“If you act up, I’ll follow you.”
Those were the chilling words of a man in a video that went viral on Twitter over the weekend.
He had climbed across train tracks to harass a woman he didn’t know at a train station late at night. When the woman reacted with annoyance and asked him to (quite rightly) leave her alone, he got mad, following her and threatening to take her phone away from her to stop her filming.
It was later reported on Twitter that the woman had to leave the station, and the man continued to follow her until another woman helped her. Meanwhile, someone else said the exact same man had followed her onto her train the night before.
But this isn’t just one man. This is something women are all too familiar with: being harassed by men who think they are entitled to our time because we dare to be out alone. It happens when we’re walking home, in bars, shopping, at work, when we’re waiting for friends, in a group or alone.
An Office for National Statistics report found that half of women aged 16 to 34 had experienced at least one form of harassment. More than two-thirds of women in that age range had experienced catcalling in the last 12 months. This is becoming especially prevalent in train stations, and it coincides with the fact that not only are there fewer staff in stations, but the government are threatening to close train station ticket offices. In the same report, 58% of women aged 18 to 34 felt unsafe using public transport after dark. With less staff or a place to seek refuge, how are women supposed to travel safely?
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The number of assaults on railways has also doubled since 2015, and those are only the ones that have been reported. YouGov found that 97% of women aged 18-24 have experienced sexual harassment, while only sexual harassment 4% of crimes are reported to the police.
I’ve lost count of the number of times friends have texted me that they’re on a train and a man’s being weird or won't stop talking to them.
One time, I was walking home from the train station after a night out and realised who had been bothering me on the train was driving suspiciously slowly behind me in a car. I rang my friend to keep me company, only for my phone to die halfway through. She later told me how terrified she was that I’d be kidnapped despite only living five minutes from the station.
Disabled women are almost twice as likely to experience sexual assault as non-disabled women. Train station ticket office closures would also mean disabled people are more vulnerable to being taken advantage of if they’re forced to ask for help. What’s more, disabled women are less believed and less likely to be able to fight off an attacker.
In a world where men are encouraged by influencers in the “manosphere” to dominate women, we are vulnerable wherever we go. However, taking away the people who we can seek help from will only make.
When these things go viral, there’s often the onus on the woman; she shouldn’t have been so rude; she should’ve ignored him. But we’re not asking for it or trying to get a date; we’re literally just trying to travel home. Men are scared women will turn them down, but women are afraid they’ll be stabbed, raped, or set on fire for daring to say no or turn a man down.
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We’ve seen the lengths men go to if we say no; of course, we don’t want to make them angry.
The fact is we can’t just ignore men or tell them to leave us alone when they’re literally climbing across tracks to speak to us. Something must be done to make it safer for women to travel alone at night, and getting rid of station staff is the exact opposite.
A representative for the British Transport Police provided the following statement:
“Detectives are aware of a video on social media and are investigating a report of sexual harassment at Bruce Grove station, believed to take place shortly before 10pm on 20 October. No one should have to put up with this sort of behaviour on the rail network and we take all reports of a sexual harassment very seriously. Enquiries into the incident are ongoing and we would appeal to anyone with any information to contact us by texting 61016 or calling 0800 40 50 40 quoting reference 168 of 22/10/23.”
It continued:
“There is absolutely no place for sexual harassment or sexual offences on the railway network and we are working tirelessly to stamp out this unacceptable behaviour.
"We have enhanced patrols of uniformed and specially trained plain clothes officers across at stations and on trains day and night to identify offenders and reassure passengers. We also have access to over 150,000 CCTV cameras across the railway network which can’t provide us with clear high quality images.
"But this isn’t our only tactic when it comes to identifying suspects and bringing cases to court, we also police a data-rich environment where we can easily extract useful information about people and their journeys when crimes are committed.”
“Sexual predators employ various manipulative tactics to exploit vulnerable individuals, often masking their true intentions."
