Almost a third of young women don't feel safe in public places at night, A Right to the Night report finds.

By social affairs correspondent Norman Hermant

One in three young Australian women do not believe they should be in public spaces at night, a report has found.

Nearly a quarter of those asked also said they did not think young women should ever travel on public transport alone.

“We were really surprised to get the results back,” Susanne Legena of child rights agency Plan International Australia said.

“This is Australia in 2016, and you’ve got one in three young women saying they’re afraid to be out in public spaces after dark … and as a result they’re curbing their behaviour.”

The report, A Right to the Night — by the research firm Ipsos — questioned 600 young women aged 15 to 19 across Australia.

The survey was commissioned by Plan International Australia and Our Watch — a not-for-profit group dedicated to preventing violence against women.

“There’s this in-built kind of fear that you all acknowledge that you shouldn’t go out at night if you’re a girl,” 18-year-old Kea Tokley-Higgs, a first year university student, said.

Ms Tokley-Higgs and two friends said they did not find the results surprising — they all feel unsafe after dark in public places.

“Women should feel safe enough to go outside at night. Women are as much a part of the society as men are, so we should have every right to the public space,” 18-year-old Lana Rice said.

“It’s just so shocking and disappointing that a country like ours is still suffering from these sort of ideas, and this fear that’s spreading for all the young women,” Grady-Mae Dixon, also 18, said.

The young women the ABC spoke to said the reasons for feeling unsafe included:

• The many incidents of sexual assaults on women
• Feeling uncomfortable around men who had been drinking
• Feeling insecure in relatively empty areas with poor lighting

Another aspect of the report found nearly a quarter of young women believed they should never take public transport alone.

That number also was not a surprise for Sherry Xu, 18, who is particularly uneasy on public transport after dark.

“At night time, when I’m alone, I feel a little bit apprehensive.” Ms Xu said, as she rode on a relatively empty train in the evening in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

She is also deeply affected by reports of assaults on women.

“Because of these stories, I do feel more frightened when I am taking public transport. Because I’m frightened that these things might actually happen to me, as someone who’s also a young woman.”

Victim blaming firmly entrenched in Australian culture

Plan International said perhaps the most troubling response to the survey was when young women were asked about clothing.

Seventen per cent agreed that when a girl wears revealing clothing, she is partially responsible for unwanted attention or harassment.

“One of the things that really emerged out of the research is this culture we have in Australia of victim blaming,” Plan International Australia’s Susanne Legena said.

“Young women have internalised that … they’re choosing to stay at home, modify the clothes they wear, in order to feel safe.”

Grady-Mae Dixon believes victim blaming is firmly entrenched in Australian culture.

“When someone gets attacked, or a woman specifically, the question is: ‘What was she wearing?’ ‘How did she act?’ ‘Was she drinking?’ ‘Cause she was asking for it if she was drinking.”

Plan International conducts similar surveys around the world.

Young women in Australia felt more unsafe in public spaces than did their counterparts in Nicaragua in Central America, where only 23 per cent of young women felt they should avoid public spaces after dark.

City planners urged to consider women’s safety more

The report recommends practical and wide ranging solutions.

It suggests city planners take women’s safety concerns more into account with improved lighting at night and a higher priority placed on personal security on public transport.

It also recommends more responsible reporting about sexual assaults and violence against women, with special attention paid to avoiding victim blaming.

It also wants to see more education for young men and women about the rights of young women to feel secure in public spaces.

The young women the ABC spoke with say a good start would be if men — particularly their peers — would give more consideration to how easy it is for young women to feel unsafe in public.

“My male friends … sometimes they don’t really see what the problem is necessarily. And they think that we’re overreacting,” Kea Tokley-Higgs said.

Grady-Mae Dixon added: “They don’t understand the fear that you feel … because they’ve never felt it themselves.”

This post originally appeared on ABC News.

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