Self Defence and Personal Safety For Women

Girls’ Safety: What the 2025 Girlguiding Survey Reveals

• Julie Waite • Season 1 • Episode 21

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Every day, girls and young women are changing how they live, dress, and travel - just to feel safe. The 2025 Girlguiding Girls’ Attitudes Survey reveals that 68% of girls aged 11–21 have changed their behaviour to avoid sexual harassment, and 1 in 10 have even missed school because of safety fears.

In this episode of Self Defence and Personal Safety for Women, Julie Waite, women’s safety advocate and co-founder of Streetwise Defence, explores what these findings mean - and how we can help girls feel safer, stronger, and more confident.

You’ll discover how to:

  • Talk openly about safety without creating fear
  • Teach boundaries, awareness, and confidence from a young age
  • Encourage self-belief 
  • Replace fear with empowerment through small, practical habits

This episode is a must-listen for parents, carers, and educators who want to protect and empower the next generation.

Want to feel safer, stronger, and more prepared?
Join our community of people taking back control of their safety - and get instant access to our free self defense and safety tip downloads.

👉 Head to Streetwise Defence to grab your free resources and start your journey today.

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Julie Waite (00:01)

Every day, girls and young women feel they need to change how they live, dress and travel just to feel safe. The new Girl Guiding Girls Attitude Survey 2025 shows this clearly.

 

68 % of girls aged 11 to 21 have changed their behaviour to avoid sexual harassment. 86 % avoid going out after dark because of safety concerns. 43 % say they don't feel safe when they're in public spaces and 1 in 10 have even missed school to avoid sexual harassment. These aren't just numbers, they show how fear and harassment are shaping young women's lives. And that's exactly what we're here to talk about on self-defence and personal safety for women.

 

the podcast that helps you stay safe, feel strong and take control of your personal security both emotionally and physically. I'm Julie Waite, Women's Safety Advocate and co-founder of Streetwise Defence and I grew up as a brownie, a guide, a young leader and when my girls were little I was a rainbow and brownie leader, better known as Fluffy Owl. So I'm really pleased to see Girlguiding speaking out on this issue.

 

I found this report quite hard to read actually, I found it quite sad, particularly because I've got girls that fall into this age range and to see that girls, some of them as young as seven, are having to change and shrink themselves, I think that's what came through for me. There's a lot of talk about different ways that they cope, but people doing things like ⁓ avoiding speaking out in class.

 

pretending not to be confident because they don't want to have harassment from the boys. Lots of things like that that just, to me, the impression that I got was that there's a lot of fear, there's a lot of concern, they don't really know what proper...

 

safety looks like so they're trying to come up with things there's some of the statistics said that they don't put headphones in so they can hear what's going on around them which is something we would suggest but then on the other hand there's girl's saying that they pretend to be on the phone or have headphones on so they don't have to talk to anyone so that they don't they think that

 

you know, they won't get harassed if, you know, if they look like they're listening to music or whatever. there's a lot of coping mechanisms, a lot of strategies that they're coming up with. And I felt actually like these young girls are shrinking themselves and hiding away and they shouldn't have to do that.

 

You know, I think it's great that the report's been written because we need to talk about these issues, we need to have conversations, and we need to think as a society, how can we change this? Because I don't feel like it's getting any better at the moment. From what we see and hear, it's getting worse. And there seems to be a lot of these conversations going on and not a lot happening. So obviously, it goes without saying that young girls should not have to change.

 

their behaviour or their personalities to stay safe. That should not be the case. However, we live in quite a messed up world at the moment and it's important for them to be safe. So there are some things that they can do to stay safer and I'll go through some of that today and hopefully you can then take that away and have conversations with the children in your life. The first and most important

 

thing that I would suggest everyone does is to have open conversations with the girls in your life and this has got to be the number one way of helping them to learn, helping them to develop the right coping strategies and helping them to know that you've got their back, you're there for them and they can come to you because a lot of this behaviour, these behaviour changes are happening by talking to peers

 

watching things online and they're not talking about things they're keeping a lot to themselves.

 

for a variety of reasons. So having those open conversations with your kids, I would say like use this report if you want as a starting point, that's a great thing to do. Did you know it says for example 32 % of girls changed what they wear, 28 % avoided places where they socialised, 25 % changed who they spend time with, 24 % stopped talking up in class. So you could say have you ever...

 

not spoken up in class because you've been worried about harassment? Have you changed what you wore because some boys have made comments, like sexual comments about you? You know, have you had to change friends because of these kind of things? Or asking questions like how safe do you feel walking to school? How safe do you feel on the bus? How safe do you feel when you go to your friend's house?

 

Those kind of questions can just open up an opportunity for them to say, well, actually I don't feel very safe walking to school because whatever happens, I know from my experience, I didn't feel safe walking to school. I experienced sexual harassment from, there was a building project going on, I've spoken about it before, but I experienced sexual harassment walking to school in my school uniform.

 

and I was scared and I changed the way I walked. I walked a much longer way to avoid that. So I think if you can have those conversations that will really, really help.

 

When you're having those conversations or if your child comes to you or a child in your class comes to you, it's really important to always acknowledge what they're saying, to listen very carefully, make sure you let them say everything they want to say, even though it's really tempting to jump in and start trying to problem solve and comfort and all of that, which I am guilty of. It's important just to let them say everything they want to say, acknowledge it and never...

 

minimize or try and kind of suggest that they're overreacting or things aren't as bad as they think they are because their world is very different to our world and their scope of knowledge and experience is very different to ours. So that would be the second thing, acknowledge what they're saying.

 

As part of those conversations, it's important for them to know that they can come to you with anything and that you won't react in a highly emotional way. you won't, if they come to you and say, this boy has done something to me, you're not gonna then explode, get in your car, try and hunt them down, cause a huge scene. You need to be able to keep your emotions in check and...

 

react calmly and supportively and then figure out the best course of action with together with them because as tempting as it can be to try and seek justice, fix things, sort it, if they know you react in a certain way, mums and particularly dads here, because you're very protective of your daughters

 

they might not come and open up to you because they're concerned about your reaction, they're concerned you're going to go and do something silly. So it's about reassuring them and saying to them when you're having these conversations, you know, can always come to me, we'll figure it out together, I won't do anything that you don't want me to do, we'll, you know, we'll sort this out together. That's really important. The next thing is really encouraging them to

 

understand boundaries. This is huge and this will really help them throughout life and you can kind of mirror this, you can demonstrate this in the house with them growing up. So things like personal touch.

 

things like hugs with relatives, if they don't want to hug the relative, they don't have to hug the relative and explaining that their body is their body, their boundary, they get to do what they want to do and they're even advocating for them. So if, you know, the relatives wanting a hug and a kiss, they all come here and give me a hug and a kiss and they don't want to, then you can kind of step in and advocate for them and say...

 

You know, we're teaching them about the body and it's their choice and if they don't want to hug, they don't have to hug. So, you know, we'll just let them decide and they can come to you when they, if and when they're ready, things like that. Things like making sure they don't feel they have to talk to strangers or adults in public. know sometimes you get people in supermarkets or shops that talk to the kids and the kids...

 

will often feel uncomfortable and then because you feel uncomfortable and it's a really awkward situation you can then encourage them to say and you know tell them tell them what your name is you know tell them how old you are and actually they don't have to do that so it's again just thinking about all these different situations that you have in your life and how you can show them what boundaries are if they've got brothers or sisters again talking about boundaries that's your room and if you

 

you know, if your brother or your sister wants to go into it, they have to knock because that's respecting your personal space and they have to ask if they can come in, respecting the boundaries.

 

As part of this, making sure they know that all adults in their life, teachers, ⁓ community group leaders, sports coaches, they also have certain boundaries and they also have to respect their body, their choices and...

 

make sure that they know that there's a certain way they can talk to them and if they ever have any concerns about any of this stuff they can come and talk to you and again you'll react in a calm way, a supportive way and you'll fix it together and just really reassuring them that this everything can be fixed no matter what happens everything can be fixed. The other thing I'd say just going back to the conversations is to when you see things happening in the news

 

it's a good opportunity to bring it up and talk to it, talk to the kids about it. So there was one I saw recently where a kid had generated an AI nude of another kid and this one child had been so distraught and upset about it they'd committed suicide and you know it's a horrendous situation.

 

but that child must have felt so lonely and isolated and so scared and shamed and humiliated that they've gone off and done that. You just would hope that if maybe they'd spoken out, maybe if they'd known about that these kind of things go on.

 

that they could get some help. you know, I saw that in the news and I spoke to my kids about it and I said, have you have you heard of this people generating nudes and they can do it just from getting your photo, like off your school photo or anything? Have you heard of this? And they hadn't. And then we talked about it and I just said, I say the same thing so often.

 

Just remember, anything like that, even if people say they're trying to threaten you, they're trying to blackmail you, anything like that, you can always come and talk to me. So it's just, again, those conversations.

 

So some practical tips that young girls can do to keep themselves safer. Again, they shouldn't have to do any of this, but we need to be realistic and the world we live in unfortunately isn't safe for them at the moment. Location sharing on phones, you know, it's helpful to a level. We do that and it's just so patchy. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And even then

 

There's not a lot you can do. If they activate an alarm, you know, a panic alarm, you've got to physically get to them wherever they are. I mean, I'd still use it. I'd still have it on. But it's not an answer to this, personal safety.

 

something we recommend and check out the previous podcast episode on self-defense gadgets, ⁓ personal safety alarm, both my girls have them on their school bags teaching them what it is, how to use it and just teaching them like, know, if for example, if you're getting sexually harassed or if you feel in danger, activate the alarm. Yeah, you might get some hassle for it or people saying you did this or that, but it's an option and it will get them attention.

 

and it should deter the person. If it doesn't, you'd hope that at least there's people around that's looking and noticing what's going on. And of course, if it's a more serious threat, you know, if they're walking to and from school, then that's something helpful. And I think it just gives them a little bit of confidence that they know they've got something that they can use.

 

Phone and headphones, we always, always say these need to be away. I get where girls are coming from in this study where they say they put the headphones on or they pretend to be making a call so they don't have to talk to someone or engage with someone, but...

 

If your phone is out, you're making yourself a target for phone snatching and this is an issue with younger people and we have been called to do self-defence and personal training in schools where phone snatching has been an issue around the school gates and on the walk to school. So put the phone away and headphones, if you have got headphones on, you can't hear what's going on around you so you can't hear if there's a gang of...

 

boys running up behind you or some dodgy person or if cars come up on the pavement behind you, can't hear anything. what we talk about is being switched on, not being fearful, just taking in what's going on around you and then you can make any avoidance or take early action if you need to. So that might mean crossing the road, it might mean running off, it might mean just getting to a safe place that you can go into a shop cafe.

 

But if you've got that awareness of what's going on around you, then you're going to be like a couple of steps ahead.

 

And then on the confidence thing, like I said, I was sad to hear that they're not putting their hand up in the class. They're pretending to be dumb. They're kind of hiding away. They're pretending not to be confident. Everyone copes with things in their own way. if, you know, I'm not going to tell people not to do that, but for my mind, I think young girls should be encouraged to be confident.

 

and to be bold in life. you know, I always say to my kids, just thinking about how your posture is, that can really play a part in this. Keeping your head up, keeping your shoulders back, walking in a confident way, that will deter certain people, for example, predators who are looking for...

 

a kid to target on the street, we know from research that they look for people that don't look confident, that are slouching, that are kind of hunched up they would pick those over the confident ones.

 

Also, I think, you know, this in class kind of not wanting to draw attention to yourself because you're overly confident or because you're putting your hand up.

 

think the solution here isn't to shrink and hide away, it's to figure out what's happening and if you can get them talking to you about, okay, so you put your hand up to ask a question, what happened? Okay, someone said something, someone did this, right, okay, well we need to deal with that and then figuring out, working with the school to deal with that so they feel confident that they can put their hand up.

 

Again, if they are experiencing sexual harassment at school, harassment at school, then it's really just trying to encourage those conversations at home and then you can work out solutions that are best for them rather than them feeling like they have to change their behaviour, shrink, hide away, and that long term will affect their confidence, their self-esteem and...

 

Those things can become their habits which we don't want a nation of girls that are hiding themselves.

 

So fear.

 

should not be a normal state for girls and really the thing that

 

can change fear is confidence. So it's about having the awareness to know what's going on around them, to know the kind of things that's happening so they can be prepared for it. So for example, that AI, the AI nude thing I mentioned, if they know that that kind of thing happens, they can then be prepared should that ever happen to them. If they've never heard of that and it happens to them, that would be quite a shock. So having awareness about all of these things, and that just means some like really gentle ongoing conversations

 

them about these types of issues that are going on. Then prevention, it's about making smart choices every day.

 

just having those conversations about things like the phone, the headphones, walking to school, the safety alarm and it doesn't have to be scary, it can be very, very empowering. I find it very empowering since I've learned everything that I've learned, all the self-defence, all of the personal safety strategies, I find it very empowering and it's not about being fearful, it's just about being aware and then knowing how to prevent these things. The third thing is mindset, it's so important.

 

that they have this mindset that they can handle these situations and they can handle them with your support and they know that there's backup, they know they're well informed about everything and they believe that they have the right to take up space in the world and they have the right to get these things fixed that are bothering them.

 

And then finally, the fourth area we believe is the physical. And these are actually our four pillars of self-defense that we teach. Awareness, prevention, mindset, and physical. Physical as a last resort. But once you know a few simple techniques to keep yourself safe physically,

 

It takes away a level of fear and it does help you feel empowered. So if you do want some self-defense training in your school or in your community group, we go into schools, we train in schools, we do workshops, we train from age 11 upwards. And it is a very empowering skill and knowledge to have.

 

Or if you can't access that through your school or community group, we have online courses where you can go on there and you can learn and you can learn this stuff yourself as a parent and teach it to your children in the way that you see fit. Or you can show them some of the videos, whichever ones you think are appropriate for them, and they can then start to learn about these things and feel more empowered.

 

I think this report from Girlguiding is a fantastic report for shining light on this issue, getting this conversation going again. I think it's a wake-up call. It really needs to be a wake-up call for all parents, educators, community groups. And it needs to be, this needs to be the starting point to have those open conversations, to really listen and to equip girls with some

 

knowledge, skills and confidence that they can look after themselves.

 

So I would challenge you today, everyone, if you have girls or boys, because this is an issue that really needs to be talked about with boys as well, because we know boys experience a lot of horrible stuff as well. Sometimes they're on the giving side of that, sometimes they're on the receiving side of that, but none of this is going to change unless we start having those conversations. So my challenge to you is to go and have open conversations with the children in your life.

 

ask them some questions about whether they feel safe, whether they've seen this, whether they've experienced it, whether they've ever done any of these things to someone else and to just really start making a change because we can't wait for government powers that be to do something about this. We all have to start take our own personal responsibility. So that's my challenge for you today and myself. I'm going to go off and do it myself with my kids and I hope you found this podcast episode interesting. If you have

 

please leave us a review, please subscribe, please share it with people because that's the only way we're going to make a change. So until next time, stay safe.