More and more students feel unsafe in the school changing room and avoid the school shower. According to Calle Gustafsson, who is head of education at Friends, the fear is, among other things, about being secretly filmed and posted on social media.
A little over a percent of all high school students think that the locker room is one of the most unsafe places in school. One of those who want to change this is mother Ida Bresell from Falkenberg. She has submitted a proposal to the municipality to introduce shower stalls at all schools to increase safety for students.
– As a parent, it feels extremely important that my own children and other people’s children feel safe in all situations at school. I think everyone can relate to how you would feel if you were to be hanged and those images would be spread, she says.
On Tuesday, the municipal politicians will vote on whether Ida’s proposal will become a reality, and she believes that many people support her proposal.
– I hope and believe that it will have an impact. I hope that the politicians will listen to this and take the children’s and young people’s side. It feels like a very important way to counter bullying, says Ida Bresell.
Mobile phones create insecurity
Calle Gustafsson, head of education at Friends believes that there are several reasons for the increased insecurity in the changing rooms.
– When we meet children and talk to them about why the changing room is unsafe, it is often showing themselves naked to someone else that is unsafe, the risk of being directly violated, he says.
Some other factors are the influence of social media on young people’s body image and the fact that mobile phones are always present.
– Even if it is not always filmed or photographed. The knowledge that – here I have to change when there are mobile phones with a camera in the same room, creates an insecurity, he says.
The head of education believes that the proposal for the shower stalls could be a solution to the problem but that it must also be supplemented by other measures.
– You have to make it clear which behavior in the dressing room is okay and which is not okay. As well as who is the responsible adult that the children or young people should go to if something happens, says Calle Gustafsson.