Parents with daughters back making harassment a crime
NEARLY all parents of teenage girls support unwanted sexual behaviour being made a criminal offence, a charity has revealed.
Findings from girls’ rights charity Plan International UK showed more than four in 10 adults believe the streets are unsafe for females, while more than a quarter of women “always or often feel unsafe in public spaces”.
At least 950 of 1,000 people polled backed making public sexual harassment a crime.
Rose Caldwell, chief executive of Plan UK, said: “We have laws to prevent people spitting gum and dropping litter on the street, but still no law to protect girls from harassment. How can this be right? We know that girls experience PSH (public sexual harassment) from as young as 11, affecting their freedom and impacting their mental health.” Parents said that worry about harassment affected their decision on where to live, while a fifth said it made them avoid taking their daughters to certain places. The Daily Express is backing calls for PSH to be made a specific criminal offence through the Keep Women Safe On Our Streets crusade. The law would cover unwelcome and unwanted attention, sexual advances and intimidating behaviour in public spaces, both in person and online.
TV presenter Laura Jackson, 36, said yesterday that she was followed by a stranger on the Underground in London on Tuesday after she left the Glamour Women Of The Year awards.
She wrote online: “It’s that feeling when someone’s watching you on the train, gets off at your stop, walks closely next to you and waits for you to walk ahead to follow you,” she said. “I called my sister and walked back to the station. I’ve never felt so sure something would have happened.”
Rose Caldwell called for legislaasked tion on PSH to be “agreed urgently”, adding: “The Government has committed to action on this issue, and it is crucial that this commitment is not lost amid the recent turbulence in Westminster.
“While we wait for the Government to act, girls continue to be followed, shouted at, touched, groped and grabbed. This needs to stop. The time for the Government to act is now.”
Plan UK and campaigners at Our Streets Now have spent two years calling for PSH to be made a criminal offence through their Crime Not Compliment crusade.
The Government has carried out a consultation exercise on making it a crime but has yet to publish the findings.