This was the picture I took today at St Stephan’s Green Shopping Centre while a man watched me, noticed I was wearing a skirt, and began taking pictures of me. I am 16 years old and I have been experiencing this behaviour since I knew what it meant when men stared at me. I was with my Mum, who noticed him watching me. He looked from me to her then at my exposed legs and pulled out his phone. She pulled me in-front of her and onto the escalator in an effort to block me from his view. He followed on a lower one and continued again, attempting to get an upward shot. I stared right at him, he knew I knew what he was doing, I flipped him off, and he continued, with not an ounce of shame and a face full of entitlement. We told security and were met with pity, but were told neither he or the police could do anything further then ask him to stop.

I am not alone in this experience. I am joined by most women out there, who have been cat called, followed, objectified and sexually harassed. This is no where near the worst of my personal experiences and no where near the severity of experiences of other women. But I am sick and tired of public Irish life being an unsafe place for women to live. I am sick of this behaviour being normalised. I am sick of there being no legislation to protect women against image based sexual abuse, and sexual harassment in general. And I am sick of it being up to the victim to reprimand this behaviour.
By signing this petition you are making it heard from our communities to our government that Irish public life must become safer for women.