A Tarrant County nonprofit is offering school children lessons on how to identify and prevent sexual harassment.
According to recent reports by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, one in four people are affected by workplace sexual harassment, and 75 percent of all workplace harassment incidents go unreported.
It's not only adults who are impacted by sexual harassment. The statistics reveal sexual harassment is widespread in school life for boys and girls.
According to The American Association of University of Women (AAUW), eight in 10 students experience some form of sexual harassment during their school lives.
"There is a culture of normalization," said Amy Suffield, Community Education Services Coordinator for The Women's Center of Tarrant County. Suffield teaches classes on sexual harassment to students from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade as part of The Women's Center's "Play it Safe" program.
"In middle school it's happening 80 percent of the time," explained Suffield. "Even if we go back to kindergarten, we see that some kindergartners are saying certain things and they are already starting to normalize it that behavior. So its never too early to start undoing that."
"We need to start a conversation, but it's a hard conversation to have," Suffield said. "When we open the conversation up to the students they start to realize, 'oh now I can speak up, or my voice does matter.' We can shift the mindset."
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The Women's Center says it has received 237 reports of sexual abuse from students in 2017.
