'Don't tell us how to dress - tell men not to rape!' Israeli women shed their clothes for 'Slut Walk' protest through the streets of conservative Jerusalem where showing an ankle can be offensive
By Julian Robinson
Daily Mail
June 2, 2017
This was the scene as Israeli women shed their clothes to take part in a 'Slut Walk' demonstration through the streets of Jerusalem.
Hundreds of activists marched through the conservative city to defend women's rights and to protest against sexual harassment.
One protester held up a placard saying 'Don't tell us how to dress, tell men not to rape' while some went topless and wrote slogans on their bodies.
Others stripped down to their underwear for the annual march, which has proved controversial in the past.
Local media reported organisers as saying: 'The word slut is a violent social tool designed to embarrass women and cultivate violence against women.
'So we've claimed this word and taken away society's ability to use it against us.'
The global Slut Walk movement is known for its topless protests demanding respect for women's rights, but a row broke out last year in Israel over the right to bare all.
In previous years a few went topless during the march, organisers said, but in 2016 police tried to force them to cover up.
'No, that means no,' they chanted this year as the marchers, mostly women but also some men, made their way along Jaffa Road and near religiously conservative Ultra-Orthodox Jewish areas such as Mahane Yehuda where women cover up in long robes.
The annual march, held with a police escort, passed off without incident.
Margaret, 23, told AFP she was there to show that 'all women and all men have the right to wear what they want... and that nobody has the right to touch or attack them for that'.
With bleached hair, a boyish haircut and several piercings on her face, 18-year-old Katie said such action was 'very important' in a country like Israel where an ex-president, Moshe Katsav, is serving a seven-year jail term for rape.
Taking part alongside his girlfriend was Erez, sporting a beard and a dress.
Apart from a show of solidarity, he wanted 'to make it loud and clear that the responsibility for sorting out this question lies not with women, but with us, men'.
Unlike Tel Aviv, Israel's liberal city on the Mediterranean, Jerusalem is conservative and home to religiously observant Jews, Muslims and Christians.
In March 2015, a girl was killed and six other people wounded when an Ultra-Orthodox Jew attacked a Gay Pride parade in the Holy City.
The SlutWalk movement was sparked in Canada in 2011 after a police officer caused outrage during a speech to university students by stating that 'women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized'.
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