There Has Been an Increase in Unwanted Sex Texts & Calls at Work in S’pore

By
Ashley Seek
-

There’s no light way to put this.

Sexual harassment is a terrible crime.

No one deserves to be violated in any way.

With numerous cases happening in places like NUS, one has to wonder how many of such situations have happened over the past few years?

Sadly, the cases have only seen a rising trend.

There Has Been an Increase in Unwanted Sex Texts & Calls at Work in S’pore

In fact, according to the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), it’s been increasing a lot.

The number of unwanted and explicit sexual messages and calls has quadrupled between 2016 and 2019, Aware told TNP.

In fact, AWARE’s Sexual Assault Care Cente (SACC) has seen a spike in technology-facilitated sexual violence over the last four years.

They added that technology has allowed for harassment without the need for perpetrators to be present.

These include, but are not limited to:

  • unwanted and explicit sexual messages and calls
  • distribution of sexual images or videos of another person
  • sexual voyeurism

Not to mention all the various instances of upskirt videos and photography too.

AWARE also mentioned that there were 41 cases of unwanted and explicit sexual messages and calls last year.

A third of these came from someone in the victim’s workplace, colleagues, supervisors and clients.

And remember that the cases are only a portion of the overall sexual violence cases in the chart.

In several case studies, the organisation also noted how technology also promotes nasty actions offline.

One such case saw a victim meet someone over a dating app, even stating she did not want to have sex. Even though the latter agreed, he later raped her in a private area.

Fear Of Reporting

It was also brought up that for the work-related cases, the cases have all but tripled in the four-year period as well.

AWARE’s head of advocacy and research, Ms Shailey Hingorani, say that victims sometimes do not report the abuse

They’re afraid that no one would believe them or of retaliation and some may not even know who or where to report such incidents to.

She also recommends introducing workplace sexual harassment legislation.

This would place legal obligations on employers to stop such harassment and to properly investigate each reported case.

AWARE said that image-related sexual abuse was still the most common, with 54 cases in 2019.

Where To Report Such Activity

Sexual harassment of any form is a serious matter.

Should you or anyone you know be facing such incidents, please seek assistance as soon as you can.

You can contact SACC at 6779 0282 or email them at [email protected].

You should also call the police at 999, SMS them at 71999 and make a report for an investigation over here.

Don’t suffer in silence.

Featured Image: Tero Vesalainen / Shutterstock.com

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Ashley Seek
[email protected]