Safe Cities for Women: Latin America and the Caribbean

Sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence in public spaces is an everyday occurrence for women and girls in Latin America and the Caribbean. Women and girls experience and/or fear various types of sexual violence in public spaces, from sexual harassment to attempted rape or rape, and femicide - whether on streets, public transport, parks, in and around schools, and places of employment, public sanitation facilities, water and food distribution sites, or in their own neighborhoods.

Although violence in the private domain is now widely recognized as a human rights violation, violence against women and girls, especially the issue of sexual harassment in public spaces remains a largely neglected issue, with few laws or policies in place to prevent and address it. In partnership with governments, civil society, private sector, UN Agencies, and other partners, UN Women has laid the groundwork in countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to develop holistic, evidence-based, human rights-based approaches that aim to create safe public spaces with and for women and girls.

Quito, (Ecuador) is one of five pilot cities that form the UN Women “Safe Cities Free of Violence against Women and Girls” Global Initiative, in partnership with UN-Habitat, leading women’s organizations, and over 50 global and local partners. In addition, UN Women, UNICEF and UN Habitat launched the “Safe and Sustainable Cities for All” Joint Programme in three Latin American cities in June 2011: Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), San José (Costa Rica) and Tegucigalpa (Honduras).  Other countries in LAC have also developed specific Safe Cities initiatives including: El Salvador and Guatemala to strengthen local level service responses and improve citizen security; Haiti, to provide safe havens for women; Mexico, to create safe public transport for women; and Peru, to provide support to municipal authorities to prevent and respond to violence.

In Rio participatory community-led mapping technologies are used to identify safety risks in ten of the cities' high-risk favelas. Women and adolescent girls were trained to use smartphone technology to map safety risks such as faulty infrastructure, services, obscured walking routes, and lack of lighting. These initial findings are currently being used to develop targeted interventions in the city of Rio. The online tool was also created so that anyone with a smartphone or computer and Internet access can use it to get information about assistance and services for survivors of violence. It provides abuse hotline numbers, information about rights, as well as the responsibilities and locations of Specialized Women’s Attention Centres, which provide psychological, social and even legal support. The tool also details steps to take after being raped, along with geographical positioning systems so users can locate the closest women’s centre, police station, medical centre and public prosecutor’s office.

Tegucigalpa’s Safe City Team launched their five-year Communication's Strategy for the Safe and Friendly City for All Joint Programme. The programme has as its motto "Transform Tegus". The initiative will last five years and includes 25 districts and neighborhoods of the capital to improve infrastructure and to recover public spaces, strengthen community organization, counter violence against children, adolescents and women, with emphasis on combating sexual harassment and violence.

Haiti: Elvyre Eugene, chief advocate for Shelter Myriam Merlet, is listening to one of the residents of the shelter that opened in June 2011.

Every woman, no matter where they live, should have access to the same support, the same quality listening, the same medical services, the same access to the police and judiciary. It is still far from being the case in most cities in Haiti. Therefore, in 2011, UN Women provided technical support to six safe houses, spread across five regions.

UN Women has also supported training of practitioners/counselors of all safe houses, mentoring and clinical supervision of counselors working in the safe houses already operational. A standard operating procedures and norms manual targeting safe houses practitioners/counselors and managers will soon be published by the Ministry for Women Condition and Women's Rights, that will allow a certification of safe houses and quality control of services