Machismo also gets into the taxi: “I return home celebrating that I am alive”

A wave of solidarity among colleagues has bathed the masculinized taxi sector for two months, when a driver in Catalonia denounced, thanks to a recording, a passenger who masturbated in her vehicle.

Since then, the testimonies of others who reported similar experiences have come to light, and in Barcelona they demand that the Metropolitan Taxi Institute (IMET) include in its regulations the placement of video surveillance cameras, as in other autonomies, to ensure your safety.

Taxi driver Josselyn Contreras, 37, says that she perceives machismo and sexual violence with increasing frequency.

She works in the Catalan capital and remembers when three travelers refused to pay her and stoned her vehicle.

“If you want to get paid for the trip, you have to eat it.”

Those were the last words she heard before she “hurried away.”

47% of taxi drivers have suffered harassment or discrimination at work.

14% claim to have been a victim in the last week and 16% in the last month.

Most report sexist comments and humor or inappropriate approaches.

This is revealed by the Women Taxi Driver Observatory 2024, prepared by the mobility company Freenow, after interviewing more than 500 professionals in the sector.

Miriam Martínez, 58 years old and also a taxi driver in Barcelona, ​​confesses that she has not worked at night for a year and a half.

She has been behind the wheel for 20 years, but she has made this decision because she assures that harassment is increasing, especially at dawn.

“At 12, at the latest, I park the taxi, even if there is still work,” she explains.

“There are passengers who tell you to stop for a while and go up to their house, and they will pay you,” Martínez says indignantly.

She also reports having received homophobic comments for carrying the LGTBIQ+ flag in the vehicle.

Since a man robbed her by putting his hands on her neck and a syringe in her side, she feels more afraid.

In a few minutes she recounts a string of unpleasant situations: “Once a passenger performed fellatio on another traveler on the journey and they invited me to join them.

"She didn't know what to do, she was looking forward to reaching the destination and finishing the day."

77% of taxi drivers feel unsafe on night shifts, according to the same study.

The taxi driver in Barcelona Miriam Martínez, 58, on February 21. massimiliano minocri

Contreras, who had to “put on the brakes and ask a passenger to get out of the car” who put his hand on his leg while he was trying to drive, says that the risk has increased in recent years.

“I look very exposed.

I go between four walls in a very small space.

I must have a lot of emotional control so that the impunity of a passenger does not affect me,” she says.

She denounces compliments or inappropriate questions, one of them, if she has a husband.

“They ask me for the phone number for an arranged service, but then they want to invite me to lunch,” she adds.

Martínez feels helplessness and helplessness: “I try to psychoanalyze the person before putting them in the taxi, but I don't have a crystal ball and I could be wrong.”

In Madrid, Martha Flores, a 36-year-old taxi driver, claims that she has had trips canceled because she is a woman, saying goodbye from the sidewalk.

“I return the gesture and smile,” she says.

A passenger called her a “bitch” after getting angry because she wasn't driving as fast as he wanted.

She immediately expelled him from the vehicle.

“If it's close to reaching their destination, you have hope that nothing will happen, but if there's still a way to go, you're tense,” she confesses.

Taxi driver Martha Flores, 36, in Madrid on February 14.INMA FLORES

María del Pilar Zarzuela, a 58-year-old taxi driver in Madrid, remembers that a client refused to pay her because she was not going to have dinner with him and his friend.

“I got paid because I threatened to call the police,” she explains.

It is not the only complicated situation she has faced.

A man hit him at the Chamartín station when he told him to get out of the vehicle because he had gotten on in a passenger unloading area, where loading is not allowed.

“A classmate came out to defend me, the image was quite sad,” she says.

Another traveler, before getting into the vehicle, put his arm through the gap in the driver's window and grabbed Zarzuela's head to try to kiss her on the lips.

She reproached him for his attitude and decided that she would no longer be his client, because until then she had taken him on occasion: “No one laughs at my effort or my work.”

He still has the recorded image of a line of men shouting at him from their cars when a traffic jam arose because a passenger, with a 75% disability, was a few minutes late in being able to take out his wallet to pay him.

“You had to be a woman, daughter of the great whore, get out of here.”

These were the humiliations that were hurled at him in a short time.

Madrid City Council has 15,776 taxi licenses.

Only 5.3% belonged to women in 2022, as reported by Freenow, a figure that increases slightly each year.

The mobility company reveals that 98% of taxi drivers have not reported these harassment situations, "mainly because they think it is of no use or because it is difficult to prove it."

The spokesperson for Élite Taxi, Tito Álvarez, requests a regulation of the use of video surveillance cameras in the regulations of the IMET of Barcelona to increase security: “We want them not to be profiled on this issue.”

In Catalonia, the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Urban Police received 26 complaints from users and taxi drivers in January and a total of 373 in 2023, of which 326 were for alleged crimes against property, 23 for injuries and six against sexual freedom without violence, according to Europa Press.

At the moment, the Department of Territory is carrying out a study on the current legal framework for local entities to take safety measures in taxis and the IMET prioritizes improving the connection

with the 112 emergency telephone number, already installed in taxis, but which does not convince everyone in the sector because they consider that it is not effective enough.

IMET sources, however, defend the measure because "in case of danger it allows an immediate reaction by the security forces."

The entity has not yet contemplated the incorporation of cameras in its regulations.

The Presidency, Security and Internal Regime Commission of Barcelona City Council agreed to study the establishment of a protocol for action against sexist attacks on female taxi drivers.

In Madrid, the Taxi Federation, the Taxi Guild Association and the regional government signed a protocol in 2008 for the use of video surveillance cameras inside vehicles: drivers decide whether to install them or not.

To increase security, María del Pilar Zarzuela calls for better urban lighting in less central streets and the use of a camera not only internal, but also external.

However, she is not wearing any.

She feels quite safe working with the Freenow application because the client is registered.

Flores confesses to having invented that her boss was listening to the conversation in the vehicle to get out of an unpleasant situation successfully.

They all have locks on their doors and agree that their colleagues are also exposed to risk, some know several who have experienced violent circumstances.

“The danger is there for both of us, although perhaps because we are women we experience more situations of sexual harassment,” says Martínez.

Pilar Cordero, 58, and Mónica Crisan, 50, also taxi drivers, say they have never faced a harassment situation in their vehicle.

“We all have to fight to improve safety, but it is important that women continue to join this sector,” claims Cordero, who acknowledges being cautious before putting a client in the taxi.

Pilar Cordero, 58-year-old taxi driver in Madrid, on February 21.INMA FLORES

They all love their jobs and have no plans to quit.

98% of taxi drivers feel very welcomed by their colleagues and 72% highlight the ease of reconciliation, according to the Freenow study.

“They made this profession for me,” says Cordero.

Of course, Martínez, like her colleagues, wants to work calmly: “I only ask for respect.

I have been forced to cut my work schedule without meaning to.

“I return home celebrating that I am alive, but with the tension that tomorrow will be another day.”

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