URBAN DESIGN AND WOMEN'S
SAFETY WED IN MONTREAL
SAFETY
By Helen
Drusine - WEnews correspondent
MONTREAL (WOMENSENEWS)
--Buses here let women off
in between stops at night,
new Metro stations are surrounded
by glass so that women can
see and be seen and emergency
telephones are within easy
reach in parks and other public
areas.
In a pilot project
in two neighborhoods, workers
at nearly 200 small businesses
have been trained to be able
to respond to a woman in danger.
Signs in the windows announce,
"Here You're in Good
Hands; Your Safety is Important
to Us."
The goal of
these measures and others
around the world is to increase
urban safety and the mobility
of women and to reduce acts
of aggression against women
in public places.
Some 150 specialists
on women's safety from 20
countries and the United Nations
experienced the Montreal program
first-hand when they attended
this month's First International
Seminar on Women's Safety.
The seminar brought together
women's groups, community
organizations, city governments
and international agencies
to work on increasing women's
safety in cities and communities
and on integrating woman-focused
perspectives into local and
national crime-prevention
policies.
"Women
experience city life differently
than men," said Anne
Michaud, of Programme Femmes
et Villes (Women in Cities
International Network), a
sponsor of the seminar. "The
aim of the conference is to
put women at the center of
thinking about safety in cities
and to develop more coherent
strategies to affect safety
in an urban environment."
Canadian
Cities Center of Innovation
Montreal's innovative
approaches are based on earlier
work in the early l990s by
Toronto's Metro Action Committee
on Public Violence against
Women and Children. The Toronto
committee asked women to describe
what made them feel safe or
unsafe as they went about
their lives and developed
a process of "safety
audits" of urban sites.
The committee has also developed
a guide for auditing women's
safety, which has been translated
into numerous languages and
adapted for use in European
and African cities.
The Comite d'Action
Femmes et Securite Urbaine
(Women's Urban Safety Action
Committee) brought the Toronto
work to Montreal in 1992.
The committee has conducted
more than 100 audits of various
public spaces and municipal
facilities around the city
since then. The group--which
draws half of its members
from grassroots women's groups
and the other half from city
planners, university research
groups, public transit officials,
health and social services
workers and the police--was
instrumental in developing
the new emergency phone system,
public transit improvements
and small-business programs.
The Women in Cities International
Network also contributed to
the city's safety program.
In British Columbia,
the Cowichan Women Against
Violence Society has published
a 114-page resource book on
planning for safer communities:
"Women and Community
Safety Training and Development
Package for Small, Rural and
Isolated Communities."
A 1992 survey by Canada's
General Social Survey cited
in the book found that 60
percent of Canadian women
are worried about walking
alone in their neighborhoods
after dark, 76 percent are
worried about waiting for
or using public transit after
dark, 83 percent are worried
about walking alone to their
car in a parking garage and
39 percent are worried about
being home alone at night.
Other organizations
at the conference had their
own innovative approaches
to women's safety.
Bantay Banay
(Community Watch Groups Against
Domestic Violence), a group
based in Cebu City, Philippines,
works with more than 3,000
women in 51 cities to prevent
ongoing violence against women
through community efforts.
Women join together to throw
stones on the roof of a house
where a family violence is
taking place, banging bottles
or spoons to let the perpetrator
know people are watching.
If the violence continues,
some women might go inside
to pull the victim out while
others inform the police.
Additional women will be prepared
to take the victim to the
hospital. Police stations
have a woman's desk with a
female officer to assist women
victims of violence and special
rooms for abuse victims were
set up at two government hospitals.
And, in Quito,
Ecuador, a women's group created
"Safety Brigades"
in communities with too few
police. Women created makeshift
alarms to compensate for the
lack of phones and public
transportation; if a person
has a problem, sounding the
alarm--a button connected
to an outside buzzer--will
mobilize neighbors armed with
bats to scare off attackers.
Women's Safety
Is a Community Issue
"The purpose
of this conference is to make
the problem of safety and
violence against women a community
and city issue, not just a
women's issue," said
Jan Peterson, head of the
Huairou Commission, an umbrella
group of women's organizations
around the world and a co-sponsor
of the Montreal conference.
"Women's
safety affects everyone,"
Peterson said. "If women
are feeling safe, you know
men will too."
Conference sponsor
Michaud agrees.
"First
we want women to feel safer.
If they feel safer, they will
feel less fear, so they will
be able to participate in
activities in society,"
Michaud said.
Michaud also
makes a link between women's
safety and the success of
the business community.
"If women
feel safe they will go out
at night, they will patronize
the theater, the movie houses,
the business establishments,"
Michaud said. "This then
gives them an equal voice,
so they can be an influence
in society, so that they can
become more involved in government
and all male-dominated areas.
We see assault and fear as
ways of controlling women.
"Everyone
wins if safety planning and
design is from the point of
view of women."
Helen Drusine
is a freelance writer based
in New York, specializing
in grassroots women's groups.
Her articles have appeared
in the International Herald
Tribune, OMNI Magazine and
numerous other periodicals.
For more
information:
Women in Cities
- First International Seminar
on Women's Safety - (Web site
in French, English and Spanish):
- http://www.femmesetvilles.org
International
Center for Crime Prevention:
- http://www.crime-prevention-intl.org
Metro Action
Committee on Violence Against
Women and Children: - http://www.metrac.org/
