KUALA LUMPUR: Ros (not her real name) takes public transport to work every day, but one day she had an unpleasant encounter when a man flashed her while walking to a train station.
Ros admits that despite being traumatised by the incident, she is afraid and ashamed to tell anyone about it, but she also feels unsafe walking in the area where she has been going for years.
This is one of the anecdotes of sexual harassment that thousands of victims have experienced that was not taken seriously, causing it to recur.
Following that, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) called Sisterhood Alliance has taken the initiative to introduce the Safecity application, which was developed in India and can provide a safe space for victims of such incidents to "speak out".
Sisterhood Alliance president Radziah Razi said that through the application, the public could report occurrences of sexual harassment or assault they had experienced or witnessed, as well as pinpoint the location of the incident.
Radziah said the collected data would be used to identify trends in sexual harassment experienced by victims in an effort to make the area safer in the future.
"By pinpointing the location of the incident, we can identify the hotspots, collect data, and then contact the relevant parties to find solutions.
"For instance, if we repeatedly file complaints about the same specific location where such incidents may occur due to dark road conditions, we will ask the PBT (local authority) to add more street lights,” she said.
While admitting that many victims choose not to file a report with the authorities due to various factors, including bureaucracy, Radziah said that this application allows users to share their stories and gain a better understanding of the prevalence of sexual harassment.
"There are various types of sexual harassment; staring from head to toe at a victim and making him or her uncomfortable is also considered sexual harassment.
"For cases like that, people usually don’t want to file a report, but it still affects the victim’s emotions,” she said, adding that the application can be downloaded for free.
Radziah hoped that the application could serve as a platform for victims to share their experiences so that they would not feel alone in overcoming trauma, in addition to preventing sexual harassment by reminding members of the public, regardless of gender, to always be vigilant.
She said that Sisterhood Alliance had also implemented a sexual harassment awareness campaign, which included introducing the application to residents of the Kota Damansara People’s Housing Project from Nov 29, 2021 to May 14, 2022, in an effort to collect at least 50 stories of sexual harassment by participants, improve leadership and reduce sexual harassment data.
According to her, the NGO aims to collect 500 stories of sexual harassment in order to collect data that will help the community address the social problem through various engagement programmes.
"We have only collected 150 stories since it was introduced in Malaysia in 2018, so we hope more people will become aware of the existence and use of this application,” she said. - Bernama
