Hollywood actress, producer and activist Eva Longoria spoke up for the rights of women during a training programme held at Expo 2020 Dubai on December 8.
She was part of the Stand Up Against Street Harassment event organised by L’Oréal Paris, in collaboration with Hollaback!, an organised that aims to end harassment.
Earlier in October, Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Egyptian star Mona Zaki, US actress Aja Naomi King and Saudi Arabian singer Aseel Omran also visited Expo 2020 Dubai as part of the programme that educates people on what to do when they witness or experience street harassment.
During her visit at 2020 Club by Emaar, Longoria explained how the campaign came to be.
“L’Oréal Paris initiated an international study that found the number one issue women face globally is street harassment. For women everywhere, street harassment is a problem — no matter their nationality, culture or where they live,” she said, according to a statement. “So, they [L’Oréal Paris] partnered with an organisation called Hollaback! to create a training programme to help bystanders intervene in a safe and effective way.”
The ‘Desperate Housewives’ actress also explained what the programme teaches.
“The Stand Up training is based around the five Ds methodology — distract, delegate, document, delay and direct — five simple actions that can help everyone to intervene safely, whether you are being a witness or a victim of street harassment,” she said. “For ‘distract’, if you see a woman getting harassed, go up to her and say: ‘Hey, can you give me directions?’ or ‘I haven’t seen you since school. How have you been? Are you ready to get out of here?’ You just distract the situation and help her get out of the situation. For ‘delay’, you can go up to them after the incident and say: ‘Are you okay? I saw what happened.’ You can ‘document’ the incident using video and give that video to the person who has been harassed. There are so many ways you can help, such as ‘delegate’ by getting someone of authority to intervene.”
When asked what her first impressions of Expo 2020 Dubai were, Longoria said: “Expo 2020 is in Dubai so I expected greatness and it delivered. I expected nothing less from this city in this country. Every exhibit has been magnificent, beautiful, so inclusive and celebratory of the world that we live in — it really reminds us that we live in a global community.”
