(Eagle News) — The bicameral conference committee has approved a measure that seeks to penalize catcalling and wolf-whistling, among others.
If signed into law, the Safe Spaces Act will also penalize “unwanted invitations,” misogynistic comments, among others, that are “unwanted and threaten one’s sense of personal space and physical safety.”
It will also expand the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act of 1995 that penalizes acts of sexual harassment committed “between peers and those committed to a superior officer by a subordinate, or to a teacher by a student, or to a trainer by a trainee.”
“We must listen to the pleas and cries of every Filipino and Filipina who has suffered cat-calling, stalking, indecent gestures and other forms of sexual harassment,” Senator Risa Hontiveros, the Senate version’s sponsor and author, said.
“We must show the world that such acts have no place in our society – not in the past, not now, not ever,” Hontiveros added.
