Public sexual harassment is finally illegal: what was it like to make it happen?
Did you know that as of the 1st of April 2026, if a guy gets too close for comfort in the tube on your way to work, or comments about your body are yelled out of a van driving by- those are criminal offences? That is because three years after its inception, the Sex-Based Harassment in Public Act has finally been written into the UK’s law.
It’s a big moment for the Our Streets Now team, because this is something we’ve been campaigning for since we began the fight against public sexual harassment, or PSH. But what the British public - who will now be subject to that law - might not know is that we're a youth-led organisation.
So what was it like to be part of the campaign to change the law on sexual harassment whilst growing up?
Firstly, it’s not a coincidence that young people are behind this. After all, Plan UK research shows that 75% of teenage girls have experienced this offence, with 29% first being subject to PSH between the ages of 11 and 13.
There’s a really awesome victim-to-activism pipeline at play here. Although it is sometimes overlooked, that pipeline builds empowered, survivor-based, and - most importantly - effective campaigns that see tangible change across all kinds of areas. When confronted by the injustice we experience in the world around us, it’s human to want to do something about it rather than just having to keep dealing with it.
For me, Our Streets Now was a solution to a personal problem. The problem of feeling annoyed and angry, yet entirely powerless against the men committing PSH which put me on high alert in the streets, around school, or in the gym. I quickly caught on that designing Instagram posts and contributing my ideas about how this could be tackled was a whole lot better than sitting around, waiting for the next time to be subject to harassment.
Because you don’t need to have a law degree or a masters in gender studies. You don’t need to have campaign experience, or even be out of secondary school to provide value. Believe it or not, just you, showing up and learning in real-time from those around you is enough to make a difference, and this law proves it.
Plato had a point - the individuals we really need in power are those that don’t aspire to it. And that’s really relevant here. Showing girls, and all young people, how to be confident and in charge is paramount in a world where PSH, and countless other injustices continue to exist as a part of life.
It’s comforting to know that when a girl gets followed on her way home from school, she can go to ChatGPT and might be told what happened to her was illegal. The fact however that making PSH a crime doesn't mean the streets will necessarily feel safer when you leave the house on April 1st is still an uncomfortable truth.
And that’s because the dynamics of societal and cultural change - while fascinating - often move at painstakingly slow, glacial-time-scale rates.
I mean, it really couldn’t have been timed better; three weeks off the back of Theroux’s Manosphere documentary - which heavily featured public sexual harassment at the hands of TikTokers, making a night of it on the streets of Marbella. PSH has been illegal in Spain since 2022.
Clearly just because it's been written up in some decree, in an archaic language which vaguely takes the form of English doesn’t mean the job is done. This doesn’t end with legal change - far from it in fact. Continuing to do grassroots work which feels accessible and based in the real world, informed by real experiences, is needed now more than ever.
So this is my outreach call: we are allowed to be on this Earth and enjoy our lives the best we can, whilst wrestling with uphill battles. And that means learning to grapple with a kind of acceptance of unacceptance. That is, I don’t accept that girls achieve lower GCSE maths grades than boys, but to get through each day of my STEM degree without a major activist-crash out, I need to accept what I’m working with. Being in those spaces, I am already doing more than I realize by hopefully making it more roomy for those coming in after me. And through it, I'm gaining knowledge and experiences which will no doubt inform and enable my ability to be part of the change I want to see happen further down the line.
So if you’re feeling displeased, disquieted or even in full-blown despair about something (it doesn’t need to be PSH), what I hope the Sex-Based Harassment in Public law can attest to is that you are needed. However you show up, with or without qualifications or a list of transferable skills on your CV, we need you to feel like you can bring about change. We need you to understand that your adverse experiences are integral to that change, and we need you to know that you have power to do something about it.
Annika - Youth Activist Our Streets Now
1 Plan International UK. “What Works for Ending Public Sexual Harassment.” Sept. 2021.
2 “Girls Stand Together in Solidarity as Two Thirds Change Their Everyday Behaviour to Avoid Sexual Harassment.” Girlguiding, 2024, www.girlguiding.org.uk/about-us/press-releases/girls-attitudes-survey/.
