The influencer was sexually molested in a London Underground. Except for one other passenger, no one helped her. The employees of the local transport association were also not very helpful.
More and more people in the UK are reporting sexual harassment on public transport. According to the police, the numbers are alarming. Influencer Georgie Clarke was also sexually molested on a London Underground. In an interview with the BBC, she describes the incident – and how much she felt abandoned.
Clarke says she sat down on a subway train to trade her flip-flops for heels. The man across from her started touching her ankles and feet. Then she would have pushed him away with hers and said: “Please don’t touch me”.
“I was worried that if I got off the subway, he would follow me”
“He took out his cell phone and started taking photos of me and my legs and feet. I asked him not to take any more photos, whereupon he reached out again and tried to grope me. He made physical contact with him for a while open to me, “says the 37-year-old.
Then Clarke got up and walked towards the train door, but the man followed her. “When the doors are at the next station […] When I opened the station, the platform looked pretty empty and I was worried that if I got off the subway it would follow me and that there would be fewer people to help me, ”she says.
He always pursues her
The influencer panicked and didn’t get out. Instead, she sat with four men. “I thought, ‘I’ll sit in front of two of them and next to two of them’ so hopefully he’ll stop.”
The man continued to stare at Clarke and also sat down with her and the men and tried to grope her again. She asked him to stop, but he continued, whereupon one of the other men asked her if she would like to sit between them. Clarke sits down between them, whereupon her pursuer now sat on the place that she had left and that was across from her.
The man kept taking pictures of her and kept trying to touch her, whereupon the man who offered her the seat stepped in and asked Clarke, “Would you like me to escort you outside and we’ll go to Victoria Station to do that Report?” That was the next stop.
Clarke in tears
He escorted them out of the subway while their pursuer followed them. As they climbed the escalators, he let go of them and turned back. At that point, Clarke was in tears.
They walked up to two men from Transport for London (TfL), the local transport company, and their companion said, “I was just witnessing her being molested on the tube, the guy has just gone back down, he’s going in get on the subway and do it again. You have to call someone; do you want us to go and point it out? “
“They just stared at me like they didn’t know what to do”
According to the influencer, they stared at the two TfL employees and handed them a leaflet. It read: “TfL does not tolerate sexual harassment.” Staff referred to a phone number on the leaflet that Clarke should call and report to the British Transport Police.
“I said,” I don’t know what to do, I’m on my way to work, should I report this now? “And they just stared at me like they didn’t know what to do,” said Clarke . Then the man who escorted her off the subway would have waited with her until she took an Uber.
She felt abandoned
“When I purposely sat down with the four men, only one of them offered to help,” says Clarke. Although the other passengers had also heard of the incident, they would have ignored it. “I thought about screaming and yelling, but then I thought that maybe I would have been thought drunk and confused, or that it might have upset him and made him physically injure me.”
The influencer is also disappointed with the behavior of the TfL employees: “There was no support whatsoever. They could have taken me to a private corner or a private room, but I had the feeling that they didn’t really care what was happening. ” They also had neither recorded their data nor those of their companion.
Clarke doesn’t report the incident until six days later – out of fear
“I don’t think it’s enough to hand a flyer to a woman who has just been through this kind of situation,” said Clarke.
It took the 37-year-old six days to report the incident to the UK traffic police, fearing that she would be blamed for the incident. “I think most women get what I mean when I say that in situations like this we’re used to being blamed for it – you shouldn’t have been wearing pink sexy heels, you shouldn’t have looked at him “You should have run away, you should have done that,” she says.
The British traffic police took the incident seriously and had photos of the perpetrator within 24 hours. “I’ve heard from them four or five times and they’re definitely on it,” says Clarke.
“I’m tired of not feeling safe”
When the influencer shared the incident on social media, thousands of women replied and shared their experiences with sexual harassment, especially on public transport in London.
“The problem has been there for a long, long time, but women are only now finding their voice to say, ‘I’m sick of being blamed for it, I’m sick of this happening, I’ve got it tired of not feeling safe. ‘ Women have gotten to the point where they are so tired and sick of it that we can finally raise our voices, “said Clarke.
sources: “BBC”, “Metro”
This article originally appeared on stern.de.