Increasing adolescent girls’ (13-24) safety in and access to public spaces and their active and meaningful participation in finding solutions for safe and autonomous mobility.
Increasing adolescent girls’ (13-24) safety in and access to public spaces and their active and meaningful participation in finding solutions for safe and autonomous mobility.
By 2030, around 700 million girls will live in urban areas.3
In Hà Noi, Vietnam, 36% of girls reported that they rarely had access to emergency services – notably the police.3
In Kampala, Uganda, 45% of girls reported being sexually harassed on public transport.3
In Lima, Peru, only 2.2% of girls reported always feeling safe when walking in public spaces.3
In New Delhi, India, 96% of adolescent girls do not feel safe in the city.3
Following the 2018 ‘Unsafe in the City’ research, more recent global surveys by Plan reveal that women all around the world do not feel safe in their cities. For instance, similar proportions of girls and women in capital or large cities in Australia (75%), Germany (72-85%), Peru (89%), Spain (84%) and Uganda (80%) rated public spaces as unsafe.
In this interview, Plan International colleagues and young women activists from the Safer Cities for Girls programme, tell us why adolescent girls have unique and specific experiences and needs in public spaces and why it is important to sensitise decision-makers, adolescent boys and the wider community to these, as well as what this global programme looks like locally in cities around the world, using innovative participatory methods for young people to lead change in their cities.
In the short excerpt below, Yllaylee Das, Global Programme Manager – Safer Cities for Girls, briefly explains the big idea behind the programme. For the FULL INTERVIEW, please visit Soundcloud or Spotify.
Community engagement
Data/technology
Education/behaviour change
Organisational training/skills building
Policy/advocacy
Research
Stakeholder co-ordination and network-building
Since 2014, Safer Cities for Girls has worked with young people in a sustained manner to develop leadership skills to effect positive change in communities and young people’s access to public spaces and services. It has:
Directly reached 40,000 girls, 25,000 boys, 700,000 community members, 4,000 transportation stakeholders and 2,500 government stakeholders in 15 cities around the world.
In Vietnam, included young people’s concerns and recommendations in the Hà Noi District Development Plan for the 2020–25 period.
In Uganda, enabled the adoption of recommendations from young activists to ensure safeguards against sexual harassment in public transportation in reforms to the Traffic and Road Safety Act.
In India, with the National Institute of Urban Affairs, engaged young people in the development of child- and adolescent-friendly indicators in the cities’ Master Plan.