Safe Cities for Women

Cities are spaces to empower women and girls, ensuring women’s full and effective participation and equal rights in all fields and in leadership positions at all levels of decision-making, granting access to the opportunities in urban setting and ensuring decent work and equal pay for equal work, or work of equal value for all women. The strategy of insertion into the economic circuits of the city is fundamental for inclusion, economic gap reduction and the will-being of the inhabitants, as well as prosperity. Urban planning leads a determinant role in terms of accessibility for all to employment opportunities, infrastructure, services and transport. The design and success of a city largely depends on the opportunities for citizen participation that exist in the definition of urban projects. There is a need to link urban planning to the population needs. Cities will be safe for women as long as, they are directly involved in the design of the city and government programs that would be implemented to this end. The design of the city must ensure the empowerment of girls and women, as well as being the space where they can develop a life free from violence. Strategies need to be developed to ensure that all people, especially women, have access to all the benefits and opportunities offered by the cities, which include the use of public spaces, access to equipment and services and mobility. It is therefore essential to recover and dignify public spaces and the strengthening of the social fabric, understood as the ties that allow all members of a community to fully, collaboratively and safely develop. Interventions in public spaces aim to prevent and eliminate all forms of discrimination, violence, and harassment against women and girls.