Security officers prevent violence with sexual harassment training
Over 70% of women have been targeted by sexual harassment in public spaces, according to Shout-Up!, an anti-harassment training program. What's more, 63% of women and 26% of men report experiencing sexual harassment during a night out.
Shout-Up! is a campaign that educates venue staff on how to prevent, identify and respond to the signs of sexual harassment in their facilities. Once a local campaign, Shout-Up! has started to train private security teams in order to decrease harassment and violence during nights out.
Peter Moore, Executive Director of T3 Security, believes it's important for security officers to undergo harassment training.
"We've found that Shout Up! has educated our teams working within the night time economy as to the everyday harassment faced by females and in some cases males, which has for a long time gone unnoticed," said Moore. "It has also highlighted how spotting such behavior at an early stage can prevent escalation to more serious and at times deadly activity."
The certification program lasts for two years, with ongoing assessments every six months. The training is comprised of bystander intervention strategies that lead to the safe de-escalation of harassment, as well as education on the effects of sexual harassment.
"We believe all security organizations have a duty of care to educate their teams, clients and the wider public they protect as to the concepts raised by harassment training," said Moore. "This will in turn help us turn a corner to eradicate this unwanted behavior, which has unfortunately been commonplace for far too long."
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