Free from fear: Quezon becomes a safe city for women and girls

With more than 3 million inhabitants, Quezon City is one of the most populous of the 16 cities and 1 municipality that make up Metropolitan Manila. It also has one of the largest percentages of urban poverty and most informal settler families. Sexual harassment is prevalent in all kinds of public spaces, but even more so in the neighbourhoods like Payatas, which has high levels of poverty, unemployment, drug use and trafficking, and robberies or street snatchings. To confront this reality, Quezon joined this year UN Women’s Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces Global Initiative. In joining the initiative, Quezon City committed to conduct a scoping study, to collect information about sexual violence against women and girls, on in public spaces in two local areas (Bagong Silangan and the Payatas barangay). The study cited insufficient legal protection against sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence in public spaces and that women often do not report incidents, mainly out of fear of stigma of being violated in this way, and fear of retaliation by the perpetrators. It also found that Quezon City lacks systematic data on sexual violence in public spaces. As part of the scoping study, six women’s safety audits were carried out, which involved collecting and assessing information about perceptions of safety in public spaces. Such audits bring women and men together to walk through public spaces in their neighbourhood, evaluate how safe they feel, and identify ways to make it safer (such as better lighting, and improved visible sightlines). Women's Safety Audits have become a consistent methodology used in cities that have joined the UN Women’s Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces Global Initiative. Through the Safe City Metro Manila programme, Quezon City is seeking to set an example with improved data collection and trailblazing local legislation on sexual harassment against women in public spaces.