UK mulls law to criminalise catcalling in wake of Sarah Everard’s rape & murder: Report

The United Kingdom is planning to criminalise "public sexual harassment" in an announcement next week, British media reported, citing government sources. 

"We will advocate for a public sexual harassment offence, which currently does not exist," a Whitehall source was quoted by The Telegraph as saying. The source informed that catcalling and making vulgar remarks towards women in bars and on the street might soon be illegal in the country and added that this will complement existing government efforts to criminalise intimate image abuse and will be more productive and effective in protecting women.

The decision comes amid calls for more steps to be taken for the protection of women in the UK following the rape and murder of Sarah Everard’s at the hands of Wayne Couzens.

Feminist campaigner says necessary to modify 'social norms'

According to the government source, quoted by The Telegraph, the UK's Law Commission is expected to recommend that "inciting hatred against women" be made a crime. However, the Commission will refrain from declaring sexism a hate crime because it is apparently inefficient in terms of sentencing criminals.

Meanwhile, Nimco Ali, a feminist campaigner who advises the government on violence against women, compared the proposed new legislation to "seatbelt laws," saying it is necessary to modify "social norms," British media reported. 

Earlier in the month of October, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel had suggested that flashing and harassment of women should not be considered "low-level" crimes. Her statement came shortly after Wayne Couzens, an ex-police officer, was sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of kidnapping, raping and murdering a London based woman, Sarah Everard.

The former Metropolitan police officer had used his warrant card and handcuffs to get Everard into his car, when she was walking home in south London amid the peak of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions in March 2020. 

British PM bats for reform in criminal justice system

It should be mentioned here that days after Couzens' sentencing, another Metropolitan Police officer from the same unit as Everard's assassin was allegedly slapped with rape charges, Daily Mail reported, citing the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Forty-six-year-old David Carrick, a resident of Stevenage in the UK, was accused of raping a woman in St Albans on 4 September 2020. Earlier on September 17, the murder of Sabina Nessa, a primary school teacher, as she strolled through a south London park to meet a friend, had shattered public trust in the police force's ability to protect women. Soon after the incident, Prime Minister Boris Johnson had admitted that the criminal justice system's response to crimes against women needed to be reformed. 

(Image: AP/Shutterstock)