The city of Lucerne is examining the Zurich reporting tool for sexual harassment
prevention
Lucerne is examining the takeover of the Zurich reporting tool for victims of sexual harassment
Anyone who is sexually harassed in public spaces in Zurich can report this on the “Zürich looks back” platform. The city of Lucerne is now interested in the tool.
«Make your experiences and observations visible here. Because only what is visible can be fought.” Die with these words Website “Zurich looks” the users. They can anonymously report sexual harassment in public spaces – as victims or as observers. For example, the tool asks what happened. There are various options to choose from, from “harassment with words” to “following” and “unwanted contact”. Depending on the selection, the tool asks whether you want to report it and, if so, refers you to the police. Then it asks who has been harassing, hence the harassment target, when it happened and where. Finally, the user can also leave a message.
The city of Zurich activated the reporting tool in May 2021 and has had good experiences with it. By the end of February, she had quickly recorded 1,000 reports of sexual, homophobic or transphobic harassment. The perpetrators are often men and the victims are women. Harassment often takes place during the day, whereas before Corona it mainly took place in nightlife. The most common reports concern verbal harassment.
A certain risk of false reports is accepted
The City of Zurich is aware that the reported cases may also include false reports. The interim report on the tool, which was published in January, says: “Anonymity must be guaranteed, no conclusions should be drawn about the reporting person. In order to do justice to these, compromises were necessary. This includes a certain risk of false reports, which IS accepted in terms of data protection.»
The city of Lucerne is now also examining whether it should adopt the reporting tool – or at least elements of it. This is what the Lucerne city council writes in an answer to a postulate by the SP and accepts it. In it, City Councilor Maria Pilotto calls on the transfer of the “Zürich looks” project to the Lucerne area to be examined.
No tracking and no statistical tool
As social and security director Martin Merki (FDP) says, the city council is convinced that this reporting tool could create added value:
“It’s primarily about making sexual harassment visible in public spaces – it’s neither a police tool nor intended for criminal prosecution.”
There is no tracking and it is also not a statistical tool. “But it provides important information for future prevention work.” Especially in the case of verbal harassment, there is a high number of unreported cases, and the experiences from Zurich have shown that this is mainly reported via the tool. According to Merki, it is important that the reporting tool is accompanied by a communication campaign and by partners such as the Bar and Club Commission (BCK) in order to make it known to as wide an audience as possible.
In addition to the reporting tool, the city council also wants to strengthen the feeling of security in public spaces, for example by examining and optimizing lighting concepts and color schemes. The pilot project “Emergency telephones” with locations at the Wiese Richard Wagner Museum, on the Ufschötti and at the Lido also contributes to the safety of these places as an alarm option.
Offenses against sexual integrity increased by 30 percent
The city council is aware that there is repeated discrimination and harassment in public spaces in Lucerne. And a look at the statistics shows that the problem is virulent: reported crimes against sexual integrity in the entire canton of Lucerne increased by 30 percent from 2019 to 2020 to 203 offences. Whereby: These occur primarily in the domestic area.
It’s not that the city hasn’t done anything yet, but has taken action against sexual harassment in public spaces, as Merki emphasizes: Since 2008, it has been involved in various bodies that deal with the subject of sexual violence as needed. These include the SIP (Security, Intervention, Prevention) or, from 2019, the “Luisa is here” campaign by the founding association Safer Clubbing Lucerne. So far, however, the topic has not been widely pursued in the city on the basis of indications. According to Merki, the reporting tool can make a good contribution here. The city council writes that it is not yet possible to estimate how much a possible takeover of “Zürich looks at” would cost, taking into account the costs.