Safety audit

Safety audit

The safety audit is a leading tool originally designed by the Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children (METRAC) in Toronto for women to use in order to build their skills and make their communities feel safer.

Safety audits encourage local and context-specific solutions to issues of insecurity and promote partnerships and joint solutions between women and their local governments. Women’s safety audits are now said to be an internationally recognized practice that can equip women and communities to identify what corrective measures are needed to improve personal safety in urban settings.

Process

Usually, a women’s safety audit starts with a group of women, and possibly other community members, who meet and discuss spaces in their community that feel unsafe. Safety audit groups generally work best when members are diverse and therefore represent a variety of safety concerns (i.e. younger and older women, disabled women, women from different ethnic backgrounds). Unsafe spaces might include a shopping centre parking lot, a pathway between residences, a water source, or a public housing development. After the safety audit group has chosen an unsafe space, they go together to that space and note the factors or characteristics that they think make it so unsafe.

Help in addressing security/legal/ethical aspects in planning of public spaces

• Factors or characteristics that make a space feel unsafe might include poor lighting, negative graffiti messages, or an isolated location.
• Extensive audit checklist

Further information

• UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, http://www.endvawnow.org/en/articles/262-ask-questions-about-womens-safety-in-the-city.html

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