WHEN she was 14, she was sexually harassed by a male student while taking the bus.

Singaporeans nowadays are so bolder!
You see like the case which happened at East Coast Park.
About a couple.
Kissing and doing those kind of dirty stuff!
Polluting our environment!


When Miss Nicole Oh told her teacher about it then, the reply was: 'What do you want me to do about it?'

Miss Oh, now 20 and a first-year law student at the Singapore Management University (SMU), said her teacher's response left a deep impression on her.

She said: 'It's bad enough that school girls don't know what to do. It's worse that adults also don't know what to do in such situations.'

So when she had to do a community service project as part of her university course, she decided to come up with a campaign against sexual harassment on public transport.

Miss Oh said she was not the only one on her six-member team who had experienced sexual harassment on public transport.

Miss Lane Tan, 20, a first-year business student, said it happened to her when she was taking the train, while Miss Lau Pei En, 19, an information systems undergraduate, was prevented from getting off the bus by a male passenger.

Straw poll

Miss Lau said that when the group did a straw poll among 135 female friends, they found that four out of 10 had experienced sexual harassment while taking public transport.

But four out of five did not take any immediate action, while a mere 5 per cent of the victims reported the incidents either to the police or to their schools, she added.

Referring to the 'appalling numbers', Miss Tan said: 'We often become silent victims. Through this campaign, we want to encourage women to do something about it, and not to keep quiet.'

Her group is working with the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) to target schoolgirls aged 13 to 25. They have printed pocket-sized cards with information on identifying sexual harassment and what victims can do. (See tables on right.)

They have been distributing the cards within SMU and in selected schools here.

The group also launched an educational video through YouTube and Facebook, and organised an open forum session entitled emPOWER!HOUSE.

The forum, which was held in SMU last Wednesday, was aimed at raising awareness of the problem.

Aware representatives made up the panel for the forum and about 60 people attended.

Said Miss Oh: 'We hope that through this campaign, more attention will be paid to this matter by everyone - the authorities, schools, parents or the schoolgirls themselves.

'Most importantly, we hope that the schoolgirls we reached out to will be empowered to deal with sexual harassment while taking public transport, and to stop being easy victims.'

Ms Claire Nazar, who chairs the Workplace Sexual Harassment Sub-Committee of Aware said: 'Sexual harassment is not something to be tolerated in any culture or society, whether it occurs in the workplace or school or on public transport.

Ms Nazar said that based on the survey, a significant number of schoolgirls had experienced sexual harassment but the incidents were seldom reported.

She said: 'Schoolgirls taking public transport could be easy targets for sexual harassment and if such incidents of sexual harassment exist, it is important that public awareness is created on what action can be taken by victims.

'For this reason, Aware is supportive of this project in raising awareness on what we can do to empower ourselves in such situations and how we can create a sexual harassment-free culture in Singapore.'

She said Aware intends to approach various tertiary institutions to build on the research that has been done by the group.

They are also looking into the possibility of partnering public transport operators to raise awareness.