Everyone has the right to be safe at work. Yet a recent YouGov survey conducted by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and supported by Peoplesafe for National Personal Safety Day found high levels of violent, aggressive, sexual and unwanted behaviours perpetrated against employees working or on their way to work in the night-time economy.
Our findings show that women are more likely than men to have experienced harassment within or on their way to their workplace, with 44% of women having experienced harassment compared with 26% of men. In the majority of all reported cases of harassment (83%), the perpetrator was a man. These statistics highlight the shocking prevalence of violence against women and girls within the workplace.
No one should be a victim of violence, aggression, and harassment in the workplace. However, of the 1,768 night-time economy workers surveyed, a shocking one third (34%) had experienced some form of unwanted behaviour whilst working, or on their way to work, and 15% of respondents had experienced sexual harassment (28% of women).
Of respondents who had been harassed, 60% had never reported their experiences to their employer, commonly citing a lack of faith that action would be taken. Likewise, three quarters of respondents who had been harassed whilst working or travelling to work in the night-time economy had not reported their experiences to the police.
These findings speak to the need for employers to take all reasonable steps to combat harassment within the workplace and for urgent legislative change to criminalise and prevent such unwanted behaviours both in the workplace and in public spaces.