Safety in Sydney: Women rank city danger hotspots
Train stations, bus stops and city streets have topped the list as some of the most unsafe places for women and girls in Sydney, according to a project on safety in the city. SEE THE LIST HERE.
Blacktown
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Sick and tired of being catcalled, groped and assaulted, women in Sydney have taken to an online map to rank the top danger hotspots in their city.
Train stations, bus stops and city streets topped the list as some of the most unsafe places for women and girls in Sydney, according to the Free to Be map, sourced by girls’ advocacy group Plan International Australia and Monash University.
The interactive map has been rolled out in cities around the world, including Melbourne, Kampala in Uganda and Delhi in India using the contributions of thousands of women to plot a visual map of street harassment in the city.
More than 2000 responses were contributed across Sydney last year, with bad responses accounting for 80 per cent of all feedback.
Central Station and nearby Belmore Park, Newtown Station and King St, and Town Hall Station and Hyde Park were ranked the top 3 hotspots for harassment or fears for personal safety.
Women reported being raped, groped, stalked or the target of indecent acts at Central Station and surrounding streets, made worse by a lack of lighting, security or police.
In Newtown, women mapped out incidents of sexual harassment, threats by groups of men or people affected by drugs and alcohol, at all times of the day.
The Town Hall precinct rounded out the top three unsafe clusters, with women experiencing groping, pinching, lewd comments and unsolicited photos.
Plan International Australia chief executive Susanne Legena said the highest concentration of negative experiences reported by women involved public transport.
“More than two thirds of negative experiences reported through the map involved sexual harassment of some kind,” Ms Legena said.
“Transport hubs, stations, or the journey from work or study are often the places where people were experiencing sexual harassment.
“In Melbourne, there were places where there are strip clubs, and there were no pins because women aren’t going there. They know it’s unsafe, they’re just not going there.”
She said many of the incidents had gone unreported due to women’s fears of not being taken seriously.
“The map did help highlight that a lot of this stuff isn’t reported in crime statistics,” she said.
“When we shared our data with police or transport authorities, they told us the data didn’t match their data.
“So what the map did was show us what the lived experience is of many women and young girls in the city everyday.”
On the flip side, the project also revealed the top spaces where women feel safe in the city, which included Circular Quay and the Royal Botanic Gardens, McIver Baths in Coogee and the UNSW campus at Kensington.
Safe locations accounted for only a quarter of the overall responses, with better safety often linked to the how busy an area was, lighting and the presence of security or police.
“In Sydney, the ferries and Circular Quay were considered positive as there’s ‘eyes on the street’ and have been designed for people to have fun, so they become places people are drawn to for the right reasons,” Ms Legena said.
“If you look at all the places feel safe, they are places where there are people across all generations and they are places where there is activity, so there might be buskers, music, life and a buzz in the atmosphere.
“It’s not that it’s lit up like a prison yard. Girls are saying they feel safer in places where there are families, they can reach out to another woman for help.”
SAFETY IN THE SUBURBS
In the Blacktown region, Blacktown station, Main St, Seven Hills station and the Mt Druitt bus interchange received the highest number of negative responses.
Incidents encountered at these locations included being mugged, groped, catcalled, followed or stared at.
Women reported up to 15 negative experiences at Blacktown Station and Boys Ave alone.
“I never feel safe at Blacktown station, at any time of day or night,” one respondent said.
“There are always groups of late-adolescent to early adult guys hanging around and become verbally abusive if you don’t give them cigarettes or money when they ask. One guy followed me yelling abuse all the way into the station until he saw security,” said another respondent.
Seven Hills station and surrounding streets and carparks also ranked highly on the unsafe scale.
“Inadequate lighting, no/minimal security, always people lurking and car windows being smashed. Have had someone follow me to my car and other unpleasant experiences. Be careful after dark,” a respondent wrote.
Similar experiences were clustered in the CBDs of major Sydney suburbs, including Chatswood, Parramatta, Liverpool and Bankstown.
According to the crime data from the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, the Sydney CBD, Blacktown, Penrith and Campbelltown Local Government Areas had the highest number of sexual offences.
While the incidence of sexual offences in the Sydney CBD in the two years to March 2019 remained stable, sex crimes in Campbelltown were up more than 25 per cent. Blacktown also saw a rise of just under 10 per cent.
TIME FOR CHANGE
In the 12 months since the project, Ms Legna said the data had guided governments and urban planners in designing safe cities.
“We’ve talked to transport authorities who are looking at their data to see what they can understand better. We’re working with Department of Premier and Cabinet to share what we’ve learnt to see how we can consider a more holistic response,” she said.
“It’s looking at how we can include young women’s voices, and tackling the issue by looking at infrastructure, the law and law enforcement and the reporting, and also the male behaviour and how we're tackling that in our community.”
WHEN AND WHERE WOMEN FEEL UNSAFE (by percentage of pins):
On the street: 60 per cent
Public transport: 20 per cent
To and from work: 20 per cent
In a park: 19 per cent
Out socially: 16 per cent
To and from school: 8 per cent