#UberCestOver: when the Uber race turns into a nightmare for women

Sunday, November 17, four students from Strasbourg decide to return from the evening in Uber. The atmosphere is good-natured, young people sympathize with the driver and three of them are dropped off at their home. Sonia lives outside the city and is alone with the driver. This is where the race turns into a nightmare. The man presses the 22-year-old student with personal questions and becomes more and more insistent as she closes.

"He intertwined his fingers with mine, put them on my thigh, and then on his own, I felt hijacked," she says. Arrived in front of her, he tries to kiss her. Sonia manages to escape and, without delay, reports the incident to Uber's team, who reacts quickly: "They told me that they were sorry, that they were going to suspend the driver and I could get me back the race. "

The young woman does not want to stop there and shares the photo of her attacker on Twitter. 24-year-old Noémie then admits on the social network the man she reported two years earlier to the VTC platform for similar facts.

Minors first victims of sexual harassment

The two young women decide to contact Anna Toumazoff, a feminist blogger who keeps the Instagram account Memespourcoolkidsfeministes. Anna rested the testimony of Noemie. Two days later, two other girls report to him that they have been victims of the same driver. Anna relays their testimonials again, questioning Uber.

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A series of illustrations on the @uberfr case made and sent by the very talented @sffuma. Feel free to share these images in stories / in your articles. 📸 Story available in story, and I will answer all your questions live tonight between 20 and 21h on my account @annatoumazoff. At times 💜

A post shared by Anna Toumazoff (@memespourcoolkidsfeminists) on Nov 24, 2019 at 6:39 am PST

The platform remains silent. Worse: it erases the messages that begin to flow on his Twitter feed. Anna then creates the hashtag #UberCestOver (Uber it's over). A wave of comments sweeps over her thread and the young woman becomes a whistleblower without knowing it. In one week, she receives over 700 messages telling her about inappropriate behavior, rape, touching, insults, sexist remarks during Uber races.

Violated in 2017 by an Uber driver in attendance my 8 year old daughter. The justice has concluded to no place! Thanks to our justice or as you are not covered with bruises or dead there is no rape. And thanks to Uber for continuing to work this kind of garbage. # Ubercestover

The testimonies come from all over France, but also from abroad: we can read messages from Erasmus students in Romania, Belgium, Ireland or the United States. They often have in common to be young. Even very young.

Many minors confided in Anna. Here is a 17-year-old girl who suffered "an insistent drag from a much older driver". There, she is a 14-year-old girl forced to a blowjob. Her friend writes, "The driver locked the doors in front of her house and forced her to suck him in. She got out of the car, fainted, woke up to go home. spoken to his parents. " Or this 16-year-old girl who returns from the evening, falls asleep and "wakes up on a parking space, at the corner of a street, with the driver touching it".

User security, Uber's "top priority"

Accused, the company Uber begins to apologize for having erased the messages that questioned him about it. She invokes on Twitter a "lack of discernment" and ensures once again "to have taken the necessary measures". The crisis communication is set up and Uber multiplies the press releases and podcasts, claiming to take the measure of the problem. "The security of the app users is a top priority, and any aggression is treated as part of an uncompromising procedure.In case of a sexual assault incident, the account that committed the facts is systematically suspended. preventive ", can we read on the wire of the platform.

[1/3] User security of the Uber application is a top priority. To the question - legitimate and necessary - "How are aggressions treated on Uber?", We wanted to respond transparently, through a podcast. Discover it here 2 extracts pic.twitter.com/Fj0s7Zi9zm

The company had already committed last summer in a campaign against sexual harassment, in collaboration with the application HandsAway and Assocation Stop street harassment. The platform has set up, on July 1, an emergency button allowing young women to report instantly via the app when they "feel in danger".

But according to many young women, the report was not followed up. "Two weeks ago, Sonia and Noemie's driver was still in circulation," says Anna Toumazoff to France 24. "Uber sends out press releases but none of the girls I'm in contact with have been contacted by Uber. Above all, they do not apologize to the victims. "

Metro, Uber, same fight?

"But the hard part is this feeling of insecurity that we have now while for years, we took Uber precisely to feel safe," says Anna Toumazoff, who was herself a great user of VTC . "It's often the parents and grandparents who insist that their daughter take an Uber instead of getting on the subway or on foot ... that's the hardest thing," says Anna Toumazoff.

According to a study by HandsAway, women make up 60% of Uber's clientele in Île-de-France. An overrepresentation linked in part to this other data: 87% of Franciliennes report having already been victims of harassment or sexual assault on public transport, according to a survey of the Fnaut in 2016. Figures that leave little today alternatives to women.

You take the metro you can be attacked. You take Uber you can be assaulted. You come back on foot you can be attacked. Must we have a curfew ?! When will we not have to be on the alert and suffer the violence of men ?! #UberCestOver

"You take the subway, you can be assaulted, you take Uber, you can be assaulted, you walk home, you can be assaulted, you have to impose a curfew?" When do we will not have to be on the alert and to suffer the violence of the men?! ", asks a surfer on Twitter. The question has the merit of being today widely raised in the public square.