Reclaim the Night Sheffield: Protesters march through city centre calling for an end to violence against women

The Reclaim the Night event took place on the evening of Saturday, November 26, 2022 when protesters met at Sheffield Cathedral before embarking on a march through the city centre.

A spokesperson for the event said: “The aim of this march is to resist violence against women, remember the history, and reclaim the streets of Sheffield.”

The march was open to everyone who feels ‘women applies to them in some way,’ as well as to carers and dependents of all genders.

Several of the women who took part in the march held banners with slogans including ‘I don’t exist for your enjoyment,’ ‘Strike down spiking’ and ‘1 in 3 women,’ seemingly referring to the statistic from the World Health Organisation that one in three women will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime.

Saturday’s march concluded at the Students’ Union, where a rally was held involving a number of guest speakers.

The event also marked the start of 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign at Sheffield Students’ Union, which seeks to highlight ‘the global issue of gendered violence and the atrocities that so many people are still facing today from every corner of the world’.

Reclaim the Night was started in Leeds in 1977 in response to the murders carried out by the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe; and the victim-blaming attitudes of many in society, who suggested the women slain by Suttcliffe were in some way responsible for the sickening, and deadly, violence he subjected them to.

While the hunt for Sutcliffe – who was finally caught in Broomhill, Sheffield – continued, women were told to stay out of public spaces and to avoid going out at night, sparking a Reclaim the Night movement in several towns and cities across the country, including Sheffield.

The movement has endured in Sheffield, and more recently Reclaim the Night marches have been staged in the city in 2017, 2019 and 2021, the latter of which was held in response to a number of high-profile attacks on women last year, including the murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa in London.