By Shawna Healey 

The House of Commons has recently published its sixth report on the sexual harassment of women and girls in public places. The report, published after a 9-month enquiry, calls on the government to tackle public sexual harassment of women and girls and makes seven key recommendations for action.

The report finds that harassment in public places is ‘relentless’ and becomes ‘normalised’ as girls grow up, contributing to a wider negative cultural effect on society, and states that social attitudes, including disrespect of women and an assumption among some men that it is permissible behave in this way, underpin sexual harassment. It also finds that sexual harassment saturates the lives of women and girls and is deeply ingrained in our culture, and highlights that the #MeToo movement has helped bring to light the problem of sexual abuse towards women and girls. Further, it explores how the prevalence and impact of sexual harassment is not recognised or understood in the same way by large numbers of men.

Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, Maria Miller, Conservative MP, said: “Sexual harassment in public places is a regular experience for many women and girls in the street, in bars and clubs, on buses and trains, at university and online. It is the most common form of violence against women and girls and the damage is far-reaching. And yet most of it goes unreported.”

The enquiry reveals that there are substantial research findings which suggest a relationship between the consumption of pornography and sexist attitudes and sexually aggressive behaviours. It also states that the governmental approach to pornography is inconsistent: it restricts adults’ access to offline pornography to licensed premises and is introducing age verification for commercial pornography online to prevent children’s exposure to it, but it has no plans to address adult men’s use of mainstream online pornography.

Sexual harassment on public transport, including viewing pornography in what is not an age-restricted space, is also a major concern, as is women and girls’ lack of safety at night, in bars and clubs and while at university.

The revised Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy is due to be published later this year, and will set out a plan of action to make public spaces safer for women and girls. A new law has also been suggested that will focus on image-based sexual abuse, criminalising all non-consensual creation and distribution of intimate sexual images on the basis of the victim’s lack of consent rather than the perpetrator’s motivation.

The Licensing Act (2003) guidance should also be amended, according to the recommendations laid out in the report, to ensure that licensees act on sexual harassment. Local authorities must consult local women’s groups and sexual violence specialists when developing their policies on licensing commercial spaces such as strip clubs and lap-dancing clubs.

The findings also highlight that universities should have a legal obligation to develop policies to combat sexual harassment, including a responsibility to collect and publish data on the effectiveness of those policies. From September 2020, primary schools will also be required to teach Relationships Education while secondary schools will be required to teach Relationships and Sex Education, which the committee hope will help to begin to effect urgently necessary change.

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