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China Elevator Stories
The Stalker At The Café
The stalking didn’t end with my last post.
01/06/2024
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
This is how the situation with the co-worker who stalked me unfolded:
I did indeed have to go to the police after I had published my post about his stalking because my co-worker did not stop to stalk and harass me.
Before I had to go to the police, I sent my boss an email to tell him that I planned to quit my job. The situation had further escalated and I did not want to put my life at risk.
It was only then that we were able to find a new solution, which was that I would not have to quit my job, and that I would not have to stay at the office at the same time my co-worker was there.
My co-worker has been assigned to work externally so that we would not be at the office together. Homeoffice was not an option because my company does not offer the option of working from home.
Before we could get to this solution, I had to inform a few more people (mostly superiors) of the stalking, because many of the people I informed did not take the situation serious enough.
I have repeatedly come across this problem in Austria.
When a woman says she is being stalked, I have found these few scenarios to be common:
1. People will not believe the situation is as serious as the woman says it is.
2. People say the stalking didn’t even happen: “She was simply imagining it”.
3. People will tell you that stalking is only stalking when the victim perceives it as stalking.
4. And in the worst case, people will ask the stalker about his take on the situation who may then lie, which can lead to others believing him instead of the victim.
This can be hazardous, and I have repeatedly experienced all four scenarios!
In my eyes, stalking is always stalking.
I like to compare it to a driving car: A car is a driving car if it moves, and usually this means that someone is driving it. A person may not perceive it as a driving car, but the car would still be driving.
The same is the case with stalking. Stalking is not only stalking when the victim perceives it as stalking. Stalking is always stalking simply because a person was being stalked by another person, and it is always an act independent of the victim’s perception of it as stalking.
I am saying this because acts of stalking are defined by various behaviors, acts and intentions on part of the stalker, and a victim may not always know what stalking is exactly, or that she is being stalked. She could be stalked without knowing it, or she could be stalked but not call it stalking. The stalking would still be taking place.
Framing it like this protects victims.
If you make an act of stalking dependent on the victim’s perception of it, the perpetrator can get off the hook easily. If you do not know an act is stalking or if others say it is not stalking – this can put the victim in a precarious situation.
A woman may also know that she is being stalked, but when she tells others that she is being stalked and they suggest she is not, she could come to the false conclusion that she is not being stalked when in reality she is.
I have to say that going to the police in Austria so you can be protected from a stalker is usually not very helpful (which doesn’t mean I recommend you do not go to the police, please do still go in any case, so you can keep yourself as safe as possible in a situation like this).
If you have been to the police in Austria in the past, you may know that going to the police is almost as efficient as going to a playmobil policeman to ask him to catch a stalker or a murderer for you (=pretty much useless)!
As I see it, anti-stalking laws in Austria are not strict enough to protect victims from stalkers. You would have to be almost or already dead for courts to consider it as horrific an act as it actually is.
It seems to me like this is actually a blind spot where the police and courts do not realize how horrific stalking is, how dangerous it can become, and where victims are therefore not being protected sufficiently so acts of violence can be prevented.
When I reported my ex-husband to the police for stalking when we were already separated but still married in the year 2022, the police tried to coerce me into not making that report! I had to fight with them for over half an hour until they eventually agreed to write the report.
Have you ever been stalked?