Some of the world’s cities take baby steps to protect women

NEW DELHI – Going out for dinner and not sure which area would be safer at night for a woman traveling on her own? Want to track your daughter to ensure she gets back from college safely?

A map-based mobile safety app may be your answer. Safetipin, designed by the charity Jagori, uses crowdsourcing to rate the safety of areas in Delhi based on factors including lighting, population density, transport and gender diversity.

It also acts as a personal GPS tracker, allowing users to be tracked or to trace a loved one.

Safetipin is one of thousands of projects being rolled out in cities across the world as part of a United Nations initiative to stem cases of rape, sexual harassment and molestation in urban areas.

From New Delhi in India to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea and Quito in Ecuador, a small but growing number of municipalities, charities, companies and community groups are joining U.N. Women’s Safe Cities Global Initiative.

“Unsafe public spaces limit women’s and girl’s life choices. This daily reality limits their freedom to participate in education, work, recreation, and in political life,” said Laxmi Puri, deputy executive director of U.N. Women.

“In many cities, adolescent girls are afraid to walk on their own when they go to school on the streets in their own neighborhoods because they experience various forms of sexual harassment, such as cat-calling, stalking, whistling, touching.”

One in three women globally have experienced physical and/or sexual violence, according to U.N. Women.

While many countries have in recent years strengthened laws and improved infrastructure to curb sex crimes, efforts have lacked a coordinated, focused approach — and are rarely assessed for their effectiveness, experts say.

A burgeoning metropolis of 25 million, Delhi and its environs gained notoriety for sexual violence after a young woman was gang-rapped on an unlicensed bus in December 2012.

The attack, and the victim’s death from her injuries sparked widespread protests and increasing awareness of the problem.

As a result, more women are reporting abuses, say charities and the police. There were 2,166 reported rapes in 2014 in the city against 1,636 in 2013 for a rise of 32 percent, according to police data.

“There are areas where I feel safe like around busy markets where there are lots of restaurants, but there are many areas where it’s really scary,” said Reshmi, 22, a student, outside the Green Park metro station in South Delhi.

New Delhi is now one of 25 cities, including Port Moresby, Quito, Kigali and Cairo, to have joined the safe cities project. Some of the initiatives so far include boosting street lighting, installing toilets, setting up help lines and strengthening laws on sexual harassment.

Each city first does a “scoping” survey on perceptions and attitudes towards sexual violence that is used to develop city-specific programs that are evaluated every five years.

In Delhi, for example, the first study done in 2012 found that 90 percent of women had experienced sexual violence in public spaces and only 5 percent felt safe in the city.

Using these findings, authorities, charities and others can work out specific initiatives to address women’s safety.

As well as the introduction of mobile apps like Safetipin, programs that encourage men and boys to think about sexist behavior are also being carried out.

At the same time, the authorities are installing CCTV cameras in buses and police stations. They have also ordered taxi firms to have GPS systems in their cabs, and set up fast-track courts for sexual violence, amongst other measures.

Other cities are also taking up the challenge. For example, in Cairo, the ministry of urban planning has adopted women’s safety audits to guide their development plans.

In Papua New Guinea’s capital, Port Moresby, authorities have upgraded a market where more than 80 percent of the vendors are women. They have build new infrastructure, including bathrooms and showers, renovated market stalls, provided access to potable water and established a vendors association.

Municipal officials, however, admit that ending sexual violence is not just about creating infrastructure, but also about sustained public campaigns that dispel sexism and challenge gender stereotypes.

“In the city of Kigali, every new paved road is accompanied by public lighting. This has contributed to a safer environment in which women can work in the evening and night hours,” said Hope Tumukunde, vice mayor of Rwanda’s capital, at conference on safe cities in Delhi last week.

“But we are also using artists to deliver strong messages against sexual harassment through a popular singing competition. Such strong messages can go a long way towards changing sexist attitudes and it will ensure more prevention than retribution.”

websites- safetipin.com

Google Play Store  : - Personal & Women Safety App

Creating Engagement in Public Spaces for Safer Cities for Women

The rapid pace and nature of urbanization taking place throughout the world has thrown up new challenges for governments, and their populations as well as social scientists and activists. Urban spaces provide new opportunities for people to build their homes and lives, but at the same time reinforce existing inequalities and often create new ones. Gender is a central axis of discrimination along with poverty, disability and other vulnerabilities. While violence and fear may have impacts on the whole population, marginalized groups are much more vulnerable. Women face the fear of sexual violence as a constant threat to their ability to move around, to work and their general well-being.

There is increasing concern about women’s safety in cities over the past few years. The fear of violence in public spaces affects the everyday lives of women as it restricts their movement and freedom to exert their right as citizens of the city – freedom to move, study, work, and leisure. Women, particularly those living in low income settlements, feel unsafe in their settlements after dark as the areas are poorly lit, the streets are not well paved, the drain water overflows on the streets making it tough for them to walk, and the bus stops are often located in a corner of the settlements – forcing them to walk in the dark streets.

Creating safety involves much more than just responding to violence. It is important to create the conditions by which women are able to move about safely and without fear of violence or assault. Fear often plays a key role in women’s experience and access to the city. Therefore in order to create greater levels of safety and comfort, both actual violence and the fear of violence need to be addressed. Research has shown that many factors play a role in determining women’s access to the city including urban design and planning, community involvement, improved policing, usage of space etc.

Keeping this in mind, we developed the mobile app and online platform Safetipin which collects information on public spaces through a safety audit that can be done by anyone, anywhere in the world. In cities everywhere in the world, women’s safety in public spaces is becoming a growing concern. Safetipin is a free app and can be downloaded from the App store or Google play.

Research from different parts of the world show that women face sexual harassment on a regular basis in cities. In India, certainly the gruesome rape and murder in December 2012 has changed public perception of women’s safety and we find both greater reportage of violence and improved response from stakeholders. At the core of Safetipin is the safety audit that measures nine parameters including lighting, the state of the walk path, as well as the presence of people and specifically women, on the streets and ‘eyes on the street’. Each audit appears as a pin on the map and is used to compute the Safety Score of an area.

Safetipin has been designed both as a tool in the hands of individual women who can access information about safety in the city and as a method of collecting data on a large scale for city authorities to use for better planning and governance. An individual user can conduct a safety audit, pin places where she feels unsafe or has faced any form of harassment. She is also able to see all the information that has been uploaded by others and make informed decisions about moving around the city safely. Women (and men) can see the Safety Score of any place in the city and can also use it when they visit new cities.

But Safetipin also seeks to collect large scale information for helping city stakeholders improve safety using data. For the city authority, Safetipin provides large scale data that is crowd sourced and also provides a platform for interaction with citizens on their safety concerns. For example, there are over 6000 audits in the city of Delhi and this has been shared with police, transport and other stakeholders.

In order to help city governments, we are collaborating with UN-Habitat to collect data and address women’s safety in three cities – Bogota, Nairobi and Delhi. The data will be shared with key city stakeholders to ensure that it can feed into initiatives and programs to improve safety. Further, a second round of audits can be conducted to measure the change and impact of programs.

Currently we have data and safety audits in nine Indian cities. The App has also started to be used in Jakarta, Indonesia and Bogota, Colombia. Currently it is available in four languages – English, Hindi, Spanish and Bahasa. We plan to increase this as more cities join the network. We are hopeful that the data that is collected will be useful for city planners to make safer cities for women around the world.
Read more about the SafetiPinRead more about UN-Habitat and gender

Google Play Store… Personal Safety App

City Planning: Built Environment and Personal Safety

City Planning – Built Environment and Personal Safety 

Many researches indicate that real and perceived dangers of personal safety restrict an individual's lifestyles and movement. But still we find that a significant portion of our physical activity like walking, cycling, and physical exercise takes place in the public environment of our neighborhood. Now, is there any link between personal safety and the built environment? Which public policy or urban planning interventions can instill a sense of safety in your neighborhood? Which elements of the urban design and development discourage criminal activity? Can we thwart crime by changing the built environment of our neighborhood?

Crime and the Built Environment 

Today, interest in the link between the physical environment and crime is growing because of increasing crime incidents. The idea of crime prevention through well-thought-out urban design and development plan is attracting particular attention today. This is because of the growing pace of urbanization. Modern city designs in many cases are typically undermining people’s ability to observe public streets. People are restricted to their individual housing units, thus breaking down informal social control of criminal activity. Many city designers view natural surveillance (“eyeballs available on the streets”) as a good deterrent of criminal activities in your neighborhood.

Thus, crime and the physical/built environment are related in an observable and controllable manner. The physical or built environment exerts a direct influence on criminal activities in your neighborhood. It does so by marking territories, increasing or decreasing accessibility by creating or eliminating boundaries and circulation networks, and by facilitating surveillance by the individuals, groups and the police.

SafetiPin provides information about infrastructure and other physical attributes of a place to promote safety for women and other groups. SafetiPin mobile safety app facilitates public policy and urban planning interventions to instill a sense of safety in your neighborhood.

Source... www.safetipin.com

Google Play Store... Download Safetipin App
Apple Play Store...   Download Safetipin App

Tracking through SafetiPin

The recent events in Delhi have once again highlighted the need to be careful, and take appropriate safety precautions.  It is also important to maintain perspective and not allow specific incidents to change the way we live our lives.

The SafetiPin tracking feature is something that allows the user of the app to control their lives a bit more and be safer.  It is not a stalking app – in that control is with the person being tracked and not the tracker.  Hence women and other vulnerable individuals can use this Personal safety app when they feel uncomfortable and want someone to know where they are, without necessarily being tracked at all times.

The SafetiPin tracking feature works when both the tracker and the person(s) tracking have the SafetiPin app installed.  They can be Android, or Apple, or Windows users.

       

The person who wants to be tracked can identify friends who can track them in Settings.  Once this is done, tracking will be started once the person selects the ‘Track Me’ option in the Menu.  This will continue till the same key is selected again.

The receiver can see all the people who wish to be tracked by selecting the ‘Track’ option from the Menu.  They will see the route being taken by the person as a pin every two minutes.

There is also an ‘Emergency’ feature.  Selecting the Emergency button, sends sms and emails to selected friends, who do not need to be SafetiPin users.  Tracking is possible even on a browser.  The Emergency can be called off only by selecting a special code, to prevent a person being coerced into sending the message.

Source…. www.safetipin.com