Whether you were sexually assaulted, catcalled, or leered at in a public space, a new initiative aims to pinpoint areas in London where women have felt unsafe or fearful.
Safe City London, part of the UN Women Safe Cities program, has launched an online map to identify places within the city where women and girls have felt threatened and areas where they feel safe. The initiative is led by Anova and backed by the City of London.
"A lot of us as women have experienced street harassment. We've experienced feeling unsafe in a deserted carpark for all kinds of reasons," said AnnaLise Trudell, manager of education at Anova.
A woman looking to pin a certain spot on the map would simply have to click the desired location, indicated if it is a safe or unsafe space, and then answer a few questions.
"One will ask 'why is that, what happened, who was involved,'" said Trudell. "Say the incident happened at one of the festivals we have in London. It is not that Victoria Park is unsafe, it is that in this particular moment because this was happening it is. It will ask how it made you feel - did it make you feel physically unsafe, or unwelcome. Those are really different feelings."
The information gathered be studied and used to identify patterns and trends that will help shape future recommendations to city council.
"Whatever data is produced out of this map, councillors have four years to take action on it," said Trudell. "That means if a bunch of women pin a particular area as being unsafe and we start to see trends around why it feels that way, we will go in as a city and have conversations and have training for bar staff if it is in bars, different lighting in particular parks or different urban planning around walkways and pathways, different safety protocols for LTC if buses show up."
The mapping tool will be live until the end of December. Until then, women can visit and pin locations as often as they need to.
This is the first UN Women Safe Cities project to come to London since council unanimously threw its support behind the initiative last year.
The mapping tool is available at http://safecityldn.crowdspotmap.com/
