The personal safety and anti-stalking charity and trainers Suzy Lamplugh Trust announce a partnership to roll out their Stand Up Against Street Harassment bystander intervention training in the UK, through online and in-person workshops.
The charity with the retailer L’Oréal Paris points to an IPSOS survey in the UK last year that most, 86 per cent of us do not know what to do when we witness street harassment happening. Hence the partnership of the Trust and the beauty products firm to offer workshops to create, they say, a community of bystanders who are confident in tackling street and public harassment when they witness it.
Bystander intervention is the term for witness action to defuse situations and make public spaces safer. The Stand Up training covers the “5 D’s” intervention as pioneered by international NGO Right to Be. It encourages those who witness harassment to act by 1) Distracting the perpetrator, 2) Delegating by asking for help, 3) Documenting the harassment, 4) Directing by speaking up and 5) Delaying by providing comfort.
Suky Bhaker, Suzy Lamplugh Trust CEO said: “Everyone has the right to be safe. But as our survey finds, a shocking number of people – disproportionately women – are experiencing harassment in public spaces. It is unacceptable. Stand Up Against Street Harassment bystander intervention training aims to address the prevalence of public harassment. Working with L’Oreal Paris through Stand Up, we aim to equip people with tools to tackle public harassment. Bystanders can play an important role in supporting victims, helping them feel – and be – safer.”
A booking form for training on May 11 is on the Suzy Lamplugh Trust website. To name one business improvement district, the Hammersmith BID in west London with the Hammersmith Women’s Safety Forum has been running one-hour, lunchtime education sessions for BID businesses’ staff. See also the Transport for London (TfL) website on how to report incidents on public transport.
Visit https://www.standup-international.com/gb/en/.
The Suzy Lamplugh Trust and L’Oréal Paris point to survey findings that 80pc of women in the UK have reported experiencing harassment in public spaces and 88pc of people in the UK have experienced some form of unwanted behaviour on public transport in the past five years; despite reduced footfall during the pandemic. Most common behaviours: staring, intimidatingly sitting or standing right by someone, and verbal abuse. This was part of a talk by Saskia Garner, head of policy and campaigns at the Trust, to the annual conference of the university chiefs of security, Aucso, at the University of Leeds recently, featured in the May print edition of Professional Security magazine.
Also featured in May’s edition is women’s safety and various projects to counter violence against women and girls (VAWG), such as the Women’s Safety Charter begun in London.
