Transcripts For CSPAN3 Combating Sexual Harassment In The U.K. 20171212

The workplace and other public spaces. This hmay be an issue that the committee will decide to look at more closely and more detail in this incredibly useful session today will help inform the inquiry as we take it forward. I can first start by thanking our witnesses on behalf of the committee for taking time out to be here and i know the preparation required to be here is significant. Thank you. The usual practice is that we have questions from committee members. Weve got a lot of ground to cover. I heigmight use my chairs abil to move things on if need be. Just before we start with the first set of questions, could you say your name and the organization you represent starting with claire. Im a professor of law at durham university. Im scarlet harris from the tuc. Im mark hamilton. Im michael conroy. Our first questions are from eddie. Good morning. When she visited the uk this 2014, the u. N. Special reporter on violence against women said the u. K. Had a boys club, sexist culture. Do you think that statement can be justified . I would suggest walking into this room passed about 200 years of unbroken patriarchal domination suggests that based on some reason. I can speak for my own personal experience. Obviously, the women have got much greater insight into that. I will say that everything about our culture is defined in male dominance. We need to address that, identify it and pick it for everybodys health, for the cultural health. I would agree but im sure its much greater insight into it. Any other comments . Just before we move on, how do you think the impact of that is different for men and women, boys and girls . Of living in a patriarchal culture . Yes. Women are prone to Sexual Harassment. The rates of rape and Domestic Abuse and street harassment absolutely apailing and unacceptable. Theres impacts for boys which is suicide, male to male violence and they can all be traced to a counter performance and rigid interpretation of what it means to be a man. Its toxic for men and women. Boys can have it. From a Police Perspective commenting on the culture of the uk is tricky because we tend to base our evidence upon our understanding of crime or even noncrime, unreported crime. What it would say is the evolution in terms of crimes of Sexual Violence, crimes of Domestic Violence. Can i say when youre giving your answer, you will also have the perspective effectively as somebody who works in an organization. Its not just how the Police Interact with society. What society like in the police, i imagine there might be possibly some sexism there as well. It has associated a view thats a culture. I think theres personally, from my own experience placing and agree with that. From the experience i think that the progress has been to gender balance and the precinct we still have a long way to go. I think it permeates across so many levels. Having 20 or 30 years ago started to more address how women are treated in terms of Sexual Violence. How women are treated in terms of Domestic Violence. The debate is moving very firmly towards how women are treated generally as victims within the system. Be it street harassment, be it verbal abuse, be it the attitude that is shown in casual and the impact that it has upon women not just as an individual but women as a group in society. Were talking spervcifically. Its never been more present as it has been for now. Its a significant issue of consideration of placing how we will address this and how we should address it. Therefore i dont think that debate would be there if there wasnt a necessity to have it, if women werent experiencing things that shouldnt be happening and a sort of gender basis for that occurring. I agree. Its testament to the continued sexism and sex discrimination. I dont know whether were more of a boys club than other countries. Other countries too and i think that patriarchy and oppression and sexism against women is very common place across lots of country. Michael and mark spoke about violence against women and Sexual Harassment. That Boys Club Culture and that sexism extendson that. Pregnancy discrimination. The sexism faced by girls in schools, occupational segregation. All of these things are linked and paint a picture of a society that isnt fair for the women. Lets stick with that theme. Do you think theres consensus with regard to definition for sexism and Sexual Harassment in terms of policy terms and the view that society takes generally. I know there was polling in the light of various allegations from hollywood and lots of Media Attention on the issue of Sexual Harassment. Polling about Public Perceptions of what Sexual Harassment was and tfit was not in line with wt the law says Sexual Harassment is. Im sure mark would consider to be serious crimes. How its defined in law and how people generally on the street might understand sexually harassment. I think theres no law that im aware of that fully defines everyones behavior. Try to qualify to deal with continuing things but it never works. Once progress has been made this dealing with serious crime naming and labeling the way they should be, issues such behavior that people feel should be accepted as part of the interaction of daily life. I have a damaging impact. Sexual harassment of a woman or a girl at a bus stop by a male might be something that some women feel they have to accept. As i reference before, its moving much more to identifying those issues in the same way we would other types of incident or crime. Establishing a crime has been credit or not but even if a crime hasnt been committed, the debate is similar to hate crime incidents. Should we take action to address the behavior before it escalates into a crime and also adults to try to restore some confidence to the victim and allow them to feel thats what happened to them is being addressed by society. Okay. Is there evidence or what evidence is there that sexism, gender stereotyping are linked to Sexual Harassment and violence against women . Theres a number of attitudal studies that suggest individuals displace sexist attitudes. They are more likely to also accord which height might be ine of a rape culture or sexist culture. Some of those studies are experimental in terms of psychologically profiling individuals opinion theres evidence about association. Theres evidence about an association between safe, for example, young peoples views of porn and they are then displaying sexist attitudes. Theres not correlations but associations there. I think we can look around us and suggest that in a sexual culture, we sexualize sexism, there are links between that and the discrimination that predominantly women experience in society. Also, if i could just add this really interesting study. Its a u. N. Organization. Real interesting read. Its the study of 3,000 men in the uk, u. S. And mexico. It asks them in a series of focus groups, they are 18 to 30. It asks how they would respond to 13 different questions about how they view women or how they view themselves, about homophobia and a range of issues. The ones who score the highest in the internal scoring system of this research are not profoundly what we would say in this box but arctticulate in th most rigid form of masculinity and have strictest views of gender roles, are most homophobic and acts of violence. This is by admission that they are six i think it indicates the u. K. And u. S. The young men who fall at the most masculine, if we can say that and the spectrum six or seven times more likely to admit to Sexual Harassment or sexual assault. Its clear ly a decented with o recent evidence of three cultures. Young men who seem to have to appear ininvulnerable. They have to be physically tough. They have to get the last word, et cetera. Also much more likely to admit to suicidal ideation, taking risky behavior on a regular basis and indulging in alcohol and Substance Abuse on a regular basis. Thatst the good reason accessible study that i would recommend. Clare. Thats it. Im not sure, im not familiar with that piece. Its an international organization. Its based in the u. S. It has lots to work with the u. N. And its about reducing what it refers to as gender inequality and gender base violence word wide. It commissioned a study in the university. They did indepth focus groups in leads. Well take a look. Assuming that to be the case and that were to be valid, is the extension of that if we address gender stereotyping we therefore have a effect we we deu reduce harassment . I believe thats a reasonable inferen inference. Thoughts from other members of the panel whether those two things would be linked that way. Would we be addressing a significant root cause of the problem. I think you need to do both. These boys will go on and have much more respectful attitude towards women. There are correlations between very male dominated workplaces and making a distinction between sexism and Sexual Harassment. Some of the stuff overlapped. The display of porn might be con tr construed as Sexual Harassment. Making jokes of a sexual nature. I think theres a link there and i think that this is i think hopefully come to more questions about Sexual Harassment in the workplace. We know this is an issue of all workplaces and very widespread issue. I think it can be particularly problematic for women working in male dominated workplaces where they are the only woman or one of view women in a quite masculine set iting. How would you determine what consensus there is with in society as to what should be prohibited. You were saying in one environment this would be acceptable. In society, generally how do we determine what consensus there is to what should be prohibited . For the law to decide and it frames it quite clearly and guide ts guides it. Is society running behind statutory view on that . I referred earlier to some polling that was done recently that would indicate yes. A lot of people do not have a good understanding in relation to Sexual Harassment. I think there is and clare will probably be able to expand more. It may well be that one person may not consider something to be Sexual Harassment where as someone else would. How that action or comment is received is very important. My understanding is in the court of law and a tribunal. It will be interesting to hear clares view on that but mark if you have any its unwanted. Its any conduct thats unwanted and theres an onnous on the person committing it to understand theyre behavior is wanted or not. Were trying to create an environment where people who receive unwanted behavior then have the strength and support to come forward and report it. I think were seeing more and more of that. Its very basic, it is unwanted behavior and thats the difference between what some person, one person might accept becau because the behavior might be want e wanted. It probably gets a little bit for people. The quality act legislates for this behavior. Any unwanted conduct is beyond the pale. Its not primarily Sexual Harassment. We talk a lot about prejudice and what causes prejudice. Theres a number of activities we feel in addressing that. One is encouraging people talk about it and report it so its exposed to a conversation and exposed to challenge. Then theres enforcement. What we say, how we behave. Theres of us who have a role in public service. I think it goes a long way to setting standards that people will abide by. Its how the media report it. Show respect for each other and understand they are competing perspectives and try to agree to consensus in the debate this is not an attack upon one community by another or a one gender by another. Its actually about trying to identify unwanted behavior in our society and deal with it. Its not about trying to isolate anybody else. With the number of actions we can reduce the instance of it but also very important we can increase peoples capacity to kpaj challenge it. Theres clear definition of what constituted Sexual Harassment in the equality act. Requires to services and workplace. Theres range of criminal laws that overlap with that. In relation to the criminal law Social Security ad hoc and piecemeal. You have discussions about Sexual Harassment. It shows most people thinks that shoots against the criminal law. Its not covered. What i think is common across the civil and criminal law is a minimizing and triflizing of Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence. Thats common across the board and can be addressed by broader prevention strategies. There is also a need to update some of our laws this this regard that might send a clearer message which might then help to bring people together to a common understanding of what constitutes Sexual Harassment and why its harmful. Do you think theres enough to tackle Sexual Harassment . Weve had measures in the last few years around what i call image base sexual abuse. Often called revenge pornography. Theres been a good start but i think we need to go further. They are taught by experts because the geography teacher coming in, doesnt do the same job as an expert who might achieve that. Theres steps being taken but an awful lot more that could be being done. Its a good step in the right direction. I think one area the government could make a difference is in gathering data. Its good and robust. It seems odd thats the only source of data when the government is so good at measuring other things. They consider that to be important and a baseline in the way of benchmarking and measuring whether there are changes this behavior over time. Its a flurry of private commissioned polls and its good and coming up with fairly similar stitypes of statistics would be good to have robust data that will give us a better picture of whats going on this different sectors and age groups. Focusing as a potential conversation for a hate offense and one of those was to review the scope of crime. The numbers of it. That review hasnt come forward. When was that . 2014. Theres an option to whether or not they wanted to do that. Because of reported strands, have provision around sentence. As we would describe it, come back to it thinking we did in a minute. If were going to make it congruent, we would be looking to, if the police were going to take certain action, it woultd be saying were similar to other areas of hate theres consideration of provisions so other strands have equal status. Where we are with that is presenting her evidence to us. We plan to put papers through. The consideration of it as a hate crime. Even if we report on this nationally, there are complications by trying to fit gender base crimes so it doesnt fit. Then the question would be so what. Thats a bigger debate than me. Do you think when you say people should come forward and report it and you expect people coming forward and reporting it, do you think theres a resolution for somebody who reports it . It depends on the response you get from various services. For example, if you report it, you might get a different response. Let eets say the index offense was an offense of assault. There could be an uplift in sentencing. Thats not there. Standard assault on a female could be a sexual assault. The work i do tends to be with boys and young men age 11 to 18. My interest is in the training and capacities of teachers and supporting staffing skills that the psa is taught by experts and probably resourced and takes more time and more depth and perhaps the best way to do that rather than trying to keep filling heavy workload of teachers. I come from family of teachers. I work with teachers every day. I know extremely busy and hard working they are is to build that into requirement of teacher training so youre looking up all the time rather than trying to add to things overstretched and over burdened. I would like to see the fovt make concrete Resources Available to expert teaching. Thats a common misconception. Understand why you ask that question. I think if you can help good men make healthy rational choices about how they interact with the young men, women and girls throughout their lives, professionally as dad, uncles, neighbors, whoever they are, youll do them a real service. There have a great deal of evidence to suggest that those kinds of conversations are felt to be lacking by boys and young men. Its a bow flnus and a help. Anything can be presented badly. Thats how its tone on the ground. Just a very quick yes or no from each of you. You arent what currently exist at the moment. Past, present and laws that exist at the moment if youre a victim of sexism or Sexual Harassment in the treat. Do you think you would get a reasonable resolution if you reported it. I think when you speak to of this range of activities, its very patchy. Patchy. Patchy. Im going to say patchy too. I would not want to put anyone off from reporting. Our analysis did know only four in five no, one in five reported and of those 75 say they saw no outcome. So very patchy. Mark. Inconsistent. Inconsistent. Inconsistency driven by what in your service . Probably the understanding of the offense or how its categorized of motivation for it. Training . Yeah. The conversation were having is cutting across various parts of law from just standard harassment. Its a varying response. Varying response. How those reports are dealt with. Do you think the law and in its current form clear and what changes would you recommend . My second question is do you think society knows their rights, responsibilities and protection in law which were covered briefly and are there special and consistent legal implications across the uk. Others need for change in law . Yes. There are other European Countries that have such an offense. What i think is more appropriate is to tackle specific areas. For example, around online abuse and tackle some of the inconsistencies this piecemeal actions around that at the moment. Thats quite straightforward. Are there sufficient Legal Protections at the moment . No. We need the change. Its one of the highest increasing areas of sexual va le violence. Its not sexual assault, groping. Its one of the areas were seeing more and more reports. Its not always taken seriously and not always treated appropriately. I would echo much of that. There are sexual offenses, harassment offenses, assault offenses. There are most communication offenses. Theres range of offenses that were designed a moment in time for certain things. What we try to do is try to get over arching offenses to grab them all together. My question is does society know these protections . You can involve the law. People dont know how to enforce their rights. How youre taught isnt just about coming from the criminal Justice System, theres a whole range of ways of understanding is it inappropriate or illegal to behave a certain way. I do accept theres large amount of confusion from people understanding what hate crime is and how it happens. You did mention perception. Its not the same but the test is does the victim or some other person perceive that they were a victim of crime because of their perceived agenda or sort of perceived race, religion, transgender, identity, disability or sexual orientation. If that was extended to include gender or just include one gender then we would be including the perception of any person reasonably that has been the i understandicator. Whether or not it gets prosecuted through the system is important. Its important in returning respect to the victim and not taking them seriously that the flagging of something for what it is and the hate portfolio the fundamental. Could just briefly fall off on this perception point. We talked about one overarching issue that does neat to be addressed. We need to focus on the harms to the victims. If the perpetrator was intended to fwget sexual gratification, its not a criminal offense. We need to move on to the next question. The four neighs. Anything different note about the different. Thats a very good point. For example in scotland, a different criminal law and in some areas around online abuse and Domestic Abuse it has what i would say stronger provisions that start in england and wales would be learning from. That goes both ways because theres a lot of practice in some areas of sexual offenses that scotland could learn from. Im happy to start. We had a little bit of that before. Do you want to add anything . I cant offer you evidence based today specific to this issue. My experience across the hate crime is the hate Crime Portfolio and the relationship between what we say in the public space. It was hate crime following the referendum period. I skncant give you evidence ba. Its a general debate about how the messages we have in Society Impact upon some offenders feel they can behave. Perhaps i can give two examples. Youre probably aware of the Advertising Standards Authority did a review around gender stereotyping recently. In advertising because of the links to sexism and such. Studies have been done with young people particularly have suggested links between boys and use of pornography linked to attitude around Sexual Violence and displaying other risky behaviors and such. Those are two areas that are clear evidence of links and provide the culture for Sexual Violence. We talk through that in a dialogue and really ask each other what is happening in these scenes. What is suggested by the absence of the womans head or face. What is happening in that. That opens up a channel for them to explain the influence of our culture on the developing minds. If we dont believe that people respond to all our influence by external stimuli then we may not put up signs saying no shoek mo. We may not put any kind of visual indicators or cues this be public space. We know that we are shared by symbols connotations. We theneed to spend time lookint that impact and how that can connect with incidents of Sexual Harassment and is it based on a feeling of entitlement. If it is, where does that feeling of entitlement come from. Is it that we as men are positioned in some ways, at least in the reputation sphere of being in higher value and being in control. Is our point of view the point of view through which women are seen and any cursory glance at pornography or advertising will say yes. We have implicit higher degree of power. Therefore, power is open to abuse. Is it connected to the stimuli and the visual or the verbal text input that young men are subjected to, bombarded by from the age of as soon as they can occupy public space. See an advert, watch a film or go online. What are the limits of media regulation on this in relation to free speech . Clare, have you got any thoughts . Relation to free speech is very important. Its a value we need to hold dear. What i mean, for example is online abuse. Some people might defend their right to deciminate. They height need to come offline and stop using social media. Free speech is really important value to discuss but i think we need to remember that regulation can be human rights enhancing in that regard and that is a view and perspective that youre on human rights has endorsed in relation to pornography laws and regulation. Im said the same to media regulation as well. Thank you. Anything else to add. I think this on the media point from the police point of view that media is a global issue. Media point, regulation only has a local impact. Online abuse will very often originate from other jurisdictions into which we have limited input. Just a general comment as well, we keep referring back to the hate crime work i do and discussions about it, one of the things i would be adverse to is to discuss the issues because it limits people and pushes people away from the debate and allows people in some respects to take more trenched views and its about a respectful debate. Okay. Can you see responses are a key part of the response to Sexual Harassment and the culture underpins that. I wanted to question if you thought there was any work that cannot be done by government for public bodies only by communities and Civil Society or organizations or the private sector and secondly, how you believe government can support that work. Anything that needs to be done outside government. Back to the others we work on, a massive role for community sector, the one that jumps to mind is Third Party Reporting, the ability for people to get messages to the police through a third party particularly of concern talking to Police Officers, so that is something that is almost exclusively community run, which we endorse and support. We also do information sharing with Community Groups under third party sectors to try and assist them. We find generally intervention work, victim support work, even the work is better delivered through communitybased programs than necessary through government programs. The private sector space, ne big issue this was raised by the select committee with us the role of internet providers and their social and Corporate Responsibility in assisting both the prevention online and the detection of them and given the huge costs, every Additional Support by the private sector to make that space safe for people as possible. Do you think the government should be doing more to support that work in the private sector for example . I think im very loathe to get into comment on the government policy personally. But the government has made a lot of complimentary about the response of particularly online space. The government has money towards Third Party Reporting and Community Groups, obviously has been affected by the issues weve all faced the last number of years but more support i presume i know Community Groups would welcome more support. I think Community Groups have a vital role to play in terms of specialists support services, i would think in the areas of violence against women, refuge, rape crisis and revenge and porn and help lines, they have a vital role to play but i think the government has a vy fall role to play in that regard and were talking about resourcing, were talking online abuse and problems of Sexual Violence, i think its incumbent on government to fund sources and support the victims of that. Weve talked about would they feel comfortable coming for ward, for example, many victims feel comfortable coming forward to report violence and abuse, the same in the workplace if you have support. In order to have a support Service Effective and knowledgeable they need to be trained and that needs to be funded. The two need to work something and resourcing from government. I wanted to support what both clare and mark have said. Theres been a real shrinking of funds in the womens sector and information and advice sector. The bure ros and very specifically in the violence against womens sector specialist service, not the Women Services but Small Services run by for instance, a particular Community Group for that community, whether black womens Community Group or Muslim Womens Community Group and women value those services and choose to go there rather than someone else and may not feel comfortable going to the police or their employer. We talked about generally how we can improve the publics understanding and what the law says. Thats a missing part of the puzzle, people dont necessarily go to a lawyer to get the answer, go to a Community Service with people they trust, perhaps speak the same language as them and feel they could get that kind of device and support and advocacy. I think thats really crucial. I think theres more employers can and lots are doing and not just what government does and trade unions as well what unions are doing already and can do more, in temps of insuring everyone in the workplace understands what Sexual Harassment is and what they can do to prevent it and how to report it and employers can insure those policies and procedures are fit for purpose and robust and everyone understands how to find them and how to use them. Just in the interest of time, i hope you forgive me, i think we covered most of the things in your section. Do you mind if we move on to the next section . Of course. Mine was going to be women being deterred and the crimes you covered. Do you think there are best practices in other countries or laws, policies which tackle hate crime and tackle misogyny we could replicate here, which would help . This will be very quick. On the hate crime issue, traditionally on hate crime we regard having the best practices on the levels. Misogyny issues is an emerging area. We work across the eu and across the United States and various groups. Were always ready to pick that up. Im not aware if im wrong, i will come back, im not aware of any jurisdiction getting involved in this debate. I think were possibly one of the first. Good. Can i add one simple measure that might increase reporting, anonymity to those coming for ward in the same way for sexual offenses for those reporting imagebased sexual abuse and that might make a big difference. Thats simple and straightforward and could easily be adopted . We want to briefly touch on universities. Theres been another report done recently to tackle Sexual Harassment and other violence at universities. Why do you think focusing on this age group or stage of life is really important . Im interested what michael has to say on that coming from starting of young. Absolutely fundamentally because the people in universities are human beings and we want to create conditions for them to flourish. Thats a fundamentally human rights condition, wherever, workplace, school, parliament, universities, everybody deserves the best we can give them by working together. I would say also because of that age group, they are probably on the cusp of going into the workplace as well. If theyve not had opportunity i would like to see supportive constructive and respectful work done in dialogues in universities as i would in colleges and as i would in high schools and as i would in primary schools, as part of a logically linked continuum of respect supporting rights, supporting work and i would were a long way from that, obviously, but were here to talk about precisely this. Universities are i guess 2 Million People at the universities or a million in the uk . That mark, a million . That is a huge number of influential people as well. First, they must reach humans and relationships and going into the workplace and will have an impact on those places. They deserve to be safe but deserve to have views developed that will help other people be safe wherever they go in life beyond that. I dont know if that makes sense. We know that its younger women more at risk for forms of rape and sexual assaults. Obviously over 50 of students at universities are women. Its a particular problem. We know from various studies that have been done of women and mens experiences at universities, Sexual Harassment and violence is a particular problem. Universities are beginning to take action in this regard. I think theres an awful lot more to be done particularly more recently staff to student, Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence. Universities are not yet taking sufficient action and in that regard there is a survey being done at the moment that might ensure the prevalence of that particular form of Sexual Harassment and violence. I hope universities will actually be distributing and sharing information about that survey amongst their students so get a good picture whats going on. That will be really really important. Anyone else . Just to add to that, the university and Colleges Union have done a lot of work recently around Sexual Harassment looking at it as a universitywide issue and looking at students and whats happening to steving staff and recognizing a huge amount of sexual harlot and Sexual Violence that goes on Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence that goes on among students who are the victims, they found there are a lot of members reporting they have been victims of Sexual Harassment from students recognizing these students may be in their late teen, 20s, the teachers themselves are in quite a vulnerable position as well. I wonder if clare knows more about the connection of womens experience is in sexism and Sexual Harassment at university instead of elsewhere. Is there a connection . Is there an obvious connection there . Sorry . Womens experience of sexism and Sexual Harassment at university, if that makes sense . I think universities are part of broader society. The problems of Sexual Harassment we see across society are very much in place in universities. My own view is universities also have a social responsibility because of the population that theyre dealing with and because of their educative role to take action in this regards. That means actually acknowledging its a problem. I think that is a challenge for universities because universities are fearful and understandably in some ways of saying we recognize this is an issue and recognize this is a problem. What we know is where you have an increase of reporting of incidents of Sexual Violence or sexual misconduct, that doesnt mean to say that institution has a particular problem but it could just be it has neither of the procedures in place that make it a more acceptable or understandable place to report. Im not sure if thats exactly what youre is enough being done by universities uk and the government generally . Universities have done great work in this regard and now needs to follow up on that. We need guidance on staff to students Sexual Harassment. I also think we need National Guidance gathering statistics so all universities know exactly the data they need to gather on student and student Sexual Violence and staffstudent so its across the board so governing bodies can be informed what is happening and reporting on that. I think the government plays an Important Role obviously setting up the universities uk and task force but i think that pressure needs to continue and it needs to not get dissipated, basically. Im actually going to cut us there. Im so sorry to do that. Gavin is now going to take much of the meeting. I want to talk about two separate areas of experience. I appreciate the continuum but it will be helpful for the purposes of ours to treat them as moreorless separate. One is the workplace and one is public space and public transport and so on. What do we know . What do we have as a shared agreed robust evidencebased about Sexual Harassment in the workplace . Yes, scarlet. As i mentioned earlier, there was a real gap about harassment in the workplace and most of it was antidotal. We undertook a ugov survey a couple years ago, actually last year to gather data and we asked very clear questions about not just have you been sexually harassed recognizing people have different perceptions what that is, did you experience any of these behaviors . What was the impact . Did you report it . Why not . We gathered some really good data. The top findings the ones worth drawing to your attention. Over half polled have experienced some sort of Sexual Harassment in their working lives. That figure went up for younger women, 1824yearold group it was twothirds of women had experienced some form of Sexual Harassment. This was all different types of Sexual Harassment, some more serious assault, some to do with jokes and unwanted comments in the workplace also serious but different. I think i mentioned earlier very few women reported the Sexual Harassment to anyone at all. We asked whether they reported to it a colleague, trade union rep, police, very few women, 1 in 5 have reported it at all. Quite worryingly, of those who had reported it, threequarters said nothing changed and nothing improved and a significant minority said things had got worse which indicated the level of victimization that they were then treated unfairly because they had drawn this to the attention of their manager. We asked the question of impact and found a range of different impacts i think were worth bearing in mind when we talk about this. I think people often dont focus on the impact. I think you referred to this earlier, there were impacts on mental health. A significant minority of women said that they had wanted to leave their job but couldnt for financial reasons. A small minority did actually leave their jobs. Lots of everyday things that dont sound that significant but in the overall scheme of things became significant. Avoiding work situations, not going for promotion because you dont want to work on the same team as someone, those things can have a huge impact on someones career. I think the impact question is very important for us as well as trying to get to the bottom of why women dont report. And lakeeffect we hactually we findings which had to do with stigma and shame and humiliation, when you see how the definition of Sexual Harassment is framed, the intention is to humiliate and degrade and women feel humiliated and degraded, a stigma attached to it, ashamed, dont want to talk about it to anyone and lots didnt report it to anyone because they feared the impact it would have on their careers. Was the cohorts men and women . The polling was women and a survey was men and women and there have been subsequent surveys that looked at men and women came up with the same figure of women, a slightly lower figure for men whove experienced Sexual Harassment. To clarify why you commissioned that seemed to be you thought there was a lack of available data . There was a lack of data. You eluded to it in the question. There was a public workspace and lots of things we talk about is public space, someones working space and talk about Sexual Harassment of women on public transport. There are women working in the Public Transport Agency subject to huge amounts of Sexual Violence. Ill come to that. Clare, on the data. As scarlet has set out as the expert on the detail there, i guess one interesting point that might be of relevance to bring up the Human Rights Commission has recently issued guidance on Sexual Harassment in the workplace and taking an initiative to gather evidence about that. I do have concerns about that guidance, particularly guiding the overlap with criminal offenses. It suggests if an employer think theres a criminal offense they should advise the employee to report to the police. I think thats completely misguided. I know from the University Sector we had to work hard to think about the differences between civil and criminal offenses. An employer investigating Sexual Harassment is not investigating criminal offense. There is guidance that needs to be looked at again. Let me turn to sorry do you want to come in here. Yeah. I did. I want to touch on scarlets point. Going into the detailed of projection other exercise of power and seniority or was that a reasons for failure to report or take action . We did ask a question about who it was. And in most cases a colleague and didnt get into detail and someone roughly on the same level but the next Biggest Group in terms of who the perpetrator was was a manager or someone with seniority. Theres been other research which found as well theres a strong correlation. Its a power dynamic and seniority is often but not always at play. What do we know, to the same evidential standard about Sexual Harassment in public space, public transport and a lot of focus on Sexual Harassment in the workplace in recent months which is hugely welcome doesnt appear to be matched in the same way. Im wondering if there is shared evidence. What do we know about it . We have some evidence here, 2016 action from a number of companies and they find 79 of women, 86 in thailand, 89 in brazil and 45 75 of women in london have been harassed and ugov asking in 2016, 64 of women of all ages have experienced unwanted Sexual Harassment in public places. 63 of women generally feel unsafe in public spaces and almost half practice safe planning when they go out in the evening. Additionally 35 experienced unwanted sexual touching and 85 of women ages 1824 have faced Sexual Harassment in public spaces and 45 experienced unwanted sexual touching. Nottingham university provided evidence to the select committee on the work done in nottingham around genderbased hate crime, very compelling evidence in nottingham about the experience of women. Nottingham citizens of the uk carried out a survey. 38 of women reporting hate crime felt their gender was a significant element but it wasnt actually reflected in the statutes. 28 of them surveyed would report any crimes to the police but there is underreporting of those. There is a swelling evidencebased how women are treated in public space. I keep coming back to the hate crime issue how its defined opposed to Sexual Harassment. Antidotally Police Services around the country are picking up more and more evidence how women feel theyre treated in public spaces. Even at antimuslim hate crime, the survey from last year points very clearly to misogynistic behavior towards muss lymph women as a key element of hate crime and also points very clearly to the minorization of women, exclusion of women from public space, inability to access public transport and other associated elements of that with their faith. There are a number of pieces, i dont know if theres a single piece of evidence, but a number of pieces as it crosses over to a number of crime types. Let me stroll down to that for a second. Im going to take it as a given that of were saying the majority of women have experienced Sexual Harassment in public, based on the numbers that youre saying. Yeah. But im guessing the majority of women have not reported to the police Sexual Harassment . No. I would probably assume that is the case, yes. Why do you think that is . Okay. So underreporting of crime is a factor across the uk. If you look at hate crime in the survey 2 1 2 years ago, it said hate crime was 220,000 for women in wales and Police Reported it was 62,000. Massive disparity and significant underreporting of sexual crime in Sexual Violence. One is lack of confidence in the criminal Justice System whether they will get adequate response and, two, is understanding from the criminal Justice System and in some societies according to police is not acceptable. There are people who come to the uk havent lived here their whole life dont think you should be contacting the police or allowed to. Theres fear of the consequences to them as individual be it Domestic Violence or Sexual Violence consequences of the perpetrator. Fear to give evidence in court. Then the humiliation of it. There was a colleague of mine who did a lot of work in Sexual Violence at conferences an used to say to people, think about the last sexual experience youve had, turn to the person next to you and tell them about it. Its as difficult as that to talk to a Police Officer about something extremely unpleasant thats happened to you and the trauma youre going to. A whole lot of levels in the criminal process that are barriers. Steps are being taken. The first thing for people is this recognition something has happened to them and understanding they will be taken seriously. Without misogyny as a hate crime on the table, what are the other offenses that might reach evidential standards in the case of Sexual Harassment . Hate crime itself is treated as an aggravating factor, for some offenses to the disorder act and race and religion. Misogyny as a hate crime would be an aggravating factor on a hate offense, and any crime, you would take any offense that the person reported, and if it reached the evidential standard and reported as a hate crime, then it would attract and enhance sentence. Not about a new crime of hate, about adding another category to the enhanced process, layers on top of the offense that occurs. Do you think it would have an impact on reporting . Our hope is that, you know, that by be it a hate crime or not a hate crime, by indicating to society that in our view, bit of the piecey t, the law will t this offending more seriously than a crime not for these reasons. Hopefully as an indicator to victims, more reason to come forward and more reason to br f believe the criminal Justice System will take them seriously and perpetrator seriously. Theres a focusing on the receiving end of unwanted sexual attention and harassment. What do we know about the perpetrates . Probably something that would be helpful to draw on other people on the panel for in public space, if thats okay. It may be the same. Clare, did you want to respond to the previous bit . Yes, if i may, regarding street harassment and prevalence, one thing i want to add to the base already mentioned, one done by drinkerware among students showed over 50 of the women and 15 of the men experiencing forms of Sexual Harassment when theyre on nights out. I guess i wanted to emphasize that. While some of the surveys are just of women, that was across the board and does show a differential impact. In regard to your question about perpetrates, by and large theyre men. Thats one of the most common points. Vast majority of perpetrates of street harassment and sexual offending are men. Youve got a different picture of the differential impact and differential perpetrates. I want to i want to add to that. We need to ask why it happens. Are there patents in the belief of people who perpetrate. I dont work with perpetrators. I work with young teenage boys as a service between 18 and 19 and we can see emerging attitudes and beliefs corroborated by Wider Society. And that came with victim blaming, what did she expect, look what she was wearing. She was seminaked or wearing tight clothes, whatever it might be. Thats the focus of what we need to do with young men, that is not okay, that is not true and you are accountable for your own behavior and you need to own what you do. And describing an imbalance of power. The victim is really key that we get the nettle with young men and look harder where that is corroborated across Wider Society and is part of our holistic response to incidents of Sexual Harassment, call it whatever it may be, particularly in public spaces, as youre focusing on at the moment, that sense of entitlement, you do what you think is okay and appropriate for you because thats what youve been condition topped believe is the case. Either that, strong evidencebased and reasonable as a theory, or you think every incident is an individual moral aberration that is disconnected from all others. Right. If you believe that, you can never really address any issue. We need to focus on things that recur, messages widely available and the many gaps in places we can engage young men to navigate the minefield of fairly toxic messages. Lastly, are there any legal specific policy measures you think might more effectively tackle Sexual Harassment in public spaces or transport . Well, immediately to clearly cover upskirting and prevalent practice that is not clearly covered by the law at the moment. It is in scotland and needs to be, is one i could go on but ill leave it at that one. Anything else . Rehearsing the point, i think the reviewing of hate crime categories, consideration whether or not genderbased or single gender, female gender should be a caliber of hate crime the National Reporting of that and around it are all connected considerations. I think we have to consider it. Anything else . To michael, this is not my area of expertise. Is there any link between the attitudes of the men that you work with and what school they go to, in terms if its a single sex school or mixed school . The work i do mainly is all in mixed sex schools. I have done shorter span work, presentation work in single sex schools. But the basic questions elicit the same responses. If we say, okay, what would you say is the basic list of ingredients youve soaked up from all your life of books, tvs, pictures, whatever it might be, how would you describe it . One day i did it where people were in a unit the day ever i did it, economic, also ethnic mix was totally different. Exact identical answers. First day answer, identical. Were talking about commonly understood things that are you can point at them and people know what they are. Thats a really good sign its not necessarily socioeconomic or ethnic, these are common to young males experiences. There are differences and some perception out there in terms of emphasis. Common themes recur. Tonya, very brief. Sexual harassment online again, where do you think the primary responsibility lies for tackling this . Clare. I think we need to tackle it across the board. I dont think id isolate one individual. We need up to date laws which tackle it. I think in the online area, we do need to review what were doing there. The laws are too outdated. We do need other action from social media companies. They are taking some action but its still not good enough, particularly in view of the large resources of those organizations. Other institutions also need to take responsibility, schools, universities, employers. I do think its a package across the board. I think the government has responsibility to lead and so in regarding to online abuse, for example in denmark, they just introduced across departmental Government Strategy that covers education and prevention, support for victims and services as well as enforcement and consequences, so it all marries up and you have everyone working together. That does need the government level of initiation to take that forward. Anything else . I mean, the whole area of cyber crime, cyberspace so forth does need a continuous action. Other committees are still trying to catch up with the speed at which this occurs and the scale of it. For instance, when ever we have an online hate crime, within 24 hours, 4,000 attacks on our own website, generally by a robot somewhere in europe. Theres also this issue no matter how much you regulate within the United Kingdom youre at the vagarys of the world on the online space. It puts more responsibility in that sense towards the companies and Service Providers who host stuff for global responses to this. There is, i think, then, as you correctly pointed out, a number of i agree with every area in terms of how we can respond locally, as our criminal Justice System adapts and thought do we have the right crimes on the statute books . Theyre educating people for appropriate and safe online behavior. I feel we could have had an entire section on that last question. Is there anybody wanting to come in on this . No. Okay. Brilliant. Bgh if anybodys got anything they wanted to say that they havent said, would you write to us . Is that okay . I think weve demonstrated the enormous breadth of this problem in what weve talked about today. My last question to you would be, in helping us to try and frame what i think will be a future inquiry. I think its very difficult for us not to do some work in this area in the near future, is there any advice you would want to proffer very briefly on what we should focus on . Theres a lot around culture, and theres a lot around place. Is there anything you would want to say very briefly how we might frame, what we might best or most importantly focus on perhaps first . Does that make sense . Clare, do you want to a short sentence of advice to the committee, what should we do first . Yes, i think more action could be taken in this area and welcome that. I think your framing of sexism, for want of a better phrase or sexualized sexism would be a good start because you need to encompass the online, the offline world, you need to encompass civil law, criminal law, right across the board. That does make it very unwieldy. I obviously have a particular need to review the laws in this area and sexual offenses act is nearly 15 years old and it is in need of review to cover lots of this area. But sexism or sexualalized sexism is a good start for framing. All right. You will know better than i will how logistically its best to parcel this up. There is a potential for it to be huge. Actually, joining the dots between lots of things, some things youve done already like the Sexual Harassment and violence in schools. We talked about how the workplace overlaps public spaces and online stuff and the media, it all links together. I honestly dont know for you logistically whether its better to take it all as one big issue or split them into smaller more manageable chunks and then try to join them up. Mark. I want to clarify earlier expressing normal Sexual Harassment. That was a clumsy way to phrase it. We know what you mean. Weve been impressed by your input today. I want to clarify that, apologies for that. The approach should be victimcenter, based upon the experiences of women in our society. I think what i would find very helpful as well, if we start to agree to a common vocabulary as the basis for this. Todays conservation has been about sexism and mine is about misogyny. I will say that will create confusion. We need to form a basis upon which were having the conversation that we go forward to a common understanding what were trying to deal with and that basis has to have some sort of structural response to our society and what would that be. That is absent, in different pieces and parts of conversation. I have encouraged the committee to understand how you can get an agreed the definition of hate crime, we work in definitions and started with the first inquiry and worked up to definition and from that, flowed lots of activities. Probably a good enough comparison to make, an agreed understanding what were talking about and agreed basis upon which the criminal pieces work based upon the victims experience. Really helpful. Michael. Building on to that structural response, an holistic structural response needs to give way to preventive work and we need to look upstream at the ages at which beliefs about the world and about morality and about interaction and the relative value of people are formed, generally before adulthood and we need to including primary and secondary schools as part of a virtual continuum . Thats correct. We could have literally gone on all day. I cant thank you enough for bringing your expertise to this initial scoping section. Its been invaluable and on behalf of the whole committee i thank you for the time youve given us today. Thats the end of the session. If i could ask witnesses to leave and members of the audience at the back, we will have a very short private session. Cspans washington journal live everyday with news and policy issues that impact you. 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