Bystanders – Developing responses to sexual harassment among young
people is an international project promoted by the Faculty of Psichology and
Educational Sciences of the University of Porto which focuses on Sexual
Harassment (SH) against teenage girls and young women. The other partners in this project are the United Kingdom, Malta
and Slovenia. The Project Bystanders is
a result of the excellent collaboration between the partners in the Project
CEINAV – Cultural Encounters in Intervention Against Violence, lead by Carol
Hagemann-White.
Sexual Harassment is defined by unwanted physical and nonphysical verbal
and cyber sexual attention, including a wide range of behaviors that
victimize women and girls. Boys and young men may also be victims of SH,
especially when they do not meet the standards of the hegemonic masculinity
socialization.
People who see the
violent behavior and can do something to help the victims are also involved in these situations — they are bystanders.
The Project Bystanders aims to work with bystanders to improve awareness
and responses to SH in schools.
Hence, the objectives of the Project are:
- to increase knowledge and awareness about SH in high school
students, teachers and other school staff in PT, Sl, UK and Mt
- to develop and deliver a training program for young people and
school staff enabling them to intervene in situations of SH and/or assault as
bystanders
- to increase the motivation of bystanders to stop SH in high
schools
- to develop a manual and materials enabling young people to deal
with SH at school and its surroundings, adapted to the context and cultures of
the four countries
- to work with a whole school approach to policies and protocols
on SH
- to compare the implementation and effectiveness of the program
within and between the four countries
The Project
Team:
Portugal:
Faculty
of Phycology and Education Sciences University of Porto:
•
Maria José
Magalhães:
UMAR:
Women’s Association,
Alternative and Response
•
Ana Guerreiro
•
Cátia Pontedeira
United kingdom:
London Metropoly University
•
Liz Kelly
Malta
University of Malta
•
Aleksndar
Dimitrijevic
•
Marcelline Naudi
•
Rodianne Ellul
Buhagiar
•
Barbara
Stelnaszek
Slovenia
Peace
Institute - Institute
for Comtemporary Social and Political Studies
•
Vlasta Jalušič
•
Maja Ladić
•
Lana Zdravkovic
DNK
•
Anita Jerina
•
Vučenović
•
Sabina Cobec
CEINAV has
achieved one of its main goals: to develop a transnational foundation for
ethical practice in intervention, taking a holistic view of the forms of
violence we have studied, while attending to differences. The paper
“Transnational Foundations for Ethical Practice inInterventions Against Violence Against Women and Child Abuse” results from in-depth discussions in the entire four-country team, and was
written by Liz Kelly and Thomas Meysen with an approach that speaks directly to
practitioners and the challenges they face. We make this paper available in the four languages of our project, and
invite others to translate into further languages (but please let us know if
you do so!)