Introduction

Sexual harassment is one of the growing public debates from the last few decades around the world. It has significant and widespread impacts, both on individuals and on society (Rezvani et al. 2020). Sexual harassment is a prevailing and forefront discussion in the field of sexuality research and, currently, it is at the center of debates in major social movements, professional society, and all other disciplines (Dzau and Johnson 2018). There is strong evidence from official reports and research studies that sexual harassment is a global phenomenon which is increasing day by day (United Nation 2015). It is extremely difficult to achieve the comprehensive definition of the term "sexual harassment." Researchers, lawyers, academician, and policymakers around the world have not agreed on a single definition to this extent (Pina et al. 2009). Despite the broad array of approaches that define sexual harassment, many researchers believe it is a psychological experience based on sexual unwanted touch, disrespectful comments, and threatening for sexual favors (Topa et al. 2008).

Sexual harassment in public places reduces the freedom of an individual to enjoy social life, and can negatively affect feelings of safety in public places. Being sexually harassed can be degrading, humiliating, and harmful experience in itself, but the effects are damaging more widely as it can shatter one's confidence to roam freely in public places. Furthermore, victims usually do not know their perpetrators and it mostly happens in public places where harasser can easily touch or catcall. These kinds of incidents make public places unsafe and uncomfortable for victims. Most of the women avoid frequently going to public places after experiencing sexual harassment (see also, Lahsaeizadeh and Yousefinejad 2012).

The United Nations (1995) organized the fourth world conference with an agenda to discuss issues related to women. It suggested that an overwhelming number of women who go out of their homes for work or other reasons get abused at different places like streets, public transport, or workplace. In this conference, Pakistan was represented by the Prime Minister of that time, Benazir Bhutto, where she discussed the violence against women in detail. The report was solely based on observation and no descriptive data was present in written format.

Anila (1995) in a qualitative study found that sexual harassment is the least spoken phenomenon in Pakistan and although it is very common nevertheless, it is difficult to find victims who can freely discuss and share their experiences of sexual harassment (see also, Kamal et al. 2002). Initially, it was strenuous to study this phenomenon in Pakistan. The first-ever scale developed in Pakistan was the Sexual Harassment Attribution Questionnaire (Kamal et al. 1991). It was developed to explore the attribution of responsibility of sexual harassment events. Later, Tariq and Kamal (1997) developed the Sexual Harassment Experience Questionnaire, based on the types of sexual harassment given by Gelfand et al. (1995). It has three subscales; gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion. Gender harassment comprises derogatory comments on another gender such as calling with dirty names and cracking jokes to demean other gender. Unwanted sexual attention implies the degradation of women on an individual basis and anything unwanted by another person like unwanted touching, staring and trying to kiss or rape another person. Sexual coercion means direct demand or demand for the job or school-related sexual acts; this aspect aligns with the quid pro quo legal definition of sexual harassment (e.g., promotion or a better grade) (Gelfand et al. 1995). Moreover, Tariq and Kamal (1997) reported that the prevalence of gender harassment is more than unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion is the least prevalent form of sexual harassment experienced by women at their workplaces. It can be inferred that sexual harassment is a major social problem in Pakistan that needs to be addressed (Anwar et al. 2019). According to a news report, 85 percent of women experience harassment routinely in various public places, especially on public transport, and even though there is a law in place to protect them, women are afraid to report such cases, making harassment a taboo subject in society. The problem seems to be much larger and much more deep-rooted (The News 2020). The men's experience of sexual harassment in public places of Pakistan has never been explored.

The impact of experiencing harassment is that women are blamed for being sexually harassed, like wearing inappropriate clothing (Bongiorno et al. 2020). Consequently, young women need to adjust their clothes and actions to enter public areas comfortably; however, men have more access to public places than women. Women reported that street harassment is just one indication of male dominance in the country. In Tunisia, according to Jessa (2017) women have shown that their mental capabilities and their freedom is being compromised not only in the public space but also everywhere due to sexual harassment. Besides, the women proposed numerous possible motives for carrying out street harassment, including a man's education, his class, his area, and broader cultural differences between men and women.

In most studies, the perpetrators of sexual harassment against women are men (Ayres et al. 2009). In a variety of countries such as the USA (Fairchild and Rudman 2008); Iran (Lahsaeizadeh and Yousefinejad 2012); India (Dhillon and Bakaya 2014); Pakistan (Anwar et al. 2019) sexual harassment in public places is very common. Most studies conducted in Pakistan are related to workplaces. Anila (1998) also reported a high prevalence of harassment among working women. Tara and Ahsan (2020) suggested that sexual harassment is a positive predictor of aggression in Pakistani working women and most likely the harasser were men, for instance boss, other working staff. According to Bhatti et al. (2020), female athletes revealed that there is a high prevalence of sexual harassment and their perpetrators are men (coach and other staff members). Iqbal and Kamal (2001) also reported a high prevalence of sexual harassment of women working in airlines. Not a single study reported the prevalence of the sexual harassment experiences of men and women in Pakistan.

A study found 25% of women and 7% of men were sexually assaulted at some stage of life by close-knit offenders (Andersson et al. 2020). Previous literature indicates that, perpetrators are probably men (EC–European Commission 1998; Ménard et al. 2010). Research on women sexual assault perpetrators is still emerging (Greathouse et al. 2015). Moreover, studies demonstrated that a substantial amount of women are victimized by men. Despite that, 43% of men sampled had reported experiencing a coercive incident. In Pakistan, Shaikh (1996) found that 68 nurses reported a 13.2% and 72% rate of physical harassment and verbal harassment respectively, of female nurses by male physicians. A similar kind of harassment has been reported in a cross-cultural study with doctors and nurses of the USA and Pakistan. Results indicated that women from the USA experience more sexual harassment than nurses and doctors of Pakistan. It also indicated that Pakistani women mostly employ avoidance coping (Kamal 2005).

Ahmed et al. (2019) collected data at Rawalpindi city parks and public places, such as restaurants, where women are harassed frequently by men. In a survey, it was reported that every one out of four Pakistani urban women were harassed on their way back home, workplace, and marketplace by men (Gallup 2017). Moreover, women are judged negatively by society for sexual victimization by claiming that if a man harasses them, they are doing something to provoke them (Anila 1995).

Studying the problem of sexual harassment in public places is important for two reasons. Firstly, sexual harassment in public places is more prevalent than sexual harassment in workplaces and educational institutes and secondly, there are comparatively fewer researches that explored this (Fairchild and Rudman 2008). Sexual harassment is widespread in the streets and can be experienced everywhere, and reporting by male victims is very scarce (Hlavka, 2017).

Overall, this research aims to have a deeper understanding of the sexual harassment experiences of men and women. Owing to the lack of previous research that incorporates only women victims this research bridges the gap between previous and existing literature by incorporating men victims and also exploring the frequency of episodes of harassment in the public places of Pakistan.

The Current Study

The purpose of the following research is to add the limited literature present on sexual harassment of men and women in the public places of Pakistan and to examine the gender differences among victims of sexual harassment at public places and across cities of Pakistan. Karachi is s metropolitan city with a population of 14.91 million, Lahore 11.31 million, and Islamabad is the capital city of Pakistan with a population of 1.05 million. Another objective of this study was to estimate the frequency of episodes of harassment from the reports of victims. This study adds to the literature by providing the comparison of men and women victims on the scale of the Sexual Harassment Experience Questionnaire (SHEQ).

Hypothesis 1:

Women will experience more sexual harassment in comparison to men in the public places of Pakistan.

Hypothesis 2:

Men will be the major perpetrators as compared to women.

Hypothesis 3:

Sexual coercion will be the least prevalent form of harassment as compared to other types of harassment.

Method

Participants

The sample comprised of 452 victims (men = 197, women = 255). The sample selection criteria included individuals who experienced sexual harassment in the past six months and who were willing to report their harassment experiences. The convenience sampling technique was used to collect the data from different public places with age ranging from 16 to 40 years (M = 22.29, SD = 3.83). To collect the data, three major cities of Pakistan were selected which are Islamabad, Karachi, and Lahore. Between January and March 2019, the researcher traveled to collect the data from three populated cities and administered the questionnaire in universities, parks, bus stands, and shopping centers. All respondents were asked not to write their names and feel free to ask any questions after reading the questionnaires. They were given the right to leave at any point during questionnaire administration.

Measures

Public Place Harassment

Public place sexual harassment was assessed by a question from victims with yes/no answer to the question, “In the past six months, at what public places you have been harassed”. The response alternatives given to them were parks, universities, shopping centers, streets, and transport areas, other than public places. The respondents were allowed to check multiple places if they were harassed at more than one public place.

Sexual Harassment Experience Questionnaire

Sexual harassment experiences were assessed by the Sexual Harassment Experience Questionnaire (SHEQ) (Tariq and Kamal 1997) in Pakistan. Originally the scale comprised of 35 items and was meant for workplaces. Later it was modified for educational institutes (Anwaar 2013). In the current study, it was modified for the context of public places. It has three subscales, (1) Gender Harassment subscale. There are seven items, and the score range is 7–28 with an alpha reliability of (0.64). (2) Unwanted Sexual Attention subscale. There are 21 items and the score range is 21–84 with an alpha reliability of (0.83). (3) Sexual Coercion Subscale, there are seven items and the score range is 7–28 with an alpha reliability of (0.76). In the present study, this questionnaire was modified by dropping 2 items of scale which was more relevant to workplaces (item no 27 and 33). Item no 27 belongs to the subscale of Sexual Coercion and item no 33 belongs to the subscale of Unwanted Sexual Attention. After removing 2 items from SHEQ 33 items remained. 6 items in the subscale of Sexual Coercion score ranged 6–24 and 20 items in the subscale of Unwanted Sexual Attention score ranged from 20–80. In the modification, under every item, an option was added mentioning who was the harasser (1) men (2) women (3) both men and women (4) no harassment. If respondents experienced a particular kind of harassment, they were asked to report who was the perpetrator. This modification of the scale was done for finding the frequency of perpetrators on each item.

Procedure

Public places like the library, university, transport area, parks, educational institutes, and markets were approached to collect the data. The individuals approached for filling the questionnaires felt reserved and many of them reported that they have experienced sexual harassment but they will not fill the questionnaire while others agreed after rapport building and understanding the concept of research. After taking their consent, instructions were given to fill the questionnaire. Furthermore, they were also informed about their right to withdraw at any time without telling the reason. The response rates collected from the three big cities are Islamabad 50.5%, Karachi 73.5%, and Lahore 83.5%. Data was collected from 700 participants, out of these 700 questionnaires, only 452 questionnaires were filled completely; so overall, the response rate was 64%. In the end, every respondent was debriefed and was thanked for their cooperation.

Statistical Analysis

To test the hypothesis and assess the data, a bar diagram was plotted to see the prevalence of men and women sexual harassment experiences at public places and to see the prevalence of sexual harassment experiences across the three cities. We next used chi-square, to explore the significance of the difference in the frequency of perpetrators.

Results

Gender Differences in Sexual Harassment

In response to the public place harassment question, from the group of 452 individuals, 49% of women sample which comprised of 125 individuals, and 16.5% of men which comprised of 33 individuals reported sexual harassment on streets while 39.6% of women and 34.5% men reported harassment in the transport area, while 19.2% women and 32.4% men experienced sexual harassment at the public places within the university. There was less reporting in the case of parks only 13.7% of women and 11.1% of men reported they faced harassment in the park. Women respondents reported their experiences at more than one public place and mentioned they frequently faced sexual harassment incidents (Fig. 1).

Figure 2 illustrates sexual harassment incidents in three cities of Pakistan i.e. Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi. Overall, street harassment and harassment at shopping centers is more prevalent in Karachi. However, sexual harassment in the transport area is more prevalent in Lahore. Respondents from Islamabad faced less harassment incidents in comparison to Lahore and Karachi.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Frequency of gender differences in sexual harassment experiences at a public place

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Fig. 2
figure 2

Frequency of city differences in sexual harassment experiences at a public place

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Sexual Harassment Experiences of Men and Women Victims by Men, by Women, by Both and Having No Harassment Experiences Were Explored

2 × 4 Chi-square analysis was performed to check the frequency of perpetrators on all three subscales of sexual harassment i.e. gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion. These were the categories of 2 × 4 chi-square Victims (2) men, women; Perpetrators (4) men, women, both, no perpetrator (No harassment). Significant differences were found in each item depicting a different kind of sexual harassment.

It was hypothesized that men would be the major perpetrators of sexual harassment. Table 1 depicts the gender harassment perpetrators of men and women. The results indicated that men are more involved in the gender harassment phenomenon in comparison to women. Chi-square also revealed the significance and explained the difference in each group. It should be noted that in every cell chi-square detected the difference (p < 0.01). On item one; men to men victimization of dirty jokes is more frequent. Moreover, for women victims, Men to women harassment is more frequent. On item 2 Stare at you with dirty looks, men are the major perpetrators of women and women are the major perpetrators of men. On item 3 both men and women are the perpetrators. There were larger numbers of victims that marked no to pornographic material and talked about vulgar movies as it rarely occurs in public places. On item humming filthy songs, men to men and men to women harassment was more in number. Participants also reported that both men and women harassed them largely while admiring a dress. On item admired your face or hair men are the major perpetrators of women.

Table 1 Gender harassment experiences of men and women victims by men, women, both and no harassment (N = 452)
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The results given in Table 2 are part of the subscale of the Sexual Harassment Experience Questionnaire named unwanted sexual attention and it suggests a significant difference in each group. Out of the 20 questions, 11 unwanted sexual questions reported that, the opposite gender is the perpetrator. In Eight questions, men were more frequent perpetrators of both genders which showed men being major perpetrators of unwanted sexual attention in public places of Pakistan. Over all, ten items predicted that men to women and women to men victimization is more frequent. On item three, for men victims, both men and women are the major perpetrators. For women victims, men are the major perpetrators. On item four, tried to flirt with you, men to women and women to men perpetration are more frequent. On items 5, 6, 8, 10, 14, 17, 18, 20 men are the major perpetrators for both men and women victims. Similarly, a large number of participants reported no unwanted sexual attention in public places. Rape is a major question in which almost the majority said no sexual harassment in public places of Pakistan (Table 3).

Table 2 Unwanted sexual attention experiences of men and women victims by men, women, both and no harassment (N = 452)
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Table 3 Sexual coercion of men and women victims by men, women, both and no harassment (N = 452)
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Consistent with hypothesis 4, this table explains that the majority of victims marked no sexual coercion in public places. Over all, four items predicted that men are the major perpetrators. On item 4, 5 men to women and women to men harassment is more frequent. Results also showed that most of the perpetrators were men and they targeted both genders. Except in the defamation where the majority of men victims said they were defamed by the women perpetrators for not fulfilling their wishes.

Discussion

The study's primary aim was to find out the gender of perpetrators and it was hypothesized that men would be the major perpetrators for three kinds of sexual harassment. The study also aimed to find out the gender and city-wise differences among victims. The past six months' criterion was set so that respondents can recall their incidents and fill the questionnaire accordingly. The findings of the current study confirmed the first hypothesis which stated women experience more sexual harassment in comparison to men. The frequencies of sexual harassment experiences were described by a bar diagram which showed a difference between men and women in public places. The observed number of men and women victims of sexual harassment in public places showed that women are more sexually harassed in parks, streets, shopping centers, and transport areas in comparison to men. These findings are consistent with those of Gardner et al. (2017) in indicating a high prevalence of sexual harassment in public transport. Moreover, research indicated that women experienced more frequent sexual harassment and our results are consistent with previous results (Black et al. 2014). Besides, another study showed 11 to 73% of women are exposed to sexual harassment and 3 to 26% of men encountered sexual harassment in their higher education. Exposure to sexual harassment is generally highest for female students (Bondestam and Lundqvist 2020). The general assumption of people is that women are more vulnerable to sexual victimization but results showed that men are also vulnerable and sexually harassed in educational institutes. This study contributes in terms of having a comparative analysis of men’s and women's experiences of different types of sexual harassment.

A finding from the current study showed that street harassment is more prevalent in Karachi, which is consistent with a previous study (Ali and Naz 2016). According to Ahmed et al. (2019), street harassment is a very common phenomenon occurring in Pakistan and victims avoid reporting and confronting the perpetrators. Moreover, results showed that in Lahore, sexual harassment is more prevalent in the transport area, and educational institutes. There is also evidence that sexual harassment is prevalent in public transport of Lahore city and the reason behind this is that the middle class and low-income class use public transport more to reach their workplaces or educational institutes.

The findings of the present research revealed that Gender harassment is the most prevalent form of sexual harassment. Results showed both men and women are the perpetrators of gender harassment and may also get involved in sexual victimization but men are the major perpetrator of both men and women. Consistent with previous results, women consider dirty jokes as part of sexual harassment whether it comes from the same-sex or opposite-sex (Biber et al. 2002). Another study indicated that women are more sensitive towards a perception of sexual harassment in comparison to men and consider staring, dirty jokes, and admiration of dress as sexual harassment (Ekore 2012). The results of the present study showed that men are considered to be the perpetrators of gender harassment more as compared to women. Furthermore, it also indicated that almost half of the victims had not encountered a perpetrator who showed or discussed pornographic material with victims in public places.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2018) also stated that gender harassment is the most prevalent form of sexual harassment by naming crude terms to the opposite gender or same-sex gender. Consequently, there is a different motivation behind unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion while gender harassment is all because of putting down victims and making them feel powerless. Men to men sexual harassment is also reported in the present study with many reasons behind it. The patriarchal basis of our society and no availability of women at times of sexual frustration is one of them. This phenomenon is also underreported because of men's gender role of being masculine in Pakistan. Men do not want to report the incidents of harassment for the sake of their ego as they do not want to show themselves as weak by admitting (Anila 1995). As in Pakistani society, people are ready to believe in men to women sexual harassment but it’s difficult to digest the concept of men to men and women to men sexual harassment in Pakistan.

Men and women responded differently to each question and they had different perpetrators on each incident of sexual harassment. Results showed that on eleven items such as appreciated your body figure, flirt, took interest in your personal life, men to women and women to men sexual harassment is more in number compared to other groups. Moreover, on eight items such as offered lift in a car, probe your sexual life, collided while passing by, men perpetrators scored the most in comparison to other groups. Item three of unwanted sexual attention which is invited for an outing, the answers revealed both men and women are the perpetrators and victimized men and women. Results of chi-square showed significant differences in each group and it also indicated that women to women harassment is also reported but is less in number as compared to other groups. The study suggests that since the events of sexual harassment are increasing day by day and it’s high time to plan prevention strategies. The government should play an active role to resolve the issues which hinder the freedom of an individual to roam freely and safely in public places across the country. Results also revealed that men are major perpetrators of touching, kissing, and raping the victim in public places. Although the victims reported less number of rape and kissing incidents in public places, for all reported events, all the perpetrators were men who sexually harassed other individuals.

The findings of the present study have revealed sexual coercion is the least prevalent form of sexual harassment in public places and most victims faced a mild form of sexual coercion consistent with previous literature (Bendixen and Kennair 2008). It was hypothesized that there will be more men perpetrators than women who involve in unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion and harassed men and women to show their dominancy. Results revealed that men are more involved in sexual harassment which is consistent with previous studies (Ménard et al. 2010). Besides, men who are harassed prefer to show their masculinity and dominancy over the victim so that perpetrator can influence and increase fear among the victim (Pryor and Stoller 1994). Recently there has been little recognition of sexual assault perpetrated by adult men against other adult men. Relatively few studies have examined the issue, and much of the early research on men to men sexual assault simply described the incidents (Saunders and Senn 2009). The current study is the first of its kind in Pakistan as it has explored the men to men as well as women to men sexual harassment in Pakistan.

Limitations

The sample size was small and it was collected from three cities that do not represent the overall population of Pakistan. The response rate from the three cities were Islamabad 50.5%, Karachi 73.5%, and Lahore 83.5% which indicates that people are more interested to report their experiences and a larger sample collected is needed. The response rate of Islamabad was less than expected as the majority of people living in Islamabad were not much open. Nevertheless, it is possible that due to urbanization in Lahore and Karachi people were comfortable talking about their experiences. Furthermore, the sample included all those individuals who have mild to moderate sexual harassment in the past six months which can be differentiated in future researches.

Conclusion

The existing literature indicated the existence of research on women's sexual harassment and less work on men's sexual harassment. The findings of the current study indicated that men also experience sexual harassment in public places. This study highlighted the fact that, although women are more victims of sexual harassment and men are more perpetrators, women to women, men to men, and women to men harassment should also be researched in future studies.