For too many young women, street harassment leaves them feeling afraid, powerless and even at fault. Others have become desensitised to it, because after a while, it becomes ’something you have to deal with as a woman’, just a reality of life in the city.
Emerging data shows that since the outbreak of COVID-19, violence against girls and women, particularly domestic violence, has intensified.
Our latest report, Living Under Lockdown: Girls and COVID-19 is a review of evidence into how emergencies and humanitarian crises affect girls differently and includes interviews with girls specifically impacted by COVID-19. Researchers found girls living in a COVID-19 world are more at risk of violence, exclusion and poverty, and face a greater risk of becoming infected with COVID-19.
Despite changes to legislation and increased awareness raising programs to reduce violence against children, the day-to-day experiences of most children across the Pacific and Timor-Leste remains largely unchanged. This report, produced in collaboration with Save the Children Australia, ChildFund Australia and World Vision International, reveals the alarming rates of violence across the Pacific and Timor-Leste, and discusses interventions to end it.
The threat of sexual harassment with and without physical contact was the main issue identified in connection with bad pins. Over two-thirds of the comments on bad pins included sexual harassment of some kind and 63% of all the pins identified gender-based discrimination as a factor.
This report looks at street harassment perpetrated by groups of men and boys across five major cities. Why is street harassment by groups of men towards women often viewed as harmless, part of normal, permitted, male behaviour when in fact for girls and young women it can be frightening, restricting and undermining? In this new analysis of the original Free to Be data, girls and young women share their stories and reflect on their experiences.
In the course of this ground-breaking research, thousands of girls and young women have shared their stories of harassment and violence for the first time, providing a never-before seen glimpse of what they experience in their cities and the impact this has on their lives.
Unsafe in the City is the first in a new series of the State of the World’s Girls reports from Plan International. It presents a worrying rise in intimidation and insecurity which is stopping girls from realising their true potential in our urban spaces.
