Harassment is never okay. We condemn unacceptable behaviour, including all forms of harassment under the Equality Act 2010. If you know someone who has been affected by harassment, you are not alone, support is available.
What is harassment?
Harassment is unwanted physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct which may (intentionally or unintentionally) violate a person’s dignity or create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment, which interferes with an individual’s learning, working or social environment. It also includes treating someone less favourably because they have submitted or refused to submit to such behaviour in the past.
Unlawful harassment may involve sexual harassment or be related to a protected characteristic such as age, disability, gender reassignment (covers Trans and Non-binary), pregnancy or maternity, marriage and civil partnership, race, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief (covers all faiths/beliefs and none), sex or sexual orientation.
Harassment may include, for example:
- unwanted physical conduct or ‘horseplay’, including touching, pinching, pushing, grabbing, brushing past someone, invading their personal space and more serious forms of physical or sexual assault
- offensive or intimidating comments or gestures, or insensitive jokes or pranks
- mocking, mimicking or belittling a person’s disability
- racist, sexist, homophobic or ageist jokes, or derogatory or stereotypical remarks about a particular ethnic or religious group or gender
- outing or threatening to out someone as gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans
- ignoring or shunning someone, for example, by deliberately excluding them from a conversation or a social activity.
A person may be harassed even if they were not the intended "target". For example, a person may be harassed by racist jokes about a different ethnic group if they create an offensive environment.
What can you do?
Think
- Are they in immediate danger? If they are in immediate danger or seriously injured, you can call 999 (or 112 from a mobile)
- Find a safe space. If an incident has just happened try and find somewhere they feel safe.
- What is harassment? It might be useful to think about what harassment is and how those behaviours are described.
- Are they in immediate danger? If they are in immediate danger or seriously injured, you can call 999 (or 112 from a mobile)
- Find a safe space. If an incident has just happened try and find somewhere they feel safe.
- What is harassment? It might be useful to think about what harassment is and how those behaviours are described.
Talk - If someone you know has been affected, you can encourage them to seek support. Alternatively you make an anonymous disclosure which will allow us to investigate if there are multiple instances in one area.
Find out more:
Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) provides further information on unlawful harassment
Help them report - If they want to, and you feel able to, you can help them report the incident or incidents via GSA’s Report and Support tool.
Seek Support - There are a number of specialist organisations that provide specialist support, including counselling for those affected by harassment. You could encourage your colleague to reach out to such support.
A list of organisations can be found here:
- https://www.supportline.org.uk/
- https://www.victimsupport.org.uk/
- http://www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/
- https://www.stophateuk.org/
Services which provide support for Online Harassment are:
Mental Health and Wellbeing
Take care of yourself. It’s important that you take care of yourself. If you’ve heard something distressing or if something is troubling you, the GSA's Counselling Service offers confidential help to students. Register online via: https://live.uniticms.com/gsamhw/ to request a counselling appointment.
If you are in immediate danger or are seriously injured, please call 999 (or 112 from a mobile).
If you need immediate support or feel in crisis, we have listed several emergency services contact details on GSA's external website that you may find helpful.
Students can access information on GSA's student services here
Staff can access information on GSA staff services here
Students and staff can also access support through: Papyrus Hopeline247 - Prevention of young suicide. This is a 24/7 service for young people under the age of 35 who are experiencing thoughts of suicide, as well as for anyone who is concerned that a young person could be thinking about suicide. Call 0800 068 41 41, text 07860039967 or email pat@papyrus-uk.org to stay safe or to keep someone safe from suicide.