I want to talk about harassment because this topic isn’t spoken about enough. Some girls and boys are scared to speak about certain situations that have happened to them due to fear they wouldn’t be understood or think people would look at them differently. This needs a lot of awareness because this is getting out of hand happening everywhere especially us students are being targeted. I myself had a very bad experience last week October 10th on a Thursday.
What makes this more important is that this happened to me right after school waiting for the public bus to take me home, I was harassed by a Middle aged man inside the bus insisting to give him my socials after I told him multiple times no you aren’t my age and he kept on insisting and even started lying about his age saying he was my age and to just give him my number, I was terrified my whole body froze I wasn’t able to leave the bus to my next route until that man got what he wanted. This is very important to talk about because this can happen to other students and this can help them be aware of serious situations like this and how to react to them. Are we even safe at this point to even come and leave from school? we come to school to be something in life and have a good future but things like these are holding us back from feeling safe to come to school. How can we assure our safety when things like these happen and nothing is being done about it.
According to the American Association of University Women, nearly half of students in grades 7-12 experience sexual harassment. A 2015 study found that 83% of female and 79% of male students in grades 8 through 11 had been sexually harassed. More than 90% of sexual assaults go unreported and this is not good for our society. This affects people in many different ways. You can become depressed or develop anxiety due to such a traumatizing experience. No one deserves to get targeted in such a horrible way. Schools need to bring more awareness to this so the students that don’t speak up can get the courage to say something if they see something or if they’re going through a situation like that.
I took some time and found someone to interview about what happened to her. Her name is Alondra Samano, a 17 year old girl senior at Gilbert High school. She was also waiting by the same bus stop where my incident happened. She was sexually harassed by a mid 30 year old man. He came up to her calling her pretty and asking various questions and started asking if she had a boyfriend. He was being very pushy and really wanted to get her attention. He wouldn’t leave her alone and constantly kept on calling her uncomfortable names. The only way he got away was because she threatened to call the police, she shouldn’t even have to be doing this because people want to be horrible human beings and mess with people, especially young people.
She stated, “I was scared. I completely froze, and felt I couldn’t do anything.” She added, it always happens while waiting at a bus stop, or while riding the bus. It’s the OCTA route heading south down Euclid and Ball.
Hearing a similar story coming out of someone else makes me feel a bit better about speaking up about it. This is why people need to find the courage to speak up so others that have had it even worse can be able to talk about their stories and get the justice they deserve or make sure they feel safe and no longer in danger.
This is my story about Awareness on Sexual Harassment, and I hope my story can at least help one person speak up or at least think about speaking up. Remember you’re not alone and you’re not any different from anyone for going through tough situations in life.
