The impact of violence and harassment against women

“I had this horrible experience where it wasn’t public, it was private in someone’s room and something happened. It was pretty bad and I remember calling my mum and she said it's just what boys do and I remember at the time I had friends who were guys and I remember telling him and he reacted so weirdly”. A victim of sexual harassment revealed their experience in opening up to those they trusted most but did not get the support she wanted. It led to her not being heard and feeling invalidated. 

The victim worked in a field where women came forward about their experiences and opened up about what happened. Within that field, they support both the victims and the perpetrators in terms of sexual offences and it came as no surprise to her that what she went through is not an uncommon thing and with that came the frustration. The craziest thing to them was the fact that when they came forward to the men about what they have been accused of they would act shocked by the fact they were being reported, and the only thing going through the victim's mind was “how could you not see that what you did was bad and went against her rights to exist”. Even with the rights and protections we have, cultural elements get in the way and the situation becomes complex. It shows the lack of education about what is right and wrong but also the apathy towards whether what they’re doing is right or wrong.

There have been many victims still to this day who have faced a situation where they have been sexually harassed and this, in most cases, has impacted women. In June 2021, there was a survey released called the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey and the results of that survey were that 89% of women in Great Britain who had experienced harassment in the last year were more likely to feel unsafe in the dark. They felt the most unsafe in parks and other open spaces. 

The statistics show the clear impact that harassment has on women whether they have experienced harassment or not there is still fear of the fact it could happen to them or happen again. According to research conducted by UN Women UK, they found disturbing results of 97% of women aged between 18 and 24 were sexually harassed and a further 96% did not report these situations because of the belief that nothing would change from it.

It is a case of stopping sexual harassment, abuse and assault before it has a chance to happen. This is the mission of the National Sexual Violence Resource Centre based in the United States. Its mission is to “provide leadership and responding to sexual violence through collaborating, sharing and creating resources and promoting research”. They work alongside their partners at state, territory and tribal organisations followed by local rape crisis centres. 

Their belief is that preventing sexual harassment requires working to change the root causes of sexual violence such as oppression and misogyny and because these are large systematic issues that are ingrained in our culture, change will take a long time to effect, and we still have a long way to go. However, they are currently running a campaign called Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and this year's theme was “Building safe Online Spaces Together”. The campaign puts a focus on how each of us can help create online communities that are safe, respectful and inclusive, it is a campaign that they guide and that everyone can get involved with going from advocates and survivors to students and the media.