John Keells conducts campaign against sexual harassment on public transport for the third successive year

John Keells Foundation conducted a successful public transport campaign on 26th November 2018 to coincide with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, for the third successive year. 

This year’s campaign targeted bus commuters within the Colombo City limits through a sticker and leaflet campaign with the approval and cooperation of both the Sri Lanka Transport Board and Western Province Provincial Road Passenger Transport Authority. Teams of volunteers from the John Keells Group carried out the campaign at the busiest bus depots in Colombo – SLTB’s Pettah Central Bus Complex and the Borella Bus Depot as well as the private bus terminals in Bastian Mawatha and Gunasinghepura throughout the day to create awareness.

This year’s campaign was carried out under the theme ‘See it, Report it, Prevent it’ encouraging all to report sexual harassment when they see in order to prevent it. The campaign raised awareness on the National Transport Commission hotline 1955, police hotlines 119 / 011 2 444 444 and the related app developed by Women In Need (WIN).  Under the campaign, 1500 stickers in Sinhala and Tamil were pasted while approximately 28,000 information cards were distributed amongst commuters by 75 staff volunteers. The campaign is estimated to have reached of over 100,000 commuters. The public campaign was complemented by an internal poster campaign covering all businesses of the John Keells Group including customer interfaces.