Cities safe for women, safe for all

To free cities from violence against women in public as well as private spaces is the goal of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (Unifem) program “Safe Cities: Violence Against Women and Public Policies.”

Launched in December of last year, the program will carry out a pilot experiment in the city of Rosário (Argentina), to be implanted afterwards in locations in Chile, Colombia, Brazil and Peru.

“We need to involve strong players, such as local governments, civil society organizations and women’s networks to appropriate public spaces and get along together better in communities,” stresses Ana Falú, Regional Director of Unifem in Brazil and the Southern Cone, in her presentation of the program in the city of Rosário on December 14. 

With the support of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (Aeci), the Women’s Network and Habitat of Latin America, among other local women’s organizations, the program proposes to carry out a participative intervention experiment public spaces and to influence public policies to prevent gender violence in the city.

The pilot experiment will be carried out in the West District of Rosário and from there the idea is to extend it to other neighborhoods in the area so that once they are established they can be replicated in all the districts of the city.

“The idea is to get together and have fun. To get a debate going among women and insist on their right to recreation. It is a proven fact that feeling unsafe in public spaces makes us shut ourselves up in our homes. There are studies that reflect this problem and show that we are the people responsible for changing our own routines and plans,” says Susana Bartolomé, Director of the Felipe More West District Municipal Center.

'Women have a right to the city, it is a human right'

According to Liliana Rainero, Coordinator of the Women’s Network and Habitat, the program seeks to approach gender violence in the city from a stance that incorporates urban territory as a new dimension of analysis, as a space of conflict that is not just social but gender-based. "This involves committing areas that have not been traditionally involved in issues such as urban planning, housing policies and the understanding of the city as a physical and political space,” she explains.

“Women have a right to the city, it is a human right,” says Liliana. The activity is based on the results of the project “Ciudades sin violencia hacia las mujeres, ciudades seguras para todos” (Cities safe for women are safe cities for everyone), which began in 2004 in the west zone of Rosário.

The work led the women involved to note the difficulty they have in taking part of local decisions, the fact their demands are routinely excluded from community and state agendas and day to day violence, which affects them in public as well as private spaces.

The program has the cooperation of the local government, which has expressed a commitment to involving different areas and municipal premises, especially those organisms linked to territorial planning, city safety and social participation.

“It is our commitment to deal with the problem of violence against women, which restricts their right to exercise full citizenship,” stated Pedro Pavicich, Secretary of Social Promotion, to the El Ciudadano newspaper.

Gender and the media

In order to raise the awareness of the mass media to the issue, journalists present at the launching of the program received materials with different input and information about Urban Gender Violence as well as a critical analysis of the treatment that the media gives in general to violence against women.

“This material lets journalists approach the issue from a concept that takes the causes of gender violence into consideration and not just its effects,” stresses Rainero.

Read Further: (In Spanish)

UNIFEM Cono Sur

Red Mujer y Hábitat de América Latina

Translated by Steven Harper