Tired of being cat called, and honked at, UK teenagers urge ban on school uniforms in sex shops

London [UK], July 18 (ANI): Tired of being cat called, sexually harassed, and honked at, a bunch of school students hailing from the city of Manchester, are petitioning the UK government to ban the selling of school uniforms as costumes and worn in pornographic videos.
This petition, which has gained 13,400 signatures, is now awaiting government response, at a politically uncertain time when UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has resigned and a total reshuffle is underway among the Tories, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported.
Hoping to spark a conversation about the sexualization of children, this plea against sexual violence cases was started by a feminist group at Sandbach High School amid numerous calls from advocacy groups to make street harassment a crime in the UK.
“I remember we were on a public bus. And the bus driver told us it was OK to take our tights off if we wanted to. He said he preferred it when we wore the old uniform at school and our skirts were shorter. I was 11,” said Grade 11 student Alice, whose name has been changed.
“When we were walking to and from school, on public transport, and we were in our school uniforms, we’d been catcalled, sexually harassed, honked at,” said Alice. “And we kind of wondered why, and why people feel so entitled to, like, sexually harass schoolchildren and make us feel so uncomfortable.”
This comes against the backdrop of growing incidents of sexual harassment among school students. More than one-third of girls have been sexually harassed in public while wearing school uniform, according to a 2018 online survey of more than 1,000 14- to 21-year-old girls and women.
As per the survey, the vast majority of schools in the UK require students to wear a uniform up to age 16. School students, particularly girls no longer wear a uniform. They say they have seen a “decrease in harassment” since they started wearing her own clothes to school.
According to researchers, modern uniforms have been around since the 19th century and are intended to give students from different backgrounds a sense of equality.
“It’s about making sure everybody looks the same and sort of removing those items that indicate that some children have more money than others,” said Kate Stephenson, a researcher and author of A Cultural History of School Uniform.
However, campaigners from Sandbach High School believe that removing uniforms from schools altogether might improve the situation.
“I think it’s really worth mentioning that we are children, and we’re telling you that we feel unsafe and we feel uncomfortable because we’re so actively sexualized through these uniforms,” said Alice.
Another student contends that the intent behind targeting sex shops is not to tell consenting adults what they can and cannot do in the bedroom, but to highlight the inappropriate way the costumes are marketed.
“It’s the very specific language that is applied to these costumes, ‘sexy schoolgirl lingerie’ — like, the very fact that that is the description of the product,” Maile was quoted as saying by CBC.
However, the owner of a London sex shop doesn’t believe that responsibility for the harassment lies with sex shops. They say that it comes down to an individual.
“I don’t think stopping these being sold in shops is going to stop the comments. If somebody wants to talk to a school girl in that way, they’re gonna do it.”
According to Stephenson, most adults view sex-shop uniforms separately from the real ones worn by students.
“I think, if you talk to most people, they would be horrified by the idea that it was sexualizing [the] actual school uniform,” she said. “The problem is that, particularly with things like pornography, it absolutely is sexualizing adolescents.”
Last year, a campaign group joined a bid to draft a model bill and encourage the UK government to criminalize public sexual harassment, CBC reported. The student group says that even if the school uniform ban isn’t passed, they are pleased to have sparked a conversation about the sexualization of children. (ANI)