London: School uniforms offer girls no additional protection. In fact, the story is the other way, if the report of a children’s charity is to be believed.
A third of British girls wearing school uniform have been subjected to unwanted attention and sexual harassment in public, according to the report. They include groping, staring, catcalling and wolf-whistling.
The girls described feeling "sexualised and fetishised" by older men while in uniform, which they believed made them a target. One in eight said they first experienced sexual attention in public when they were 12, and sometimes as young as 8.
Several young women described how men tried to take pictures up their skirt, or grope them on public transport. A 20-year-old from Manchester told researchers that a person honked at her when she was in her primary school uniform. “I wouldn't turn around, and he kept honking, so he egged me [on],” she said. The mother a 14-year old from Belfast would not allow her to go out in her uniform any more. “My mum says I look older than I am,” she said.
One in seven girls had been followed while in their school uniform, while 8 per cent said a stranger took a picture of them without their permission, the research found.
The report, which surveyed 1,004 girls and women from the ages of 14 to 21 in the UK, also found that two-thirds of them experienced sexual attention or physical contact in a public space.
