The Mayor of London’s Office for Policing and Crime (Mopac) has granted £108,000 after a scoping report on the Women’s Night Safety Charter, released last month. The money will go on training, online resources, an interactive toolkit and best practice guidance as developed with the Safer Business Network (SBN) in the capital.
The network was commissioned by Mopac and the London Assembly last year to scope the views of signatories to the Charter and identify what further support they might need to help them meet the pledges in the Charter. The scoping exercise involved surveying the 700 signatories to the Charter, and doing one-to-one online (during covid restrictions) interviews with some signatories, and holding three focus groups: with female Students at Greenwich University, women working at night in McDonald’s restaurants and women working in the security sector.
The study found signatories working hard on measures to keep women safe at night, whether the women are employees or customers. What emerged in terms of ‘next steps’ for the Charter were:
• The Charter should be a branded campaign with centralised resources that signatories can use and promote;
• signatories need training on the objectives of the Charter and tangible guidance on how they can meet these;
• signatories would like more opportunities for networking and sharing best practice on women’s night safety issues;
• More interactive, web-based resources, including a toolkit for signatories, would be helpful.
While outside the remit of the Charter, education of boys and young men on acceptable behaviour and attitudes towards women kept cropping up in the study. It was felt that more could also be done to encourage empathy in men for how women feel about their safety, particularly at night, and provide ways for them to ensure they do not make lone, and potentially vulnerable women, feel unsafe or threatened.
Amy Lamé, the London Mayor’s Night Czar, said: “We’re committed to ensuring London is the safest and most welcoming city in the world. The Women’s Night Safety Charter is the first of its kind and I’m thrilled the Mayor has announced funding that responds to the recommendations in this report. I look forward to working with Safer Business Network on this new package of support that will help boost the impact of the Charter and help women and girls feel safer on our city’s streets after dark.”
Rita King is Joint Chief Executive of the Safer Business Network with Hannah Wadey. Rita King said: “We are delighted to have had the opportunity to re-engage with signatories to the Women’s Night Safety Charter over the past few months. It is clear that the Charter is well supported across London and we know that other cities around the UK are also interested in adopting a similar approach.
“The results of our research show that there is already some excellent work taking place to keep women safe across the capital, but there is a need to share this more widely so that other organisations can learn from it and follow suit. There is also scope to grow the signatory base of the Charter further to create an even wider commitment and partnership to ensuring women are safe at night. The creation of a branded, clearly identifiable campaign with additional support and resources for signatories will be instrumental in achieving this goal.”
You can freely download the 25-page report from the Network website, on this link.
About the Charter
The Women’s Night Safety Charter is a pan-London initiative, launched in 2018 by Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, his Deputy Mayor for Policing Sophie Linden, and his Night Czar. The Charter 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. Signatories pledge to:
• Nominate a champion within their organisation to promote women’s night safety
• Demonstrate to staff and customers that women’s safety at night is taken seriously
• Remind customers and staff that London is safe, but advising what to do if they experience harassment when working, going out or travelling
• Encourage reporting by victims and bystanders
• Train staff to ensure that all women who report are believed
• Train staff to ensure that all reports are recorded and responded to
• Design public spaces and workplaces to make them safer for women at night.
About the Safer Business Network
SBN co-ordinates and administers ten Business Crime Reduction Partnerships (BCRPs) across London boroughs. It has a reach across 2,000 businesses, 16 Business Improvement Districts, and a number of property owners and shopping centres. It was an early signatory to the Women’s Night Safety Charter, part of the Mayor of London’s Strategy to tackle Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). Visit www.saferbusiness.org.uk.
More in the May print edition of Professional Security magazine.
