Mainstreaming women's safety in cities into gender-based policy and programmes

Abstract

The importance of women's safety and security in cities throughout the world is now widely recognised. An extensive range of state and civil society institutions currently implement a range of cutting-edge ‘good practice’ policies, programmes, and projects to address this issue. This article raises two pertinent questions that inform the (re)conceptualisation of such programmes. First, is women's safety a separate ‘women's issue’, or is it one that needs to be mainstreamed into broader safer cities research, policy, and practice? Second, do urban safety issues affect all women equally, or are contexts of exclusion and poverty, as well as characteristics of identity and agency, also important determining factors? The article proposes that the incorporation of the gender mainstreaming component of gender analysis into a violence roadmap provides a useful tool to ensure that the critical interests and needs of poor urban women are incorporated into gender-based programmes.