Mobility and Security Award for actions against sexist and sexual violence

When FFSU asked the Mobile Lives Forum to join the jury for the PrixPrev Mobility and Security Award, the Forum took this opportunity to take a closer look at the issue of security, in the spirit of FFSU's philosophy of action. FFSU is an association of approximately one hundred local authorities whose approach to security is not just about sanctions but giving a central place to social issues and prevention. For the 2021 edition, dedicated to mobility, the jury considered twenty-two projects, carried out by associations, transport operators, local authorities, etc. These projects reflect the diversity of initiatives led by local actors at different scales: supporting access to mobility and driving licenses for vulnerable people, training teenagers to be independently mobile and educating them on the rules governing behaviour in public transport and on the road, offering nighttime transportation services for students, to stop harassment and violence against women, etc. The jury selected three winners.

1. SYTRAL and Keolis Lyon

The first project that was awarded is deployed within the public transport network of Lyon (TCL) and the Urban Community of East Lyon, the second largest urban transport network in France with 1.9 million trips per day. Since 2014, Sytral and Keolis Lyon have implemented a crime prevention and security strategy, which was renewed for the third time in March 2021 for the 2021-2024 period. This strategy aims to end violence against women and sexual harassment. The system was recognised for its long-term approach including all groups (users, employees) and combining a comprehensive set of complementary actions around transport security issues. 32 actions were highlighted, including raising young people’s awareness of sexual harassment in transport, training all TCL controllers and agents in issues of insecurity and harassment, setting up on-demand alighting after 10 p.m., performing exploratory walks with women to identify safety problems in bus lines and metro stations, conducting annual safety surveys and an investigation into sexual harassment, etc.

2. The Departmental Union of CIDFF (Information Center on the Rights of Women and Families) of the Pas-de-Calais region

The second award went to a project that aims to provide women who are victims of domestic violence in Pas-de-Calais with free taxi rides, day and night, as part of the administrative, medical or legal procedures related to the abuse in question. The ride may be to seek shelter, to access emergency accommodation, to attend a forensic medical consultation, to respond to a legal summons to assert their rights, or even to file a complaint. The jury praised this initiative for its simplicity and effectiveness in responding in a very concrete way to a well-identified problem, by offering an easy and accessible solution. The initiative is based on a departmental agreement signed in November 2020 between the Prefecture, the Departmental Union of CIDFF of Pas-de-Calais, the National Taxis Union, the Departmental Directorate of Public Security (DDSP) and the Pas-de-Calais gendarmerie group, to meet the needs of female victims of domestic violence who struggle to travel, due to the size of the region and the lack of public transport in low density areas. To use this service, women who lack transportation notify a prescriber (police or gendarmerie, social worker, victim’s assistance associations, signatory hospitals, etc.) who then relays the request via a liaison form on a dedicated telephone platform, which then sends a local taxi, the cost of which is covered by the Departmental Union of the CIDFF of the Pas-de-Calais region. The system should be extended given the needs throughout the region. The first year of the project showed just how successful it was, with 33 women and 15 accompanying children taken care of between December 2020 and March 2021.

3. Stand'Up

The third award went to the Stand'Up program, born out of an international training program by L'Oréal Paris and the NGO Hollaback!, deployed in France by the Women’s Fondation (Fondation des Femmes). This program aims to raise awareness and to train victims and witnesses of sexual harassment in public places, by giving them the means to put an end to it. This system impressed the Forum and the other members of the jury for its simplicity and efficiency in providing very concrete solutions that can be adopted by all. We believe that raising awareness and encouraging everyone to act is an essential lever in the fight against harassment in public spaces. The Women’s Foundation has already provided training to 20,000 people in France, out of a projected 30,000. The training is done face-to-face or digitally. Interventions are organized with different target groups, in public spaces, in public transport and stations, in companies and even in schools. The training is based on the 5Ds method (Dialogue, Delegate, Document, Distract and Direct) to teach participants how to react safely to a harassment situation, whether they are a victim or a witness. For example, a witness can address the victim to show empathy and offer help, or pretend to know her to distract the aggressor, or film the scene. Both victims and witnesses can seek help from a nearby person or from an authority figure (driver, conductor, member of staff, etc.), or, as a last resort, speak directly to the aggressor to ask him to stop, while staying calm to prevent the situation from escalating. The participants in the training are presented with real situations in which they can test these different response strategies.

The 2021 edition of the PrixPrev of the French Forum for Urban Security has thus highlighted innovative and effective initiatives to facilitate women's mobility and put an end to violence against women, at different scales.

Mobility

For the Mobile Lives Forum, mobility is understood as the process of how individuals travel across distances in order to deploy through time and space the activities that make up their lifestyles. These travel practices are embedded in socio-technical systems, produced by transport and communication industries and techniques, and by normative discourses on these practices, with considerable social, environmental and spatial impacts.

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