SEXUAL VIOLENCE

Time for action

Dr Hannah Bows, associate professor in criminal law at Durham Law School and deputy director of the Centre for Research into Violence and Abuse, discusses her latest study on sexual violence at music festivals. What can organisers do to tackle the problem?

Over the last few years, there has been increasing attention on safety at music festivals after several headlines reported one or more rapes or sexual assaults. In 2015, Kate Lloyd wrote a piece for Vice on the “rape problem” at music festivals and industry-wide ambivalence. In 2016, several women reported being sexually assaulted at a music and arts festival in Tasmania, Australia.

Sweden’s Bravalla festival announced in 2017 that it would be cancelling the festival the following year due to several rapes and sexual assaults over the fourday event. In 2018, the Statement Festival was held in Gothenburg, Sweden – the first festival exclusively for women, transgender, and nonbinary people. In other words, everyone but (cis) men. Similar headlines appeared in the UK in 2017, and a survey by YouGov that same year reported that almost half of female festivalgoers under the age of 40 faced unwanted sexual behaviour at music festivals. However, as we know one in three women and one in six men experience some form of sexual or physical violence in their lifetime and almost all experience harassment or assault in a public place, it is likely that these media reports and surveys reveal only a fraction of the sexual violence that occurs at festivals.

In response, several festivals and industry bodies in the UK (and beyond) began to speak up about the issue and commit to improving prevention and support for victims. The Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) led a “black-out” campaign where 28 festivals blacked out their websites to raise awareness of sexual violence and confirm their commitment to addressing it. AIF also produced a charter that outlines what festivals should be doing and what festivalgoers should expect from them in tackling sexual violence. Many grassroot organisations had already been campaigning for several years to raise awareness and improve policy and practice at festivals, including Safe Gigs for Women, White Ribbon UK, Good Night Out Campaign, and Rape Crisis.

It was during this time, and in response to the increased media coverage and industry awareness, that we launched our research project examining sexual violence at music festivals, funded by the British Academy. We wanted to know more about what was happening at festivals – who was carrying out sexual assaults, where were they happening and how were festivals responding operationally and strategically?

© Unsplash

SAFETY CONCERNS

We designed a survey which collected information on festivalgoer perceptions of safety, the features of festivals that increase or reduce their feelings of safety, experiences of physical and sexual violence, disclosures, and responses. We took that survey to three festivals during 2018 and published an online version, yielding 450 responses. This gave us some insight into experiences at festivals.

As recently reported in the Journal of Gender Based Violence, most festivalgoers told us they felt safe at festivals. Several environmental, personal, and social features of festivals increased feelings of safety for women, men, and differently gendered respondents – lighting, presence of security, presence of welfare and medical services, festival staff/volunteers and friends. Conversely, crowds, poor lighting and the behaviour of security staff were the most common environmental features reducing feelings of safety, as well as police presence and Police behaviour. Other festivalgoers being intoxicated through alcohol or drugs, and groups of men, also reduced feelings of safety. Perhaps unsurprisingly, respondents said they felt unsafe in some spaces at festivals, particularly campsites, walkways, stage areas and woodlands. Women were more likely than men to feel unsafe in these areas.

Despite reporting feeling generally safe at festivals, respondents also disclosed high levels of concern about physical violence, sexual harassment, and sexual assault. Unsurprisingly, women were more concerned about sexual harassment and assault than men, and a higher proportion of women said they had experienced one or more incidents at a festival. Overall, a third of women said they had been sexually harassed and eight per cent had been sexually assaulted. Very few disclosed the experiences and for those who did, friends were the most common source.

FESTIVALGOER EXPERIENCES

We wanted to know more about the nature of sexual violence at festivals – in what contexts it has happened, the behaviour of perpetrators and bystanders, and the responses victims have received when disclosing. We interviewed 13 women with experience of sexual violence at a UK music festival. They told us that what they experienced was an extension of the harassment and assault that they experienced daily in public, and private, spaces. As such, the women felt complaisant (though still angry); they had come to expect sexual violence at festivals in the same way they did in other spaces. They described experiences of groping, rubbing, and touching – often in the crowded areas near the stage – as well as been followed, verbally harassed, catcalled, and raped.

All the harassment and assaults were perpetrated by men – typically strangers or “relative” strangers – someone they had only recently met. Most women had experienced this as a festivalgoer, but some had also been assaulted or harassed while working at a festival. They told us they felt shocked, scared, violated and often the experience had ruined the festival. Some said they had stopped attending events or undertook a variety of precautionary tactics to try and reduce the risk of sexual violence. This included avoiding certain spaces, always remaining with friends and, in some cases, ensuring they had male chaperones to “protect” them. Some women had directly challenged the perpetrator, and this had prevented further assault, but other women described the behaviour escalating, highlighting the potential risk women face when responding to sexual violence.

“ANYTHING GOES”

Although the women in our study said sexual violence at festivals was an extension of everyday sexual violence, they also felt several characteristics of festivals contributed to the existence and impeded prevention efforts and appropriate responses. This included the size and scale of festivals, providing ideal opportunities for perpetrators to harass and assault with anonymity. One woman described it as “drive by misogyny”. This in turn made prevention efforts difficult and meant the responses from many staff at festivals were limited as the women often could not describe how the perpetrator looked in detail and/or finding someone to report behaviour to in a crowded space could be challenging. Our participants

© Marvin Meyer

also felt the culture of festivals contributed to the normalisation of sexual violence at festivals. Women described festivals as having an “anything goes” culture of freedom, where normal rules do not apply and “sexual experimentation” is encouraged, becoming a thinly veiled excuse for sexual violence. This made it difficult to report sexual violence, as many peers and professionals had an expectation that sexual violence would happen, leading to a culture of normalisation. They also felt there was a wider apathy in the industry to acknowledging and taking responsibility for addressing sexual violence. One woman told us about her frustration that the increased awareness of, and commitment to, improving the environmental impact of festivals was not mirrored in relation to the safety of women. She wondered why plastic bottles were given higher priority than preventing women from being assaulted and raped.

For women who did disclose rape or sexual assaults to festival staff or security, responses were typically poor. Several women said they were dismissed, judged, or blamed. Others said they were believed but staff said they couldn’t help, due to the size of the festival or other logistical challenges. In a couple of cases, the response was good, and the women were supported to make a disclosure which was recorded, and the perpetrator was identified and removed.

WHAT COULD BE DONE?

So, what can we learn from the data so far? Clearly, sexual violence at festivals happens and across the industry there is some recognition of this. However, many festivals have remained silent on the issue, or have yet to make a commitment to addressing sexual violence. Many do not have policies in place, and we have not found any festivals so far that have made sexual violence training mandatory for staff or volunteers.

But there are a number of things festivals can do. In the same way that other aspects of safety are prioritised by festivals, there must be recognition of and commitment to making festivals safe for women. This means taking some responsibility for prevention and responses. Acknowledging it happens and accepting that responsibility is the first step. Awareness raising, training of staff on how to identify potential sexual violence (in all forms) and how to intervene, as well as how to respond to disclosures, should be mandatory and this alongside a wider policy on preventing sexual violence should be made a condition of an event licence. Sexual violence is a personal violation but also a public health issue and should be approached as such, with a multi-agency strategy for preventing and responding to sexual violence. We also recommend that specialist organisations, such as Safe Gigs for Women and local Rape Crisis charities, are included in these efforts and, where possible, are on site to feed into security meetings, risk management and support for victims.

Disclosures should be recorded, even if only basic information is available, to ensure sexual violence at festivals can be monitored and to facilitate evidence in this area both for operational and research purposes. By recording disclosures of incidents, important intelligence on sexual violence can be captured. Our interviews suggest that disclosures are not routinely recorded, and this evidence is lost. This makes understanding and responding to sexual violence at festivals more difficult.

Finally, a culture shift where sexual violence is not normalised, expected, and therefore minimised is critical. The above recommendations will help to build an environment where sexual violence is not tolerated but this requires commitment from everyone. This includes artists and bands, many of whom perform music that is inherently misogynistic. This should be completely banned. Moreover, we have seen great examples of bands taking a clear stance on sexual violence, calling out the behaviour and in some cases stopping a performance because they have witnessed or heard about sexual violence in the audience. Research in Australia indicates that bystanders could play an important role in challenging sexism, misogyny and sexual violence but may be reluctant to do so and need training and support to intervene safely. We also think there should be trained safety officers, ambassadors or “champions” who are positioned throughout the festival site – including on stage, where there is a vantage point for seeing what is going on in the crowd – to identify and respond to harassment and violence. It is important that everyone at festivals – organisers, staff, volunteers, security, festivalgoers and artists and performers – take an unequivocal stance on sexual violence and individually and collectively contribute to shaping a new culture.

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