Yes, it’s another article about sexual harassment and sexism, this time in the quarantine hotels designed to keep people safe. The global pandemic has put a lot of things in perspective and made a lot of pre-existing problems a lot worse. For good reason, there has been a significant focus on physical health, social distancing, and tackling anti-vaccine campaigns in the last two years. While these efforts have been ongoing, other important aspects of life and wellbeing have been left by the wayside. The problems facing women have remained largely ignored. 

This has been most evident recently in the treatment of women during their stays at quarantine hotels. Mandatory quarantining when returning from abroad has created a dangerous environment for women. Numerous reports have been circulating about the conduct of security guards in these quarantine hotels.

Male security guards have been inviting themselves into guests’ rooms, making lewd remarks in the hallways, following individuals around the hotels, miming sexual acts during lift journeys, and asking for selfies with guests.

Surprising? Not really. Unacceptable? Absolutely.

Sexual harassment in quarantine hotels

Private security companies like G4S have been employed by the government to ensure that those individuals in quarantine observe the rules imposed upon them. This includes patrolling the hallways of quarantine hotels, escorting guests to and from facilities like the gym, and delivering items to hotel rooms.

While some guards fulfil their duties properly, it is clear that some male guards abuse their position of power and sexually harass hotel guests. One nurse, Marie Sidwell, experienced just such behaviour when she ordered Amazon parcels to her hotel room. After opening her door to receive the parcels, the guard outside proceeded to ask for a hug and advanced towards her open door. His advances were refused and reported to hotel staff, but nothing was done, and the guard proceeded to return at a later date.

These new hotbeds of sexual harassment have been reported for some time now, and the government introduced a new phone line for women to report harassment confidentially as well as new rules about female guard details. Regrettably, the new measures have failed to prevent harassment in the quarantine hotels, with at least two women reporting harassment after the new rules were implemented.

One hotel guest, Lorna Farmer, was forced to leave her quarantine hotel when a number of guards made lewd comments to her. A guard repeatedly imposed himself on Farmer, suggesting that he should ‘come in and entertain’ her. Farmer was contacted by West Midlands Police following her exit, as she had broken quarantine restrictions when she left and could be liable to pay £10,000 for the offence. She proceeded to have the following exchange with public health officials:

‘The woman from public health said, ‘Lorna, are you aware that West Midlands Police are looking for you, that they’ve put you down as absconded?’ I was like, ‘No, I spoke to Northamptonshire Police and reported everything that’s happened, and they are absolutely happy with me being home.’
And she was like, ‘You have to come back today, otherwise we will come and get you and you’ll be prosecuted and fined.’ And I was like, ‘Are you serious? After everything that’s happened?”

Can the issue be eliminated?

New rules regarding female guards for female guests have been difficult to implement for security firms. G4S has made it clear that there simply are not enough female guards to ensure every female guest is chaperoned. It has suggested that two male security guards could work together in a chaperoning system instead. This solution, however, fails to take stock of the problem, as one quarantining guest, Sarah, told BBC News:

‘Personally, I would find two male guards more intimidating than just one lone guard. A group of male guards were talking about me when they clearly saw one male guard was being inappropriate with me. I don’t think it ensures the safety of women, rather it increases possible risk.’

According to investigations reported in The Guardian, the desire to feel powerful is a prime motive for many sexually abusive men; successful mean believe they are entitled to have what they want, while disempowered men attempt to attain a feeling of power by coercion.

Is it possible then, to remove this need for power or else divert the need away from sexualised fantasy? It is in the interest of every person in the UK for answers to these questions to be found. Sexual harassment is not simply a problem for victims of this terrible crime. It is a problem for men, women, and children of all creeds who bear the burden of the primary, secondary, and even tertiary effects. For the people who are lucky enough to have avoided this dark alley of society altogether, the problem is a moral one. How can we stand a world where such terrible things persist, and we don’t try our hardest to stop them?

For the year ending March 2020, there were 773,000 adults aged 16 to 74 who were victims of sexual assault. The time has long since passed for that number to start going down.

 If you are affected by the content of this article, you are not alone and support is available. 

About the Author: Isaac Knowles

Isaac Knowles is a contributing current affairs Features writer. He focuses on social issues which face everyday people and has written on topics such as race, feminism, and poverty. While endeavouring to write in-depth pieces that make real-world impacts, Isaac has developed significant expertise in the fields of politics, economics, and human rights.