Teenage girls urged to report harassment as singer releases song about her experience
Singer Lex Gibbon is urging girls to come forward after being harassed herself on the London Underground
Singer Lex Gibbon is urging teenage girls to come forward and report harassment on the rail network by releasing her new song “Audacity” which brings her own personal experience to life.
The 19-year-old from Hertfordshire wrote the song after a man followed her through an underground train station, verbally abused her and touched her.
Supporting Lex, British Transport Police (BTP) and Transport for London (TfL) are today, Wednesday 29th May, releasing new statistics that suggest sexual harassment is underreported by teenage girls.
The stats show a 25% increase in women and girls reporting sexual offences to BTP from 663 in 2022 to 886 in 2023.
In Oxfordshire and the South East we saw a 33% increase from 88 in 2022 to 131 in 2023.
The rise is believed to reflect improved awareness that you can report any type of sexual behaviour that makes you uncomfortable. However, police believe that many incidents are still going unreported, particularly by younger women.
Lex, along with BTP and TfL, hope that the song and research will spread awareness of how to report harassment either seen or experienced and encourage young girls to come forward and report it.
At the time, Lex had not heard of BTP’s text service 61016 so didn’t report the incident but when she did become aware, she approached BTP to collaborate on the launch of her single to raise awareness.
Police believe that many girls have experienced similar behaviour and, like Lex, are unaware that it can be reported to police.
As shown in the song’s lyrics, police believe that many girls blame themselves for what happened.
Officers are reassuring victims that sexual harassment is never their fault and urging everyone to save text 61016 in their phone.