The Lassies are No Feart

By Emily Beever, Senior Development Officer (NKBL)   YouthLink Scotland

All children and young people have the right to grow up safely. Our research found that for some girls and young women in Scotland, this isn’t the case. Young women told us they experienced violence in different areas of their lives like at school, on social media, and in the community. Additionally, young women were navigating challenges that made it difficult for them to make positive choices to keep themselves and their peers safe.

Getting help 

Young women told us it was hard to get help and support to resolve conflict. The barriers to accessing support from adults were twofold, both due to their relationships with adults and the risk of appearing to be ‘a snitch’. Consequently, young women often felt they needed to take matters into their own hands.

“If you go tell someone, if you go tell your parents, teachers and that you get called a snitch. And if you don’t, you’re just sitting there worrying about everything.” (Young woman)

Many of the participants perceived there to be a lack of support from adults to resolve the underlying conflict that could lead to violence.

 “The teachers don’t care until it’s a fight. They don’t care until it’s a fight.” (Young woman)

Young women told us relationships are key. When they felt an adult understood them, was trusted to keep confidentiality, was reliable and would meet them with a kind response, then young women felt confident getting help.

“I think see instead of shouting at them for what they did. I think they should like, let them like talk like let them like explain.” (Young woman)

Being an active bystander

The young women’s feelings of responsibility were diluted when thinking about violence on social media. This extended to filming in-person violence.

“It doesn’t involve any of us. Like we didn’t create that fight so it’s like we’re just watching it because it’s there.” (Young woman)

Call to action

We want this report to be a call to action for all of us who work with girls and young women to take their experiences seriously and to grow the options for early and preventative support from trusted adults.

Fearless has a role to play in this by ensuring young people can trust they are giving information 100% anonymously and safely to keep themselves and others safe.

No Knives, Better Lives works in partnership with young people and practitioners to understand and address the causes and drivers of youth violence. No Knives, Better Lives is run by YouthLink Scotland, the national agency for youth work and the collective voice of the sector.

The full Lassies are No Feart report and young person’s version are available here.

The e-learning module is available here.