The shorts, locked (Picture: Safe Shorts)

A woman in Germany has created anti-rape shorts, which began as a personal project after she was attacked while out running.

There are two types of Safe Shorts – underpants and running shorts – and both are made from slash and tear-resistant material, and have a lock as well as an alarm.

The shorts are fastened with a cut-resistant cord, which is attached to the waist or pelvic area (depending on which style you have), and then secured with a clip that has a coded padlock.

You can access this padlock in seconds with the code, but if someone else tampers with it, a 140 decibel alarm sounds.




The wearer also has the option of setting the alarm off themselves, should they feel threatened.

The shorts come in black, but you get a choice of lock colours.

The shorts were created by Sandra Seilz from Germany, who was attacked by three men while out running.

‘Three men came in front of me, one tried to pull down my running trousers, and another grabbed me while the other tried to rape me,’ Seilz tells Vice.

‘I’m the lucky one, because there was a man with a dog, and the dog ran towards the men and they ran away.

‘[Later], when I was sitting at home, I thought: “What could have happened there?”‘

The shorts, unlocked (Picture: Safe Shorts)

You might scoff at this but according to the Office of National Statistics there were 106,098 police recorded sexual offences in the UK, in the year ending March 2016 – an increase of 20% compared with the previous year.

Within the overall increase, the number of offences of rape increased by 22% to 35,699 offences, and the number of other sexual offences increased by 19% to 70,399 offences – both of which are the highest figures since the introduction of the National Crime Recording Standard in 2002.

These figures are going up year on year – and of course, don’t include rapes that were unreported.

Women have ordered Safe Shorts from countries like Sweden, Norway, Spain, the USA and Australia.

Seilz says she’s had a lot of inquiries from places like South America, India and Asia, but the price is too high for them. This motivated her to move production from the Czech Republic to India, to try and make the product more accessible to women – especially in places like these, where rape rates are high.

The running shorts are currently €149 (£104.87) and the underpants €89 (£62.64).

Of course, in an ideal world, men would learn not to rape, and women could go about their lives without fear of being violated.

However, we don’t live in an ideal world – not even close – and until these men learn to view women as human beings and not objects, it makes sense that women should want to take preventative measures in high risk situations.



You can exercise your right to not be raped all you want, but it doesn’t mean you’re safe.

I remember reading a piece recently from a female journalist who was told to wear a one-piece swimsuit under her clothes when working in certain countries, to bide her time if she was attacked.

It made me sad that I actually thought this was a great idea for future backpacking trips, after having spent time in countries where I felt particularly unsafe because people were getting sexually assaulted left, right and centre.

One day, I hope we live in a world where women don’t live in fear coming home late at night/sitting alone on trains in foreign countries/being alone in a lift with a stranger.

Until then, there’s Safe Shorts. Buy a pair here.

MORE: We need to be clear what sexual assault actually is

MORE: Sexual assault is not a problem we can solve with a consent app

MORE: Rape victims' clothing goes on display at an exhibition to show it's not what you wear

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