Sweden

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The other day I was going for a swim so I left my phone at home. It was 9pm so not very late and as I was walking down a residential street a man was dressed fully in black, a black hoodie and long black pants, which stuck out in the summer heat. He was masturbating and exposing himself. I walked over to the other side of the street and hurried towards a group of people smoking at the end of the block to ask them to call the police. I have regularly seen men masturbating in public in central Stockholm every since I was a child and it is traumatic, threatening and horrible. I was lucky I wasn’t attacked, this man was clearly a sexual predator. He was looking in the windows of the apartments while masturbating and seemed like he was stalking the street for a victim but was spooked when I had such a strong reaction and stared intently at him. When he saw me approach the group he calmly walked down the street as if it was just a normal day like any other.

Miranda

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Just before the start of my last class for the day, I decided to go to the store and buy myself a small piece of nougat. Following me were seven guys from my year. I knew they were very loud and managed to land themselves in trouble way too often, but it was nothing I thought about at that time. Then I felt a hand slap my butt. Hard. And one of the guys loudly proclaimed “I wouldn’t mind riding you all night”, while his friends laughed. I felt my cheeks turn red and quickly walked out of the store with his comment still ringing in my ears. I had to be with some of the guys during the next lesson and I couldn’t stop thinking about the incident, much less concentrate on the tasks we were given. I’m now seventeen, and I still remember the details of what happened. “Still?” you ask, “When was the incident?” Six years ago. When I was only eleven. And I live in Sweden, one of the most equal countries on Earth.