UN Women’s Global Flagship Initiative, “Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces,” builds on its “Safe Cities Free of Violence against Women and Girls” Global Programme, launched in November 2010, with leading women’s organizations, organizations, UN agencies, and more than 70 global and local partners. It is the first-ever global programme that develops, implements, and evaluates tools, policies and comprehensive approaches on the prevention of and response to sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence against women and girls across different settings.
It began with founding programmes in Quito, Ecuador; Cairo, Egypt; New Delhi, India; Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea; and Kigali, Rwanda, and now spans more than 35 cities.
The participating cities are: Cairo and Alexandria, New Delhi, Kigali, Port Moresby, Quito and Cuenca (Ecuador), Cape Town, Marrakech, Rabat, Quezon City, Dublin, Winnipeg (jointly with the Province of Manitoba in Canada), Edmonton (jointly with the Province of Alberta in Canada), and the cities of London, Montreal, and Vancouver in Canada, Sakai, New York, Brussels, London, Madrid, Guatemala City, Maputo, Ho Chi Minh, Santo Domingo, Montevideo, Mexico City and the cities of Puebla, Torreón, Monterrey and Guadalajara (Mexico), El Alto, Medellin, Bogotá, Villavicencio, Cali, Popayan (Colombia), Hawassa and Addis Ababa (Ethiopia)
Below are some of the findings from the programme:
• Quito (Ecuador) amended a local ordinance to strengthen action against sexual harassment in public spaces.
• Egypt’s Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban Development adopted women’s safety audits to ensure a gender approach to urban planning.
• Rwanda’s Gender Monitoring Office launched their own training on the prevention of sexual harassment against women in public transportation.
• Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea) established vendors associations in their safe market programme, with 50% representation of women in executive positions.
For a full description of results, see the Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces: Global Results Report. Available in English and Spanish.
For Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces for Women and Girls Global Flagship Initiative: International compendium of practices, see: http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2019/01/safe-cities-and-safe-public-spaces-international-compendium-of-practices
For more information on this programme, contact: safecities@unwomen.org