RESEARCH SERIES FAIR MOBILITY SAFE AND SOUND INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH ON WOMEN'S PERSONAL SAFETY ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT FIA FOUNDATION RESEARCH SERIES, PAPER 6 March 2016 The FIA Foundation is an independent UK registered charity which supports an international programme of activities promoting road safety, the environment and sustainable mobility, as well as funding motor sport safety research. Our aim is to ensure ‘Safe, Clean, Fair and Green’ mobility for all, playing our part to ensure a sustainable future. The FIA Foundation Research Paper series seeks to provide interesting insights into current issues, using rigorous data analysis to generate conclusions which are highly relevant to current global and local policy debates. Commissioned by: The FIA Foundation, 60 Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DS, United Kingdom Written by: Heather Allen, Marianne Vanderschuren and the University of Cape Town, South Africa © 2016 Disclaimer The views expressed in this report and the accuracy of its findings are matters for the author and do not necessarily represent the views of or confer liability on the FIA Foundation. While care has been taken in the development of this paper, any errors and omissions are the responsibility of the authors. SAFE AND SOUND INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH ON WOMEN'S PERSONAL SAFETY ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2 INTERNATIONAL BACKGROUND ON VIOLENCE TO WOMEN 5 SUSTAINBLE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, GENDER AND TRANSPORT 7 APPROACH 10 METHODOLOGY 11 INITIAL FINDINGS 18 MAIN FINDINGS FROM INITIAL FIELDWORK IN CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA 28 MEASURES AND SOLUTIONS 30 CONCLUSIONS 40 FOOTNOTES 42 REFERENCES 45 ANNEX I 48 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Personal security is an issue for everyone, and there is a clear link between it, public space and public transport. Moreover there is growing awareness of the particular concerns of women as they use public transport, which is the subject of this study. Much other work has shown that women use public transport1 more than men as they have few or no other mobility choices. Yet they are also more worried about using it as their personal security is frequently compromised. This is of huge concern for a variety of reasons. Women have the same right as men to access safe and secure mobility. They make a huge economic contribution, and often shape the travel patterns and attitudes of their children. The implications of any disinclination on their part to access publicly-provided transport options are therefore wide-ranging in terms of sustainable development, climate change and urban development. This work is intended as a contribution to those wider debates. This report reviews published international research, and media coverage of this issue. It then identifies cites where measures have been put in place to address womens’ security concerns, mainly in the developing world. It considers the three main aspects of a whole journey – access and egress to public transport, the waiting environment and the in-vehicle experience. The main focus is on the urban environment as this is where the research is presently most extensive. This is initial report covering the first phase of a larger piece of research that will investigate this issue in more depth and collect information and data from a number of cities. Ultimately the key outputs will include: • International guidance and principles for policy and decision-makers, transport/transit operators and other service providers to help guide them in addressing this issue; • Recommendations to help civil society and womens’ groups to work with the above to provide and co- create practical and pragmatic solutions. • Capacity building in the countries which take part in the implementation of the study in order to improve gender-related transport policies and reinforce work undertaken by development and aid agencies in this field. The objective of later phases of this work is to empower grass roots women’s organisations to better understand the issue, and their rights as citizens, as well as helping to inform them how to engage in public stakeholder forums and with authorities to improve the situation. In supporting this work, FIA Foundation is showing its commitment to improve the understanding of key issues around mobility and sustainable development, with a particular focus on practical solutions and capacity building. Sheila Watson Director of Environment and Research FIA Foundation March 2016 SAFE AND SOUND 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The mobility patterns of men and women are or a country and to leave the country and return different. Generally women are more likely to make to it. The right includes not only the right to visit more frequent and shorter trips and stop more places, but changing the place where the individual often. They are more likely to ‘trip chain’, and the resides or works[2][1]. Providing equitable access to daily commute may need to be combined with education and employment is not only a basic human shopping, picking up or dropping off children, visiting right but also is core to delivering the Sustainable relatives or running small errands. Changes in social Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda (that roles, especially in the developing world, combined will be agreed at HABITAT III conference at the end of with increased motorisation, have increased some 2016 in Quito, Ecuador). women’s opportunities for education, employment and leisure trips. However, for others transport is All forms of harassment affect women in particular part of a daily struggle to manage home and work and impact their access to opportunities, and their commitments, which significantly impacts their quality of life. Harassment can take various forms quality of life. such as verbal harassment (cat calling or unwanted teasing); visual harassment such as leering or staring All over the world, women are frequent and regular and physical forms such as men exposing themselves, users of public transport2. In developing countries groping or other forms of touching etc. It often takes women often rely on some form of public transport3 place in public places as women travel to and from as their only choice of motorised transport4. It places of education/schools or to and from work. is therefore important that they perceive public It especially seems to occur in relation to public transport as being safe and secure. However, there transport. This may be in or around bus and train are a growing number of distressing incidents stations, or other public transport hubs and stops reported when women’s personal security have been and on the vehicles themselves, especially if they are compromised while using public transport. Extreme crowded. This affects different women in different cases from both the developed and developing ways, making it complex to understand why and how countries have caught the eye of the media. However, this happens or to as there is a lack of systematic data. there are many more cases of women being subjected to aggressive behaviour, verbal abuse and However from documented research it is clear that sexual assault on public transport which are not harassment occurs frequently and, it profoundly publicised. affects women’s mobility. It also impacts their contribution to society and the labour force more Freedom of movement, mobility rights, and the than is possibly understood currently. All forms of right to travel is part of the concept of basic human harassment, sexual or other, affect women deeply rights (Art 13.1.) that encompasses the right of and reduce their confidence to move freely in public individuals to travel from place to place within a city places. In this way harassment also influences their decision to take up some educational opportunities, access healthcare, decisions to join the labour market and/or decisions about the kinds of jobs they pursue5. A lack of safe and secure transport reduces economic opportunities, reinforcing poverty and increasing inequality and social exclusion. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) in a report in 2012 estimated that an additional USD trillions in GDP could be generated globally by reducing the employment-to-population gap6 7 and the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that if women in every country were to play an identical role to men in markets, as much as US$28 trillion would be added to the global economy by 2025. It is therefore 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY important that women are able to fully contribute to Identifying comparable and robust statistics is difficult the national labour force and national development due to the fact that there are no common international ambitions. Excluding women from being active in standards for reporting incidents of undesirable the labour market due to transport inequalities harassment. Many incidents are not reported and the will reduce both the speed and robustness of statistics of serious cases lie with a variety of transport, development and bolsters inequality. In addition, security and/ or city agencies. For this reason, the both aspects are interdependent – the more active methodology for collecting further information from women are in the labour market the more they are public transport users in order to inform international able to demand safe and secure transport, the less guidance focuses primarily on qualitative approaches empowered they are the more socially exclusive (participatory, human centred design and co-creation), transport becomes. which will be tested in the second phase. It is also intended that the process of collecting more in-depth This report reviews a large number of published information will help to build grassroots capacity and international papers, reports and articles to scope encourage the co-creation of local solutions, possibly out the extent of this issue. It also investigates the inspired by international examples. global and local contexts in order to better understand successful solutions by analysing the main success It should be noted that a public transport trip does factors.