Council wardens in Utrecht are being given the power to report instances of sexual intimidation they witness on the city’s streets to the police, clearing the way for potential prosecutions.

From July 1, a number of laws change around sexual offences and it will become a crime to harass people sexually by hissing, intimidating them, making sexual remarks or following them in public places.

Utrecht will then start a pilot project involving a number of specially trained wardens to assess how best to implement the new law.  The aim, the city said in a statement, is to catch the perpetrators in the act.

“Sexual intimidation on the street is enormously humiliating and embarrassing to victims,” mayor Sharon Dijksma said. “I’m pleased that we have got new instruments to tackle the perpetrators and protect the victims.”

Police and council warden unions have earlier expressed their concerns about the legislation.

Previous attempts

Rotterdam brought in its own ban in 2018 but it was torn up by judges who said the local law conflicted with freedom of speech rules. In addition, the court said, it is up to national government to determine if freedom of speech can be limited and that this cannot be done via local authority bylaws.

That case concerned a man convicted on the basis of evidence from street wardens rather than complaints from the women themselves. The court was told that the man had gone up to women and attempted to strike up a conversation by saying ‘hey pretty ladies, where are you going.’

The city is also now planning to use plain clothes wardens to monitor for street harassment from next month.

Research by national statistics agency CBS in 2022 suggested two in three young women in the Netherlands are harassed on the street every year.

Half of the girls and women were subjected to wolf whistles while a quarter were followed, the survey, the first of its kind carried out by the agency, showed.

Most reports of verbal intimidation were made by women aged 18 to 21 but 70% of 14 to 18 year olds were also harassed when going about their normal business.

Hissing, wolf whistling or calls are among the most frequent forms of harassment. A third of the women felt unsafe or afraid when this happened. Of the women who were followed, 85% felt frightened and unsafe.

One in three men also said they had experienced some form of harassment or intimidation while out walking.