Female Harassment In Australia Essay

"A girl takes a big risk when she reports sexual abuse. If she is living with relatives, she risks being kicked out of her home. If the abuser is the breadwinner and is jailed, the family will have no financial support and means of survival. When that is the case, the child is often beaten and treated very badly. If the girl becomes pregnant, she is often forced to have an abortion, often in terrible circumstances," she said.

As a result, Brennocks adds, #MeToo has not had much resonance in Zimbabwe either, with most women not knowing about it and those who do unlikely to use it due to this stigma and the potential consequences of coming forward.

The US and Canada

The burden of sexual harassment and abuse in the West has been made clearer than ever before with the

Despite cultural and developmental differences, Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea all have high proportions of women facing harassment as part of their day-to-day.

Australian data suggest street harassment to be the bigger issue, with 87% of women surveyed by the Australia Institute reporting at least one form of verbal or physical street harassment and 40% not feeling safe walking in their own neighborhoods at night.

In Papua New Guinea, the baseline is more violent, with 77% of women experiencing some form of sexual violence on buses or when waiting for buses. In Fiji, data are more scarce, but UN data show sexual violence from a partner affecting 64% of women.

In Papua New Guinea, "there are very high rates of non-partner rape ... often in public places," Jewkes said. She believes the poor education system and extreme poverty feed the problem. "Employment of women is very limited; they cannot move around. ... There is enormous risk of being raped in forests."

All three experts believe now is the time to ride the wave of global attention on this issue, which has otherwise been an ignored reality for women for