Gemma tutton become simply eleven when she was first sexually confused.
A group of men started shouting lewd feedback at her as Gemma tutton walked domestic from college.
She didn’t understand she used to be sporting shorts that day so She believed it became my fault,’ she remembers.
Feeling terrified and ashamed, she went crying to her buddy’s residence.
Then, at thirteen, gemma became strolling past a café when a collection of men made express remarks approximately her. ‘after she advised them my age, they said, “that doesn’t count number to us.” and one terrified me,’ she says.
Those distressing studies led to gemma becoming fearful of public spaces. ‘each time a automobile got here up behind me, my heart would skip a beat.
She used to be continuously searching over my shoulder, terrified that a person became following her.’
Gemma, now sixteen, did no longer inform her mother katy about her fear, nor the volume to which it became taking place.
‘public sexual harassment become very a great deal part of my teenage years,’ maya, 21, explains. ‘it began whilst she was 12 whilst she used to be in my faculty uniform, at bus stops or on trains.
Once she was with two buddies and some guys in a car bogged down to shout absolutely specific threats of sexual violence at us.
It had a huge effect on the manner she considered myself. It made me experience hazardous in her own metropolis.’
Maya says that it changed into ‘heartbreaking’ having to provide an explanation for to her sister how ubiquitous street harassment become for young women. ‘
She informed her she turned into going to experience this continuously and that it’d probable get lots worse.’
Privy to the impact this become having on gemma, maya decided she needed to do some thing.