Uni club chaperones female students after vile ‘rape day’ threat
CARDIFF University Football Club has been praised for launching a chaperone service to help female students walk home safely at night after rumours of a “national rape day” circulated on social media.
The sickening online trending topic saw April 24 labelled as a day where sexual assault would be legalised for 24 hours, with one post claiming that university students in Cardiff had created group chats with “hundreds of girls in them to be targeted”.
While the so-called event was widely disproved as a hoax, police and universities issued warnings – with Cardiff University saying that they were “taking these matters seriously”.
However, determined to do more to protect female students walking around Cathays at night, Cardiff University Football Club president and first team captain Ben Marett, 22, decided to offer a chaperone service to anyone walking through the area on Saturday night.
Together with 20 of his team-mates, the second year business and human resource management student operated a messaging service from 9pm until 5am on Sunday, with women requesting a chaperone to accompany them on their walk home.
Four groups of five team members patrolled around Cathays in their distinctive red tracksuit tops, with two people being sent off to chaperone those in need whenever they received a text or call.
In total, the team said they helped 30 students get home safely, and their actions have been met with an overwhelmingly positive response from female and male students alike.
“It all really stemmed from seeing the posts online about girls getting harassed around Cardiff,” added Ben. “There just seemed to be more and more each day, and then we saw about the ‘national rape day’ warnings as well – I thought surely there’s something we can do to help.
“We’ve got a really good group of lads in the football club now, and they all supported it straightaway.
“We wanted to show that while there are men doing bad things, there are also men out there doing good things as well.
“The response has been phenomenal too, I’ve had hundreds and hundreds of messages from people who were really grateful for the initiative – a lot of men have messaged me as well saying that they really respected what we were doing, which was really nice to see.”
After seeing posts about the “national rape day” hoax, Ben had offered to chaperone fellow undergraduate Mia Sawdon, 20, and her friend to a party on Saturday night.
Ms Sawdon, a second-year politics student at Cardiff University, said she had recently become increasingly aware of the potential dangers of walking alone in the city.
“I used to not really worry too much about it,” she said. “One of the reasons I chose Cardiff was that it is a really safe city, and I’d never had any bad experiences.
“But over the past couple of months, that perspective has really changed – I had a couple of run-ins with guys trying to come up and talk to me, following me, catcalling me, all in the space of two weeks or so, which really changed my opinion. The other day one of my friends just walked out of the house to her car and, in that time, two different cars drove past with boys catcalling her.
“I think that is one of the main reasons why girls feel so unsafe – it could literally just be a matter of walking down the road and something happening. I’m lucky having someone like Ben that I can go to, but obviously a lot of girls won’t have that.” Imogen Stonebank, 21, a thirdyear English Language student at Cardiff University, was walked home from the station by three members of the football team.
She said: “I just don’t leave my house after 7 or 8pm, particularly in the last year or so. It feels like there’s an unspoken curfew now, which is such a shame.
“Even a year or two ago, I definitely had a different attitude, and I’d be going out late, going to society events, walking back with someone and not worrying too much about it.
“On the flip side, seeing the guys come forward and asking what they can do to help has been really lovely, I really appreciated them walking me back home.”
Cardiff University already has a number of schemes in place to help ensure student safety, such as the Student Safety Walk Scheme, which supports students who may feel uncomfortable getting home alone late at night.
A Safety Bus and Safe Taxi Scheme also helps students get home safely on nights out, while personal safety alarms are also available through the university’s Security Centre.
Students can also download the Safezone app to alert University Security if they need help or assistance while on campus.
Despite this, Ben is now hopeful that the football team could work with the university to start a similar initiative.
He said: “I know the university has things in place at the moment, but we would like to work with them, rather than them taking over the scheme.
“We’d have to get lots of safety measures put in place, we’d obviously want it to be really safe – but we’ll have talks and see what we can do.”
A Cardiff University spokeswoman said: “We were aware of comments made on social media, and we condemn those who seek to create fear amongst our student community.
“While we had no evidence to suggest the threat was real, we sought and were offered reassurance by the police. We appreciate the negative impact these events have had on our students’ perceived sense of safety.
“That’s why we are proud of the way our student community responded and the efforts of the university’s football team.”