The law aims to criminalise behaviour such as following someone walking home at night, making obscene or aggressive comments to them, obstructing their path or driving slowly near them in public spaces.
It's certainly about time such widespread harassment (directed at women day in and day out) was stopped so women can walk the streets without being subject to such unwanted behaviour.
I wonder though whether the new law will actually achieve its objective of preventing harassment. It's possible many men will simply ignore the law, assuming either that women won't take any action, or that they can deny any wrongdoing, or that it will be difficult to prove specific acts of harassment. It would be one person's word against another's, as is often the case with rape.
If the woman is harassed by a complete stranger, he can make himself scarce and the woman can do nothing as she can't identify the man in question.
That said, the new law may work like the anti-smoking laws, and there will be a gradual cultural shift in which street harassment becomes as unacceptable and unthinkable as having a fag in a no-smoking area.
I shall be watching the operation of the new law with great interest. But I don't have much confidence that it will stop male pestering.
