Written submission from Sarah Learmouth (SPP0095)
1. Types of sexual harassment
There are various perspectives: absence, incidents and offences. Absence, where women adapt their behaviour, incidents which may be hostile but not an offence and offences, for instance groping.
Sexual harassment also takes different forms which can be as categorised as unwanted sexual attention, gender harassment and sexual coercion. The first two are reportedly the most prevalent, the former being sex-related in motive and the latter power-related. It is incumbent on the inquiry to explore the motivations from porn to popular culture that influence this behaviour from men and there is research that suggests a causal link between visual environmental images and priming effects on acting out sexual harassment.
2. Intersectionality
The sexualised hostility of some men towards women of colour, disabled women, lesbian women is an important strand to explore. This might be categorised as sexualised harassment in that the motivation is to insult and degrade rather than obtain sexual co-operation, this also is part of the continuum where unwanted sexual attention can turn into sexualised harassment if rejected. It would be useful to examine the data from the police forces that treat misogyny as a hate crime to explore the link to gender.
3. Protection and Rights
The laws are currently framed around the motivation of the suspect and the harm done to the victim must be considered if we are to tackle the impact of sexual harassment on women’s freedom of movement. After reporting to the police women want the prioritisation of their safety in public and private spaces to send a clear message to the suspect of their ongoing accountability. They want recognition of this by those around them, to put the burden of shame on the suspect, where it belongs and consequently to be treated with respect and dignity.
Currently there is a safety gap where delays in arresting a suspect and applying protective measures of any kind can leave women vulnerable to reprisals. The minimum victims should expect from the justice system is that it puts their protection at the centre from the point of disclosure. The enormous reduction in pre-charge bail use since the reform in April 2017 makes conditional bail an even more unlikely outcome for women who come forward.
Where sexual or sexualised harassment is perpetrated by someone on conditional bail for offending against the woman concerned, support to apply for civil protection orders is denied because bail conditions are already in place, whether they meet her protection needs or not. How will this be dealt with procedurally and legally?
Should protection be given automatically to women on reporting rather than at the point where a suspect is arrested? (This applies to all sexual offences in my mind).
Criminal justice agencies must not be allowed to misrepresent their intentions or abilities to provide women with even the most basic protection.