Moving around the city should be an everyday and free right: to study, work, visit a friend, or simply enjoy public spaces without fear. However, for many women and members of LGBTI social sectors, public transport has become a territory of risk. Every journey is a silent negotiation with fear, a constant vigilance over one’s body and surroundings. According to a diagnosis based on the 2023 Mobility Survey and the report Caracterización de los patrones de movilidad en Bogotá con enfoque de género e interseccional, conducted by Sensata, CAF, and Secretaría Distrital de Movilidad, although women make 45.96% of daily trips and account for 55.68% of public transport users, they bear the greatest burden of violence: 90.42% of reported sexual assault victims in the system are women. The most common forms of aggression include leering (17.46%), unwanted touching (13.08%), and obscene comments (7.12%). Sexual harassment, in the form of comments, gestures, unwanted touching, and non-consensual physical contact, has ceased to be an exceptional threat and has instead become a daily experience that shapes movements and limits autonomy.
Image source: @hasslofficial on Instagram. Retrieved from https://www.instagram.com/hasslofficial
Although Colombia has recognized the crime of sexual harassment in its Penal Code since 2008 (Article 210A), in practice, the path to justice for victims remains full of obstacles. Not only is it difficult to report these incidents, but even when women manage to do so, their cases are often dismissed or misclassified. The gravest problem is not simply the low chances of achieving justice, but that many reported acts are treated as minor offenses, such as “insult through physical means,” rather than being recognized as sexual harassment. This misclassification strips victims of the full acknowledgment of the harm they have suffered and subjects them to processes that often end in forced conciliation, discouraging them from seeking reparation.
This daily violence unfolds during the most routine journeys: at a crowded station, on a packed bus where an anonymous hand brushes against the body without consent, or during a hurried walk to a deserted bus stop. These are fleeting aggressions, but they leave deep marks. They are not isolated incidents: according to the study by Sensata, CAF, and Secretaría Distrital de Movilidad, 44.9% of women surveyed reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment during their journeys, with young women aged 14 to 24 being the most exposed. Each invasive look, each unwanted touch, each obscene word adds an invisible burden that shapes how women and LGBTI people navigate the city, forcing them to design defensive routes rather than freely chosen paths.
The difficulty in accessing justice does not stem solely from individual barriers, but from a structurally indifferent system. As evidenced by the psycho-legal support teams of the Secretaría Distrital de la Mujer, in their daily work, many victims choose not to report because they fear they will not be believed, because they could not clearly identify the aggressor, or because they feel it is not worth facing a system that, instead of protecting them, often revictimizes them. Even when evidence exists, such as security camera footage, its use is restricted and does not always translate into effective judicial action. Moreover, in cases of sexual harassment, the law often requires victims to prove “systematic behavior” or a “position of power” by the perpetrator, a nearly impossible burden in the context of public transport where most aggressors are strangers and attacks are rapid and unexpected.
The consequences of sexual harassment are not merely physical. They are silent, intimate, yet profound. Each unwanted touch, each vulgar comment, accumulates in the body’s memory and reshapes how women experience the city. Many end up changing their routes, avoiding going out at night, modifying the way they dress, or walking constantly on alert. Harassment not only limits mobility; it also undermines the right to inhabit public space with freedom and dignity.
However, when we talk about justice, it should not be reduced to criminal proceedings. Reparation for victims can and must go far beyond judicial convictions. For some women, justice might mean the perpetrator performing community service, such as cleaning public spaces or undergoing mandatory training on violence prevention. For others, reparation could mean a public apology, an effective social sanction, or simply public acknowledgment that what they experienced was violence, not an “exaggeration” or a “misunderstanding.”
Proposals for alternative sanctions, such as those contemplated in the Normative Proposal for Addressing Sexual Harassment in Bogotá’s Public Space (UN Women), which reforms Agreements 073 of 2003 and 735 of 2019 to include administrative sanctions for street harassment, aim precisely at this: creating closer, faster, and more meaningful mechanisms of response for victims. These proposals suggest that beyond the criminal route, administrative mechanisms should exist to sanction harassment behaviors through fines, community service, mandatory human rights training, or bans from accessing certain public spaces.
The idea behind alternative sanctions is not to replace criminal justice but to complement it, recognizing the complexity of sexual harassment in public spaces and the enormous difficulties victims face within judicial processes. When women encounter stalled investigations, conciliations with their aggressors, or face nearly impossible evidentiary burdens, such as proving the systematic nature of attacks committed by strangers, they not only relive the trauma but also see their pain minimized or dismissed.
Image source: @hasslofficial on Instagram. Retrieved from https://www.instagram.com/hasslofficial
Because when the justice system fails, the harm is compounded: not only does one suffer the initial attack, but also the institutional indifference. Not being heard, not being believed, and not finding a clear path to reparation deepen the original violence. That is why opening alternative routes of sanction, where harm is named, made visible, and repaired in agile and culturally transformative ways, is also an act of justice.
Accessing justice means recognizing that sexual harassment is neither an isolated event nor merely a case of “misbehavior,” but a structural expression of power and gender inequality. It means transforming transport systems to make them safer, but also transforming collective imaginaries that still blame women for their own victimization. It means understanding that acting after harm is not enough: prevention must start from shared social responsibility, recognizing that building safe public spaces is not solely the task of victims or authorities but of the entire community. Crucially, it requires that men, and masculinities, in the plural, actively engage in rejecting and preventing harassment, embodying positive, non-violent, and responsible masculinities that affirm women’s right to inhabit the city freely and without fear. Accessing justice, in its broadest sense, also means listening to those who have lived through fear in buses, stations, and streets. And asking ourselves, with honesty and courage: what are we willing to change so that moving through the city is no longer, for so many women, an act of daily resistance?
References
1. Hoyos Pulido, C. A. Normative Proposal for Addressing Sexual Harassment in Bogotá’s Public Space. UN Women.
2. Secretaría Distrital de Movilidad de Bogotá. (2023). Mobility Survey.
3. UN Women. (2019). Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces for Women and Girls Global Programme.
4. Secretaría Distrital de la Mujer. (2025). Tools and Socio-Legal Challenges of Sexual Harassment Against Women. Bogotá, Colombia.
5. Sensata UX Research. (2024). Characterization of Mobility Patterns in Bogotá with a Gender and Intersectional Perspective. Bogotá Mobility Secretariat, CAF.
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