Survey shows more than half of women being sexually harassed during Songkran

A random survey on sexual harassment against women during Songkran festival last year shows that 59.3 percent of the 1,650 female respondents admitted that they used to be sexually harassed by male revelers in different ways.

Nearly 34 percent admitted they were deliberately touched on hands or arms or sexually stared; 18 percent said their bodies were touched or their genitals touched; others felt they were unsafe, harassed by drunken revelers or were forced to drink alcohol.

The survey was conducted by the Women and Men Progressive Movement Foundation on 1,650 women in Bangkok.

Of all the women who were sexually harassed during Songkran festival last year, only one-fourths of them took their cases to the police, according to the survey which was released by the foundation earlier this week.

Speaking at a panel discussion on the subject, titled “Does sexual harassment depends on the dresses worn by women?” on Wednesday (April 4), actress Sirinya “Cindy” Bishop said she disagreed with the campaign urging women to wear discreetly in order not to sexually provoke the opposite gender.

She said that it is the right of women to wear whatever dress she likes as long as it is not indecent, adding that the campaign to urge women to wear discreetly does not address the problem of sexual harassment at the right point.

Other panelists who used to be sexually harassed said that even though they dressed up properly they had their breasts touched by men during Songkran festival.