Everyday Sexism helps TfL to combat sexual harassment

The popular blog and Twitter account Everyday Sexism has been helping Transport For London (TfL) over their sexual harassment campaign with the slogan, ‘Report it to stop it’. The name of the campaign reflects the statistic that shows that 10% of people using public transport in London get sexually harassed in some way during their day, but only one-in-ten will report it.

Screengrab from TFL’s anti-sexual harassment campaign with the slogan ‘report it to stop it’

The campaign which was launched in April 2015 has been joined by Laura Bates, the writer and activist behind Everyday Sexism, the incredibly popular movement that has been credited with popularising and speaking out against common and widespread forms of sexism in the UK and worldwide.

Speaking on BBC’s Woman’s Hour on Tuesday Laura Bates spoke about what the challenges of women not reporting these forms of sexual harassment because of embarrassment. TFL have invited her as a consultant to the campaign which originally started as Project Guardian and came about after a study showed that there had been a 34.7% increase in reported sexual harassment across London public transport in 2014.

Bates in her interview mentions a survey carried out by TFL which showed that a high number of women experienced ‘groping’ or some form of sexual harassment, but that almost 95% of them did not report it.

TFL released a video in April that simulates a woman experiencing sexual harassment and ‘groping’ on London public transport to create awareness around the issue in the hope that more women will report the behaviour. You can view the video here.