University of Suffolk experts hold conference on gender-based violence
They want to encourage conversation around the topic
Last updated 24th Mar 2023
The University of Suffolk has gathered experts for a conference focusing on gender-based violence.
Held earlier this week, it's hoped the event will encourage conversation and help people understand what they can do if they are sexually harassed
Doctor Katherine Allen's a research fellow at the Institute for Social Justice and Crime at the University of Suffolk.
She told us more about the conference:
"One of the things that we talked about on the day is the launch of our research that we did for Crimestoppers, which is a national UK charity, that allows people to anonymously report a crime.
"That research was around sexual harassment in public places. Our findings around that were I would say, not surprising, but still shocking.
"Around 2/3 of our participants identified themselves as victims or survivors of sexual harassment of some form.
"The age at which people had first experienced it was pretty young too - was around 60% had experienced it between the ages of 11 to 13 or 14 to 16.
"Often people's first experiences of sexuality is this non-consensual, often quite intimidating experience, rather than something more mutual."
She continued, saying experiences like these can make women feel unsafe in public:
"I think the more so-called 'minor' experiences of being followed, being watched in a way that can make you feel uncomfortable, having someone standing too close or staring, all those things can seem quite small individually, but collectively, they really contribute to public spaces not feeling safe for a large proportion of the population...
"We want to encourage people who see something to say something and work to make the community a safer place."
What are the other aims of the conference?
Katherine told us what else they hope to achieve:
We want to highlight that actually this can still be really intimidating and quite harmful, particularly for younger girls who are experiencing it and aren't expecting it or aren't as confident in navigating those situations.
"We want to start conversations - that can sound quite like a vague aspiration, but I think actually, we know this is a community issue, not only a criminal justice issue, and it needs to be something that we are having these difficult conversations about."