I no longer feel safe in school, since there is a boy who is perving on girls, he crawls around trying to look up their skirts he forcefully kissed a girl and he gets rather close to me from behind, what do I do? Im stressed and rather upset half of the time
Hi there,
You have the right to feel safe at school and this means feeling okay around other students. Everyone within the school community should treat each other with care and respect. What this boy is doing is not okay and it’s a form of sexual abuse.
It can be hard to know what to do - whether to tell someone or not. I hear from lots of young people who tell me they feel like they can’t tell anyone about things like this. It’s important to make sure someone does know: this isn’t something you have to keep to yourself, you haven’t done anything wrong.
Your school has a responsibility to keep you safe and this includes not being harassed or made to feel uncomfortable, upset and stressed. School can only do something if they know about it. A good place to start would be to speak to a teacher or another adult that you trust so they can help you.
It’s upsetting and stressful when it’s happening but it can also be difficult to talk about. You can take away some stress by planning out what to say in advance. Practising what you’re going to say is also important and you could do this with Childline if you wanted. It can help to get used to talking about it and saying words you might feel a little uncomfortable with. It may also help to think about how to answer questions your school may ask.
Well done for sending me this letter, I hope this advice has helped. If you need to talk more, Childline counsellors are there to listen and you can contact them anytime.
Take care.
Sam
You can talk privately to a counsellor online or call 0800 1111 for free.
You can ask me about anything you want, there's nothing too big or small. I read every single letter but I can only answer a few each week. My replies are published here on my page.
