One in five Kenyan women has received sexual harassment calls – Truecaller
In Kenya, one out of five women has received a call or a text message with sexually inappropriate content or some form of harassment, according to a report by Truecaller.
The report also revealed that nine out of 10 women in Kenya have received harassment and nuisance calls and SMS.
In particular, sexual and inappropriate calls were found to be most common among women in Nairobi, where 20 per cent women were on the receiving end.
“47% of all the sexual harassment calls/SMS comes from inmates in Kenya, and 53% come from unknown people,” the report released on Thursday said.
Women in urban areas (Nairobi, Mombasa, Kiambu, Nakuru) were found to be the most affected.
The survey also showed that many women are afraid to report because they are worried their claims will not be taken seriously and that fear remains true across countries.
For example, in Kenya, women get little support from authorities after reporting such incidents of harassment while only 12 per cent of Indian women reported these calls to authorities. This was the highest among all the countries surveyed.
Little support from authorities
“For Kenyan women, with little support from authorities and local attitudes, harassment often has to be severe before women speak out,” the report notes.
The survey, in its third edition now, was expanded to go beyond the Kenya market and was also done in India, Brazil, Colombia and Egypt.
The study is not just based on Truecaller users, but talks to women across the board.
It aims to understand the impact of harassment calls and SMS for women in Kenya, India, Brazil, Egypt and Colombia.
The survey was conducted between November 22, 2019, and February 24, 2020.
The sample size varied from 1,000 to 3324 women for each market among the age group 18-40, and women in socio-economic classes A, B, C1 and C2.