By social affairs correspondent Norman Hermant
One in three young Australian women do not believe they should be in public spaces at night, a report has found.
Nearly a quarter of those asked also said they did not think young women should ever travel on public transport alone.
“We were really surprised to get the results back,” Susanne Legena of child rights agency Plan International Australia said.
“This is Australia in 2016, and you’ve got one in three young women saying they’re afraid to be out in public spaces after dark … and as a result they’re curbing their behaviour.”
The report, A Right to the Night — by the research firm Ipsos — questioned 600 young women aged 15 to 19 across Australia.
The survey was commissioned by Plan International Australia and Our Watch — a not-for-profit group dedicated to preventing violence against women.
“There’s this in-built kind of fear that you all acknowledge that you shouldn’t go out at night if you’re a girl,” 18-year-old Kea Tokley-Higgs, a first year university student, said.
Ms Tokley-Higgs and two friends said they did not find the results surprising — they all feel unsafe after dark in public places.
“Women should feel safe enough to go outside at night. Women are as much a part of the society as men are, so we should have every right to the public space,” 18-year-old Lana Rice said.
“It’s just so shocking and disappointing that a country like ours is still suffering from these sort of ideas, and this fear that’s spreading for all the young women,” Grady-Mae Dixon, also 18, said.
The young women the ABC spoke to said the reasons for feeling unsafe included:
- The many incidents of sexual assaults on women
- Feeling uncomfortable around men who had been drinking
- Feeling insecure in relatively empty areas with poor lighting
Another aspect of the report found nearly a quarter of young women believed they should never take public transport alone.
That number also was not a surprise for Sherry Xu, 18, who is particularly uneasy on public transport after dark.
“At night time, when I’m alone, I feel a little bit apprehensive.” Ms Xu said, as she rode on a relatively empty train in the evening in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.
She is also deeply affected by reports of assaults on women.
“Because of these stories, I do feel more frightened when I am taking public transport. Because I’m frightened that these things might actually happen to me, as someone who’s also a young woman.”
Victim blaming firmly entrenched in Australian culture
Plan International said perhaps the most troubling response to the survey was when young women were asked about clothing.
Seventen per cent agreed that when a girl wears revealing clothing, she is partially responsible for unwanted attention or harassment.
“One of the things that really emerged out of the research is this culture we have in Australia of victim blaming,” Plan International Australia’s Susanne Legena said.
“Young women have internalised that … they’re choosing to stay at home, modify the clothes they wear, in order to feel safe.”
Grady-Mae Dixon believes victim blaming is firmly entrenched in Australian culture.
“When someone gets attacked, or a woman specifically, the question is: ‘What was she wearing?’ ‘How did she act?’ ‘Was she drinking?’ ‘Cause she was asking for it if she was drinking.”
Plan International conducts similar surveys around the world.
Young women in Australia felt more unsafe in public spaces than did their counterparts in Nicaragua in Central America, where only 23 per cent of young women felt they should avoid public spaces after dark.
City planners urged to consider women’s safety more
The report recommends practical and wide ranging solutions.
It suggests city planners take women’s safety concerns more into account with improved lighting at night and a higher priority placed on personal security on public transport.
It also recommends more responsible reporting about sexual assaults and violence against women, with special attention paid to avoiding victim blaming.
It also wants to see more education for young men and women about the rights of young women to feel secure in public spaces.
The young women the ABC spoke with say a good start would be if men — particularly their peers — would give more consideration to how easy it is for young women to feel unsafe in public.
“My male friends … sometimes they don’t really see what the problem is necessarily. And they think that we’re overreacting,” Kea Tokley-Higgs said.
Grady-Mae Dixon added: “They don’t understand the fear that you feel … because they’ve never felt it themselves.”
This post originally appeared on ABC News.
© 2016 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved. Read the ABC Disclaimer here.
Top Comments
No surprise so many women feel unsafe at night. Don't get me started on the fact that train stations don't even
have staff anymore, because the NSW government is trying to get rid of
them all because we now have the OPAL card. Only a matter of time before
women, elderly etc get murdered on these stations.
But what we actually need, is not just better public transport, but even more importantly somewhere to park the car next to the train station. Not that you can't get mugged/raped etc walking from the train station to the carpark, however at least that's about 90% safer than having to walk miles to where your car is parked.
This is the great issue that is not talked about, the local councils are getting rid of all parking, or making it impossible to park, e.g. 2 hour limits etc. They want you to catch a train into the city CBD (and you can't park in the CBD either) yet in Sydney there is very few places that you can park near the station. Yet they will stick up massive flats everywhere, but no infrastructure for all the new people who come in live in them, meaning we all have to park miles away from train stations.
Near my local train station there was a shopping centre carpark that was not metered, I was parking there regularly, but the council have just put signs up saying no more than 2 hours, despite the fact that this carpark is never full (it's one of those old shopping centres not the fancy type ones). So there is NOWHERE for me to park near any of the train stations now! HOW THE F******* am I supposed to actually get on a train if there is nowhere to park! So of course I found a street spot about 15 minutes walk away, this was early in the day, then I had to come home in the dark and risk being murdered on the walk back.
By the way apparently they will be pulling that carpark down soon, to build, guess what...flats! So more people but nowhere to park!
This effects anyone who has health issues and can't walk very far, young women worried about getting raped/murdered, elderly people, families with prams and kids, people carrying something heavy, oh hang on that's just about everyone! Oh except maybe 20 year old fit men!
Within a few years even that street park I found will be gone, as that will probably be metered too.
I do also have a bus that I could catch that goes to a station, however that is three blocks from my house, a quick walk but I am NOT doing that in the dark! I mean this is how women like Jill Meagher get killed!
Also I note at Parramatta there was an Indian lady last year who was murdered walking home from the train station through the park. We never found out who killed this woman, so obviously no one gives a stuff about her! Anyway people said she shouldn't have walked home through a park at night. Well what other option did she have! She was working, her shift ended at night, there is NOWHERE to park in Parramatta, certainly not near the station, (although there is one carpark that costs you a million dollars to park in). She was living by herself (her husband being overseas), how else was she supposed to get home? Teleport herself?
With the election coming up, I'm stunned that neither major party has hopped on to this issue, people left/right/centre would vote for this. Every train station should have a multi level carpark. Yes nothing is 100% safe but at least that would be better than walking home in the dark.
LET'S MAKE BUILDING ADEQUATE AND AFFORDABLE CARPARKS AT LOCAL STATIONS AN ELECTION ISSUE!
In Victoria it's similar but we're very lucky we now have PSO's at all of the train stations from peak hour/s until late. I have never felt safer walking through those dingy dodgy dark car parks than I do knowing they're a short run away!
Can we stick to the fact that this article was a survey about young women and not men, also victim blaming? I'm not sure a young man as a victim of an assault would ever be asked (and judged) by what he was wearing.