Campaign to get street harassment in PSHE lessons

“Our Streets Now”, the grassroots campaign to end street harassment, is launching “Our Schools Now”, a campaign to include public sexual harassment as part of PSHE/RSE lessons in schools. The campaign is launching a wide range of resources for teachers and students to use, and releasing the findings of its “Our Schools Now” report.

The report, based on an in-depth survey with over 150 students and recent school leavers, has found that only 14% of students had been taught about public sexual harassment.

47% of students said they would not report an incident of public sexual harassment to their school either because they did not know or feared not being taken seriously by staff.

72% of pupils who did report public sexual harassment described receiving a negative response from their school, with the majority of participants stating that no real action was taken.
 
Maya and Gemma Tutton, sisters who have who have been campaigning to make public sexual harassment illegal in the UK said: “We need to make sure that the next generation of children in the UK understand the prevalence and impact of public sexual harassment.

As children and teenagers go back to school and the Government’s mandatory sex education curriculum is introduced, we are urging schools to include public sexual harassment within their mandatory PSHE/RSE lessons.

The rise of online and offline abuse as a consequence of the pandemic must not be allowed to further proliferate with the reduction of adequate sex education in response to schools being under pressure because of Covid-19.”  

Gemma adds: “I remember one incident of harassment when I challenged the perpetrators, telling them “I’m 13 years old”. One man answered, “Age doesn’t matter to me”. This culture has to change because until it does, girls will continue to feel confused, isolated and even blame themselves. I certainly did”.