Nurcan Yalçın/JINHA

AMED – As spring comes to Kurdistan, women have found that tables and stools have begun creeping out of the overwhelmingly male-dominated coffee houses and into the sidewalks in front of them.

Women in the city of Diyarbakır say the male-dominated urban environment is more than an inconvenience; it has recently caused a number of traffic accidents, as women walk in the street to avoid the verbal harassment of men sitting in coffee shops.

Women are calling for officials to do something to stop the harassment that shapes their urban environment. Many, like neighborhood resident Fehime Karakaş, say the harassment is what keeps them from leaving their homes.

"Going to and from my home in the early morning or in the evening scares me," said Zehra Kan, who lives in the Diyarbakır neighborhood of Fatih, in the district of Bağlar, "because harassers are waiting for me everywhere. I've been followed home three times by three different people while going home."

On one of the occasions, Zehra quickly stepped into a corner store to escape the man following her. She quickly walked to a nearby weapons store and bought a small personal pepper spray canister. As she stepped out, the man started following her again. She flashed the pepper spray in her hand and he finally left.

Leyla Ergin says she's very uncomfortable about the coffee shops taking over the sidewalks, which leaves no place for pedestrians to walk. Walking in the street has become normal, she says, for her children. Even her young girls find themselves harassed. She says she worries every day that one of them will be hit by a car.

(ze/fk/cm)