By Adele Paiardini, Local Community Reporter
The debate around Sarah Everard murder made many people realise that women’s safety is an urgent matter. In order to make women feel safe in the city, the Mayor of London has decided to create a Woman’s Night Safety Charter, which is part of the Mayor’s Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy and London’s commitment to the UN Women Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces global initiative.
The chart contains the following pledges:
- Nominate a champion in your organisation who actively promotes women’s night safety
- Demonstrate to staff and customers that your organisation takes women’s safety at night seriously, for example through a communications campaign
- Remind customers and staff that London is safe, but tell them what to do if they experience harassment when working, going out or travelling
- Encourage reporting by victims and bystanders as part of your communications campaign
- Train staff to ensure that all women who report are believed
- Train staff to ensure that all reports are recorded and responded to
- Design your public spaces and workplaces to make them safer for women at night
Some of the most important touristic businesses, such as All Bar One, Airbnb, Mc Donald and Elephant and the Castle Pub have already signed it up. Equally important, many London Boroughs including Brent, Hackney, Islington and Southwark decided to support this initiative. The most recent news comes from the Hounslow council, which signed up to the Women’s Night Safety Charter on Friday.
Thanks to Cllr Katherine Dunne, Cabinet Member for Communities and Climate Emergency, the Hounslow council joined-up the Charter. She also claimed: “We are adding Council money to a Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for a new Violence Against Women and Girls co-ordinator post to work alongside existing Violence Against Women and Girls, and Hate Crime staff.’’
However, Ealing Borough didn’t agree to the Chart yet. According to the Office for National Statistics Ealing reported 279 rape and 437 other sexual offences in the past 12 months. The crime rate in the neighbour, which is based on the number of sexual offences recorded per 1,000 residents is 2.04. Women safety must be considered a priority and signing up for the Woman’s Night Safety Charter would be just a small step for the Ealing council to spread awareness about the topic and make men accountable for their actions.
If you live in Ealing and are a victim of any kind of domestic abuse you can still access help from the council regardless of your age, gender or sexual orientation. Visit the link to find out more: https://www.ealing.gov.uk/info/201085/domestic_violence_and_abuse/723/domestic_abuse_what_help_can_i_access/1