Women’s group calls for single-sex changing rooms at swimming pools following spate of sex crimes
Martin Shipton
A gender critical women’s rights organisation has called for single-sex changing facilities at all swimming pools in the UK after official statistics showed a worrying number of rapes and other sex crimes were reported.
The Women’s Rights Network (WRN) asked every police force in England and Wales to provide a breakdown of sex offences at leisure centres in their areas.
Responses were received from all four police forces in Wales – North Wales, South Wales, Dyfed-Powys and Gwent.
The request for data was fully refused by Gwent Police, which claimed that due to a low number of results there was a high chance of identification. Valid data from 37 leisure centres across the other three force areas in Wales showed that in 2023 there were six reports of rape, two reports of sexual assault and seven reports of voyeurism.
In at least 11 of these cases (73%), the victim was female. The perpetrator was male in 13 out of 15 cases (87%). In one case the perpetrator was a male member of staff. Of the incidents recorded in a changing room, 14 (88%) occurred in a mixed-sex changing room village.
A report by WRN based on the information provided by police forces said: “Based on the data provided, we can reveal that in 2023 there were 16 rapes, 80 sexual assaults and 65 acts of voyeurism across 257 leisure centres in England and Wales.
“The majority of victims are female. Every victim has been catastrophically failed by the leisure industry. The shocking statistics we have uncovered occur against a backdrop of shrinking access to single-sex changing facilities at swimming pools in the UK.
“Mixed-sex changing villages are the default design for new swimming pools and refurbished wet-side changing areas, and they are a magnet for predators. Women and girls are being put at risk of serious sexual crimes because local authorities, sports councils, leisure centre operators and architects do not take women’s safety seriously.
“They ‘design-in’ harm and provide opportunities for avoidable abuse. It is important to acknowledge that men who commit these crimes are known to escalate to more serious offences including sexual assault, rape and murder.
“One of Britain’s most prolific sexual predators used his phone to secretly take intimate images of women.
“In 2021, a report on upskirting by the Crown Prosecution Service warned: “According to our analysis, 15 [out of a total of 46] of the men prosecuted for upskirting since last April were simultaneously charged with other sexual crimes – including child abuse, sexual assault, extreme pornography, and wider voyeurism offences.
“Sport England, local councils, leisure centre operators and architects must act now to ensure the safety of women and girls in UK leisure centres.”
Demands
Women’s Rights Network issued a series of demands:
* Sport England immediately withdraws all guidance promoting mixed-sex wet-side facilities as the default option for new and refurbished leisure centres;
* New facilities provide single-sex changing facilities for swimming pool users;
* Councils conduct a risk assessment on safety for women and girls before rubber-stamping plans for changing areas in new or refurbished leisure centres;
* Crime prevention officers are consulted on all design plans, and their expertise is used to help ‘design out’ crime. Existing changing villages to be assessed for the risk of sex crimes and robust mitigation measures be applied together with consideration of cost-effective solutions ensuring a female-only space.”
Jane Sullivan of Wales Women’s Rights Network, one of the report’s authors, said: “It is disappointing that Gwent Police refused to supply answers to our Freedom of Information request on sexual crimes in leisure centres. This is information that should be in the public domain.
“We know mixed-sex changing facilities are a magnet for sexual predators. Our latest report revealed that in one year there were six rapes, two sexual assaults and seven reports of voyeurism in 37 leisure centres across the three police forces that did respond to our FOI requests.
“No woman should be subjected to these heinous crimes when she goes to a public leisure centre. Councils are failing in their duty to protect women and girls. Mixed-sex changing rooms are a significant risk to women and girls – and where the majority of voyeurism crimes occur.
“We say that all new leisure centres and refurbishment projects should be designed with single-sex changing facilities.”
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Shameful Gwent Police. Utterly shameful. Keep going WRN. You are true heroes. Rape figures across the UK have gone through the roof over the past couple of decades and successive governments have done nothing. Horrendous that organisations such as WRN are needed at all.
The request for data was refused by Gwent Police on the basis that due to a low number of results there was a high chance of identification. This is where a court has decided not to release details of the offence to protect the identity of the VICTIM.
That are right.
They could have provided some figures.
I think these statistics of reported crimes just show the tip of the iceberg.
Most women and girls I know have been made to feel uncomfortable or even unsafe on at least one occasion in these mixed sex changing facilities – there may not have been a specific enough incident to report to the police but it has been enough to stop many from using their local leisure facilities.
Indirect sex discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. Even if a facility is open to both sexes equally, its design can create a “particular disadvantage” for women that is legally actionable if it prevents them from using the service.
Diolch to Women’s Rights Network for compiling this report. Totally shameful that Gwent police wouldn’t provide data and the others only did because of FoI requests. Single sex spaces are essential to make women and girls safe
The request for data was refused by Gwent Police on the basis that due to a low number of results there was a high chance of identification. This is where a court has decided not to release details of the offence to protect the identity of the VICTIM.
That are right.
Why is Jane Sullivan the spokesperson for Wales Women’s Rights Network?
https://www.rgsw.org.uk/worcester/farewell-mrs-sullivan/
She rowed for England, worked in Worcester, and currently lives in Dubai.
Here we go. The amount of misogyny that organisation has already suffered and you pile on more. I don’t care if she’s from the moon, she’s a hero.
Because these astroturf organisations don’t have a deep bench. It’s a bit like the spokesman for the pro-smacking campaign in Wales being a lawyer who works in Newcastle.
Did the public ask for unisex changing rooms in the first place?
They didn’t but the trans lobby has been very violent and aggressive. Thankfully the Supreme Court confirmed that biological women should have their own spaces and sports, free from biological men. It’s just that some organisations – including the FAW (horrendous when the Scots and English have sorted it) – are moving very slowly. It’s extraordinary and a real risk to safety.
You might have got this backwards. By abolishing gender (rendering it the same as biological sex) the legal justification for facilities that discriminate by biological sex is in doubt. Imagine a facility that segregated by another protected characteristic such as race and you’ll see the dilemma.
No. The SC was quite clear. Biological women have a right to spaces and sports for biological women. As you can see, having unisex spaces because of the 0.1% of the population that are trans is proving to be highly, highly dangerous. It’s genuinely shocking.
Until it’s challenged in court. The justification for segregation is based on gender not biological sex. It’s learned behaviour, like your friend Andrew Tate preaches, not genes that puts women and girls at risk from men. His gender ideology is the danger and without gender being treated separately from biology there’s less the law can do to protect people.
No. The SC was quite clear that it is based on biological sex. Completely clear. Not sure where the cheap Tate jibe came in but there you go. Men can naturally be a risk to women as every woman has known since the dawn of time. Go and talk to one sometime.
If it can’t be taught why is Tate a thing?
The ruling aligned (or realigned) gender with biological sex. It was the divergence of the two that allowed segregation under modern discrimination laws. It also allowed modern women’s rights like voting and workplace equality.
This is all a Trojan horse for religious fundamentalists who want to roll back women’s rights to the time when traditional roles were defined by biology as leader hunter gatherers and homemaking baby machines.
Google “tradwife” if you don’t think this is the direction the right are heading.
The lead judge on the FWS case has said that this is not true. I think they have a greater insight into the ruling than you.
FWS won their case hands down? Hence the brilliant celebrations.
Trans people are perfectly happy with single-sex facilities, having used them for decades prior to the current moral panic.