Women’s safety - Everyone’s responsibility  

Words Yetunde Salako

Students returned to university campuses around the UK in September 2021 and worrying reports of women being needle spiked whilst on a night out quickly began to emerge. Needle spiking is when someone is injected with drugs without their knowledge.

The Crime Survey for England showed that 144,000 women were victims of rape or attempted rape in the year ending March 2017, but only 59,000 were reported and in the same year only 1,439 people were convicted of rape. The reasons for not reporting rape to the police included, embarrassment, fear they would not be believed, and thinking they wouldn’t be helped.

Following the deaths of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa, women unified and took to the streets and social media in remembrance. We protested and campaigned with fresh cries for the police and the government to prioritise women’s safety. The response was outrage, and a demand for change.

But the sad truth is the numbers suggest that not much is changing. According to Counting Dead Women, 80 more women have been killed in circumstances involving a male as a prime suspect since the murder of Sarah Everard.

Not only are women often left to deal with the traumatic effects of gender based violence when directly affected, but for those who have been indirectly affected the burden is still on women to keep themselves safe.

A survey by YouGov in 2019 found that 1 in 3 women consciously take steps to avoid being sexually assaulted. This made me think of the steps I have taken before, without paying much thought to it. Making sure on a night out we travel in groups, sleepovers so you’re not travelling home alone at night. Walking the long way home on a busy high road instead of the shortcut which is a quiet road. Sending text updates to parents, partners and friends keeping them updated on your whereabouts, maintaining a high awareness of your surroundings when travelling alone. All just some of the things women do when feeling unsafe.

However there is a gradual change in the rhetoric, women are telling society that their safety is everyone’s responsibility. A student led group ‘Girls Night In’ has called for a week long boycott of bars and nightclubs in various university towns, demanding the establishments provide measures that will help women feel safer on a night out. 

The government has pledged £45 million to the safer streets fund which will be spent on increasing street lighting and cctv. Whilst met police commissioner Dame Cressida Dick, has promised 650 new officers to patrol places in London where women feel unsafe, and to continue the conversation with women and girls around London on what will improve their safety.

A survey by researchers at the University of Kent, the first of it’s kind in the uk, examined sexual violence by male students. 63 of the 554 male students, admitted to committing 251 sexual assaults, rapes and other coercive incidents in the past two years; it identified a strong link between toxic masculinity and sexual violence. This is an important step in understanding the psychological profiles of sexually violent male students. Especially if there is to be a focus on educating young men in order to establish a long lasting culture shift. 

Women are not just asking to be kept safe on the streets with better street lighting, they’re calling for the misogyny and toxic masculinity that perpetuates violence against women to be rooted out of public institutions, places of education, the workplace and homes.