Questions/Answers

According to the survey on sexual harassment on public transport in Bangkok and its vicinity conducted in October 2017, it shows that more than one-third of public transport users of different genders have experienced sexual harassment, in which 45% of them are female. 50%, 11.4%, 10.9%, 9.8%, and 9.6% of the cases happen on the bus, motorcycle taxi, car taxi, and van taxi, and BTS Skytrain, respectively. The oldest person who was sexually harassed on public transport was 74, while the youngest was 12. Both of them were female. The most common type of sexual harassment is visual harassment, which involves looking up under women’s skirt or staring at their chest, followed by body touching, whistling, verbally flirting, and sexual solicitation, which accounted for 18.8%, 15.4%, 13.9%, 13.1%, and 11.7%, respectively. In addition, there are also other forms of harassment such as showing the genitals, rubbing the genitals, masturbation, etc. To provide women and people of all genders with safety from sexual harassment on public transport, ThaiHealth thus joins hands with Sexuality Studies Association, ActionAid Thailand, Women and Men Progressive Movement Foundation, and the Four Regions Slum Network to organize the Safe Cities for Women Network to develope “Surveillance For Safety” campaign, which aims at creating a social protection through the use of modern technology like application to reduce sexual problems in public transport system.

“Surveillance For Safety” campaign for the prevention of sexual harassment on public transport is in alignment with the 3rd category, which involves promoting gender-responsive public services to achieve the SDGs. It is conducted with a focus on public participation in designing a process to prevent sexual harassment on public transport, which will lead to organizational policy advocacy to stop sexual harassment on public transport. People or public transport users are offered with the opportunity to access basic knowledge on preventing and solving sexual harassment on public transport and find solutions to problems together with the authorities concerned.

“Surveillance For Safety” campaign for the prevention of sexual harassment on public transport is carried out with a key objective to tackle sexual harassment problem in public spaces, which is a form of violence against women and girls in public. Therefore, this campaign is aligned with Goal 5 under UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls.

Social dimension:Create public participation in surveillance on sexual harassment behaviours on public buses to help foster public scrutiny and show substantial care for physical and mental health impacts upon women. Economic dimension: Offer a tool for public service staff, mostly female, to face sexual harassment on public transport confidently, which results in more efficient work and further growth in terms of income of operators. Environmental dimension: Create safe spaces for women and people of all genders and ages from sexual harassment and violence that may occur on public buses e.g. an installation of surveillance cameras inside the bus.

Most women, when faced with sexual harassment, are afraid to seek help from others or related authorities because of fear and embarrassment. A creation of “surveillance team” by volunteers from the general public and service staff, who see the importance of sexual harassment problems in public areas, is thus an important mechanism in saving women and people of all genders and ages from sexual harassment situations. Therefore, “Surveillance For Safety” campaign is initiated to provide safety and protection for women and everyone from sexual harassment. It is like creating social protection for women to ensure their equitable and safe access to public transport. This social protection can then be expanded to people of all genders and ages including children, youths, people with disabilities, LGBTIQ+, and the elderly.

According to survey on sexual harassment on public transport in Bangkok and its vicinity, women are the key target group sexually harassed on public transport due to their feminine characteristics as well as the cultural belief that stops them from shouting for help from others or related authorities upon being sexually harrassed. Furthermore, the general public is also not brave enough to jump in to save them from sexual harassment situations. This campaign helps create a system for everyone to help reduce their risks, build their travel safety, and improve the quality of the public transport system as a whole.

“Surveillance For Safety” campaign builds an engagement with the general public of all ages and the service staff on public buses, as well as equip them with potentials, skills, and knowledge in dealing with sexual harassment problems in public areas effectively. In addition, it also contributes to the development of policy proposals, which are pushed forwards to the Minister of Transport and Communication and result in a collaboration with the Transport Company Limited to tackle sexual harassment problems in public transport. Following this collaboration, it brings a great improvement to the quality of the hotline center, the performance of bus staff including their basic skills in assisting transport users faced with sexual harassment. Campaigns have been rolled out through different channels including on public bus and online platforms, alongside with a plan to target 480 vehicles in the transport company system, more than 2,800 employees and more than 4,000 private company cars in charge of the transportation company.

In 2017, Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth) partnered with the Sexualities Studies Association, and ActionAid Thailand to develop policy proposals and launch “Surveillance For Safety” campaign to stop sexual harassment on public transport, based on the “Tri-Power Strategy” concept; an embodiment of wisdom power, policy power, and social power, which details as follows; 1. In 2017, a survey was conducted to explore sexual harassment situations in public transport, of which the output is used for driving policies. The survey shows that over one-third of public transport users were sexually harassed, with 45% of them being female. 2. In 2017, there were campaigns to improve the public attitudes towards violence by not “neglecting” or viewing it as “a matter of others”. The campaigns were launched across channels including Facebook page such as “Free From Fear”, and “Safe Cities for Women Thailand”, which aimed at raising awareness and providing advice on managing violence and sexual harassment. 3. In 2018, “Guideline for Surveillance” was developed for training public transport workers to help prevent sexual harassment problems on public buses. 4. In 2018, a video was created to provide knowledge on self-prevention and hotline centers, which was disseminated across public buses. 5. In 2019, “Surveillance For Safety” campaign was launched with the concept of turning quiet power into surveillance power, making everyone a volunteer to tackle sexual harassment. 6. In 2019, a collaboration with the Transport Company Limited was conducted to drive policies and measures to solve sexual harassment on public vehicles in 3 ways: empowering employees, installing a surveillance camera inside the bus, and developing a notification system when sexual harassment occurs. 7.In 2019, a notification system of risky areas for sexual harassment was developed through the Traffy Fondue application to facilitate complaint process about sexual harassment and to provide help in a timely manner.

Sexual harassment is a form of violence with the root of the problem in two levels; 1. Social structure level - Reproduction of the patriarchy concept with disrespect of people’s bodily rights 2. Awareness level - Lack of awareness to identify sexual harassment behaviour Solving this problem by changing the public attitude is necessary. ThaiHealth has designed a work process to build public understanding and participation and develop other work processes to support “Surveillance For Safety” campaign e.g. creating an online platform to help those receiving impacts from all forms of violence and building a model community to deter violence against women.

“Surveillance For Safety” is a process innovation developed in conjunction with the use of modern technology, application. It is developed through public participation to raise awareness of sexual harassment problems, especially in the public transport system. It offers an active way of solving the problems, which starts with building a “surveillance team” to watch, monitor, and help everyone faced with sexual harassment. Afterwards, social networking will be applied to encourage the public to seriously attend sexual harassment problems given with a guideline for managing the problems, and then drive related policies to pilot into creating a safe area on public buses.

“Surveillance For Safety” campaign is a continuation of Thai Health Promotion Foundation’s “Pineapple Eyes” campaign in collaboration with BMTA (Bangkok Mass Transit Authority) to empower bus conductor leaders and enable them to act in surveillance of violence and sexual harassment problems that happen on the bus. However, “Surveillance For Safety” campaign is an upgrade from the said campaign, with an emphasis on building public participation to create a network that serves to deter and help those experiencing sexual harassment.

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Under the epidemic situation of COVID-19 in many countries, violence cases against women and members in the family are on the rise, partly due to the lockdown measures that allow people to spend more time at home. Therefore, Thai Health Promotion Foundation has adapted the concept of “Surveillance For Safety” campaign to the current situation by building public participation in social media to monitor violence against women and family members during the detention period or lockdown measures under the campaign called “Surveillance on Neighbor”. This campaign is applied with the concept that everyone can play a key role in watching and helping those who are facing sexual harassment and sexual violence during the detention period or lockdown measures like neighbours looking after each other.

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“Surveillance For Safety” campaign is a collaboration between Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth), Sexualities Studies Association, ActionAid Thailand, Women and Men Progressive Movement Foundation, National Electronics and Computer Technology Centerm, and Four Regions Slum Network, supported by ThaiHealth’ budget worth 1.2 million baht. It covers researches on sexual harassment on public transport, social communication, empowerment of “surveillance team” including personnel of public transport service providers, and a surveillance guideline development. The campaign has received good response from the Ministry of Transport and Communication and service providers, who took action by setting it as their policy and action plan.

Key factors that make “Surveillance For Safety” campaign show a sustainable development involve engagement among the people, increased awareness among them of sexual harassment problems in public spaces, and great participation from related authorities such as the Transport Company Limited. These authorities were also equipped with a sense of ownership of the campaign, which led them to take more serious action in solving sexual harassment problems on public buses and create their action plans based on 3 approaches; staff empowerment, installation of a surveillance camera inside the buses, and development of a notification system when sexual harassment occurs, etc.

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1) Conducted by independent scholars through the Empowerment Evaluation (EE) approach, which emphasizes participatory work and allows all stakeholders to take the primary part in their assessment rather than using external experts. 2) Carried out by Chulalongkorn University using the CIPP approach to collect data according to output indicators, outcome, and impacts, as well as evaluation of condition factors and the relationship between the condition factors and outcome. However, this is a joint assessment with other projects on the issue of women wellbeing and violence against women conducted/sponsored by ThaiHealth.

1) Using Empowerment Evaluation approach to assess the involvement of stakeholders in driving the work of various sectors. This approach is a fundamental concept that believes in the potential of stakeholders involved in making a contribution to change society into a society where everyone is equal. 2) Using the CIPP evaluation model to measure the project’s tendency to reduce inequality and create sexual justice.

Evaluation results show that participation from all stakeholders as well as the use of modern technology like application plays a key role in bringing change in terms of gender equality to the society, empowering women, who are victims of sexual harassment, and forming a proactive working system to help prevent and solve sexual harassment problems. Therefore, Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth) joined hands with their partners to enhance their performance by building a “surveillance team” consisting of over 800 people of all genders and ages, led by women, and forming participation with the Ministry of Transport and Communication and the Transport Company Limited. Their collaboration also created sustainability for the campaign, which became part of these organizations’ action plans to train their more than 300 workers on sexual harassment prevention. Their target is to provide knowledge and training on sexual harassment prevention and how to deal with it for up to 2800 workers, as well as install a surveillance camera inside the buses, and improve their hotline center. In addition, there is an expansion in collaboration with the Bangkok Metropolitan Administrator to find ways to develop an application to be used for sexual harassment reporting in 50 districts across Bangkok.

“Surveillance For Safety” campaign is developed in collaboration with different sectors from the government sector, civil society, communities, educational institutes. For example, the Ministry of Transport and Communication helps with driving policies to action and creating measures with regards to sexual harassment prevention in the public transport system. Sexualities Studies Association is in charge of developing tools/guideline for training “surveillance team”. Faculty of Public Health, Thammasat University, is responsible for conducting research on the situation of sexual harassment on public transport. Women and Men Progressive Movement Foundation and Four Regions Slum Network are in charge of building people’s network and creating engagement among them as “surveillance team”. ActionAid Thailand plays a key role in providing resources (budget) in order to drive all the works.

ThaiHealth formed a collaboration with their different partners; ActionAid Thailand, Sexualities Studies Association, Women and Men Progressive Movement Foundation, Faculty of Public Health at Thammasat University, NECTEC, and Four Regions Slum Network, to organize “metropolitan network for women’s safety” in order to create safe spaces from sexual harassment and all forms of violence against women. This collaboration is driven by Tri-Power strategy; 1. ThaiHealth, Sexualities Studies Association, and ActionAid Thailand help design the work process. 2. Faculty of Public Health, Thammasat University, is responsible for conducting research on the situation of sexual harassment on public transport. 3. Volunteer leaders and the general public as “surveillance team” help design the work process, approaches, and measures to cope with sexual harassment situations, under the supervision of experts from Thai Health Promotion Foundation, Sexualities Studies Association, and educational institutes. 4.Civil society including Sexualities Studies Association, Women and Men Progressive Movement Foundation, Four Regions Slum Network, and leading members of “surveillance team” are in charge of driving the policies. 5.Executives and staff of the Transport Company Limited help drive policies to action in line with policies of the Minister of Transport and Communication. 6.NECTEC is in charge of developing an application to facilitate quick sexual harassment reporting.

Key lessons learned are to drive work by engaging all sectors, especially the owner of the problem; women and the general public, to create participation with key authorities concerned. One of the examples of driving policies to action is working together with the Transport Company Limited to start a pilot project to create safe spaces from sexual harassment on public transport. Thai Health Promotion Foundation together with their partners also set a plan to enhance their performance to create safe spaces from sexual harassment in other public areas than public transport system such as a public park, public roads, and educational institute, and etc.