Campaign aims to combat violence

While some 70 percent of Poles see their country as a safe place to live – the figure grew twofold over the past decade – brazen acts of violence are increasingly taking place in Poland, in broad daylight, before onlookers.

The “We need to change that” campaign, which has been launched nationwide, seeks to empower potential bystanders and galvanise them into action.

“We decided to study the topic of inaction in Poland considering violence in the streets and we now know that people are mostly afraid to react, for fear of attack by the perpetrator, they don’t know how to react, or they think that if there are other bystanders someone else will react, and don’t do anything,” says campaign co-organiser Anna Bielecka.

According to the research, over 60 percent of people would fail to help out a victim of aggression.