SCANDAL OF FESTIVAL SEX PESTS
»»One in five festival goers is targeted by sex pests »»Campaigners call for events to take shock figures seriously
ONE in five British festival-goers have suffered sexual assault or harassment at an event, according to a survey.
Campaigners said the figures should be a wake-up call for the industry to start treating sexual violence as seriously as other crimes at festivals.
The poll showed 22 per cent of all Britons who have been to a festival faced some kind of unwanted sexual behaviour, rising to almost one in three of women and almost half of women under 40.
The most common forms of unwanted sexual behaviour were unwelcome and forceful dancing and sexualised verbal harassment.
Eleven per cent of women had experienced sexual assault while conscious, compared with three per cent of men.
Four per cent of women said they were sexually assaulted while unconscious or asleep, BY ALASTAIR REID compared with two per cent of men.
Only two per cent of festivalgoers who were assaulted or harassed reported it to the police, suggesting the issue is significantly under-reported.
The poll, in which YouGov quizzed 1188 festival goers for the Press Association, also revealed 70 per cent of those who experienced assault or harassment said the attacker was a stranger.
There was a stark difference in reporting – with 19 per cent of men telling festival staff about assault, compared with just one per cent of women.
Tracey Wise, founder of campaign group Safe Gigs For Women, said: “We have struggled to find anyone with definite statistics on this before now.
“It gives us something to show to festival organisers so we can say, ‘You need to take this on board’.” Jen Calleja, a co-director of the Good Night Out Campaign, said it was “shocking but not surprising”.
She added it “helps prove what we already know through anecdotal evidence”.
Paul Reed, chief executive of the Association of Independent Festivals, said festivals “have a duty to make their events as safe and secure and enjoyable” as possible.
He added: “People shouldn’t feel that they need to tolerate the type of behaviour (at festivals) that they wouldn’t tolerate in the street.”
Organisers of some of the UK’s biggest festivals – including Glastonbury, Creamfields and the Reading and Leeds festivals – declined to comment on the figures.
Police recorded two sexual assaults, two rapes and one incident of indecent exposure at last year’s Glastonbury Festival.