Street harassment: Affecting the Self-esteem and Mental Health of Young Women in Multan

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine how street harassment affected young women's mental and emotional well-being. The target population was chosen from a variety of universities in Multan. Participants in the study were female university students from Women University Multan, Bahauddin Zakariya University, and Institute of Southern Punjab. The method for choosing participants was through purposive sampling. The correlational research design served as the study's foundation. G-Power Software was used to calculate the sample size. 107 volunteers, ranging in age from 16 to 40, participated in the data collection. Data gathering was done by survey method. The street harassment scale for women (Israa and Ijaz, 2021), as well as the 10-item Urdu version of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) and the 20-item Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS), were the instruments used for data collection. Through the use of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 25), the acquired data were examined. The study's findings were obtained through the use of correlation and regression analysis. The study's findings showed that street harassment has a considerable negative influence on young women's self-esteem. Additionally, the findings showed that street harassment makes young women more depressed, anxious, and stressed, which is indicative of poor mental health in general. The study's conclusions draw attention to the damaging impact of street harassment on women's mental health. In order to preserve women's safety and mental health, this study contributes new perspectives to the body of sociopsychological research on women and highlights the importance of doing everything in our power to prevent episodes of street harassment from occurring.