Sexual harassment ‘fact of life’ for girls
SEXUAL harassment is a “fact of life” for women and girls in Lancashire.
That was the sobering message delivered during a Lancashire County Council debate calling for misogyny to be classed as a hate crime.
A motion was presented to a full council meeting at County Hall in which Labour county councillor Jean Parr requested that the authority lobby the government to introduce necessary legislation.
County Coun Parr also wanted to see all incidents of domestic violence treated as violent assault or grievous bodily harm, prosecuted automatically without the victim having to make a formal complaint.
The debate also heard disturbing details of the personal experiences of some female county councillors and women they know.
Seconding the motion, Rossendale West county councillor Samara
Barnes told fellow members that she was herself “a survivor of domestic abuse, street harassment and even sexual assault”.
“I receive unsolicited online abuse from men on a regular basis,” she told her colleagues.
“I can’t turn back the clock and change what happened to me, but I can try my damndest to affect change that will reduce these harms for my daughters.”
County Coun Barnes said it was “a myth” to
suggest that classifying misogyny as a hate crime would lead to the creation of a new offence, but would rather ensure that the police and courts recognise and tackle the cause of such incidents.
An amended motion called for legislation on domestic violence and coercive control to be “strictly and robustly applied and be prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service whenever there is sufficient evidence to make a conviction likely, even if the prosecution is not supported by the victim”. It also asked the government to
“consider” defining misogyny and misandry - contempt for men - a hate crime. The amended motion was carried and the authority’s chief executive Angie Ridgwell will now write to Lancashire police and crime commissioner Andrew Snowden asking him to make “personal representation” in relation to the county council’s calls on the subject.