place across England.
In Belfast groups including Rape Crisis, Lesbian Line and students unions organised a ‘March Against Male Violence’ in 1987 led by a DIY banner reading ‘Reclaim the Night’ and plenty of placards which unfortunately are as relevant today. Some footage of that march is in the NI Screen Digital Film Archieve[1], where you can see women carrying flaming torches as they walked from Queen’s University to City Hall. In 2017 the artist who designed the poster for the 1987 march, Louise Walsh, updated the image for the current iteration of Reclaim the Night to use.
Since 2014 Reclaim the Night Belfast has taken place on the last Saturday of November, as part of the global 16 days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence campaign. With the exception of an online event in 2020 and static rally in 2021. In 2024 for the first time a simultaneous march organised by Foyle Women’s Information Network crossed the Peace Bridge, in response to a recent spate of attacks in the area.
The Belfast march featured speakers from a range of organisations, rounded off with a performance by Juanita Rea who launched her new single ‘My Body all Mine’. The march and rally provides both a space to raise our collective voices against gender based violence and street harassment, and an opportunity to come together to show our support for victims and survivors. We heard from Naomi Green, an important reminder than VAWG impacts particular groups in different ways and we must be intersectional and anti-racist in our activism. Sexual harassment in the workplace and the role of Trade unions in driving cultural change was an important message from Clare Moore of ICTU.
The speakers were at Writers Square, close to UUB or the ‘Art College’. It is well documented that schools and universities are often sites of sexual harassment and gender based violence, and many women first experience street harassment while in their school uniform, Lauren Bond From the Secondary Students Union addressed the rally. The march starts in what has been dubbed the ‘Queer Quarter’ of Belfast. We recognise that LGBTQ+ people, and in particular trans femmes experience gender based violence at disproportionate rates, the rally also heard from Alexa Moore of the Rainbow Porject.
The march moved up Donegal Avenue to past City Hall, a symbol of our political system.and then past the offices of the Public Prosecution Service, the Courts, and a PSNI station. Also speaking at the rally was Tanya Kearns from Safe Night NI who is campaigning around a stand alone spiking offence. The march finishes by the Albert Clock, an area once associated with sex work. Our current legislation, which criminalises the purchase of sex, makes sex workers less safe. A representative of self organised sex workers has spoken at or provided a speech for each Reclaim the Night Belfast.
Over 30 years later many of the placards, made with the help of Array Collective, had messages which would have been just as relevant at the 1987 march. It’s important to note how far we have come, but also how much further we need to go, together.
[1] https://digitalfilmarchive.net/media/reclaim-the-night-2674