SINGAPORE: The man beside her repeatedly brushed against
her leg. Nicole Oh at first thought nothing of his actions as the
bus was crowded. But when he smiled at her just as he alighted, she
wised up.
This incident, which took place when she was 14, was one of four
occasions on which Ms Oh recalls being sexually harrassed while on
public transport.
She and five fellow undergraduates at the Singapore Management
University (SMU), including two males, recently decided to find out
how prevalent such situations are, and conducted a straw poll of
150 female students at the university earlier this year.
“The guys were just shocked (at the findings),” said Ms Oh. “They
didn’t expect it to be so common.”
Two other female project mates were perhaps less surprised – they
had, after all, also encountered such sexual nuisances on buses and
trains, as did four in 10 of those polled. Less than five per cent
did anything in response.
Almost half of the respondents knew of someone who had been
sexually harassed on public transport.
When contacted, an SMRT spokesman said cases of sexual harassment
or molest on its buses and trains were “uncommon” — it got “about a
handful of complaints each month”, out of over two million
passenger trips daily.
But as in Ms Oh’s case when she was 14, not all victims file a
report.
Indeed, the six SMU undergraduates hope to empower female students,
between the ages of 13 to 25, to stand up to the perpetrators and
stop being silent victims.
The team is collaborating with the Association of Women for Action
& Research (Aware) on a campaign against sexual harassment on
public transport. An open forum will be held at SMU on Wednesday,
when an educational video will also be launched and promoted via
viral mediums such as YouTube and Facebook.
The team has printed pocket-sized cards — to be distributed within
SMU and some local schools — with pointers on what is sexual
harassment, and how one can deal with it.
Singapore Children’s Society youth counsellor Carol Balhetchet,
however, cautioned that the issue was complex.: “There are usually
many variables involved. Could it because the place was crowded?
Could it be intentional or accidental?” wondered Dr Balhetchet, who
felt further study was warranted.
Aware’s president, Constance Singam, said that just because few
complaints are filed, this is not a reflection of the true scale of
the problem. Referring to Aware’s 2008 survey of office sexual
harassment – 54 per cent of respondents said they had experienced
this – Ms Singam noted: “Then, people also had denied the existence
of sexual harassment at the workplace.”