Women's safety in smart cities

Women's safety in smart cities
Gender Equality
and Mobility in Smart Cities

• A ‘safe’ city is not just a city where women and girls live
their lives free from sexual violence and harassment, but
also from any fear of experiencing such violence or
harassment.
• Violence is part of the generalized continuum of
discrimination faced by women and girls, which prevents
their free movement and impedes upon their ability to
access the city.

Women’s safety in smart cities
• Women’s safety in smart cities
• There is increasing concern about women’s safety in cities over the past
few years.
• The rapid pace and nature of urbanization throughout the world has
thrown up new challenges for governments, and their populations.
Urban spaces provide new opportunities for people to build their homes
and lives, but also pose many problems for their citizens.
• Women face the fear of sexual violence as a constant threat to their
ability to move around, to work and their general well-being.
• There is increasing concern about women’s safety in cities over the past
few years. The fear of violence in public spaces affects the everyday
lives of women as it restricts their movement and freedom to exert their
right as citizens of the city—freedom to move, study, work, and leisure.

Women’s safety in Smart Cities

General Considerations for designing gender sensitive smart cities
1.Urban Planning and Design of Public Spaces
• The design of public spaces - from urban planning standards to
bylaws - need to address geographies of exclusion and ensure
equal access for women and girls.
• For example, when designing neighbourhoods, planners must make
sure that streets, bus stands, community toilet complexes, water stand
points and metro stations are adequately lit, and that they are more
likely to be used by a diverse set of users, including women, children,
the elderly and others.

Urban Planning and Design of Public Spaces

2. Provision and Management of Urban Infrastructure
• It is not merely enough to design public spaces in a gender
sensitive manner, as streets, bus stands and public toilets -
amongst other urban infrastructure - are of little use if they are
poorly maintained. Research has shown that poorly maintained
public infrastructure (pavements, street lights, public toilets, parks,
etc.) are frequently reported as factors which contribute to making
spaces unsafe for women.

Design Public Spaces In A Gender
Sensitive Manner

3. Public Transport
• Previous research conducted builds a strong body of
evidence to indicate that close to 54% of women felt
unsafe inside a crowded public transport and at bus
stops. Transport services must be upgraded with regular
oversight undertaken by relevant agencies. Amongst other
activities Most often, the last mile of transportation on a
given journey is not sufficiently considered in the planning
process, and connectivity is left to informal modes of
transport such as shared autos, rickshaws and RTVs.

4. Policing
• It is important to recognize that improved policing is crucial,
however, it alone does not solve the problem of increasing violence
and sexual assault in the city.
• There is a need to simultaneously address the patriarchal
ideologies that shape everyday norms and behaviours across
institutions, and to focus on institutional reforms. It is essential
that police are accessible and equipped to deal with cases of sexual
violence and sexual harassment, so that women can easily file First
Information Reports.

5. Legislation, Justice and Support to Victims
• Ensuring that policing is gender sensitive is merely a first step
towards ensuring justice and support for women and girls in the
city. In general, survivors of sexual crimes which occur in public
spaces must have access to appropriate legal, social, emotional and/or
psychological services and support. With vast experience in this area,

6. Education
• Schools, colleges and universities are important
educational spaces for addressing the safety of young girls
and women, as well as for focusing on the important role
that boys and men can play in ending violence against
women. Educational institutions are also venues for educating
all citizens

• About the unacceptability of sexual harassment and assault, and to
raise awareness about laws and services. In order to incorporate
gender perspectives in curricula, as well as to ensure safety in schools.
Campaigns and discussions have been undertaken in various schools
and . Trainings on women’s safety and multi stakeholder outreach
have been undertaken with the Gender Resource Centres

• 7. Information Technology
• Information Technology is playing an increasingly
important role for ensuring safety in cities. For instance, a
number of new initiatives have sought to use technology,
namely smart phones, to connect individuals with emergency
services and to monitor neighbourhoods for potential safety
issues.

• 8. Public Awareness:
• Urban spaces will only become truly safe when all residents
actively decide to contribute to the elimination of all forms of
violence and sexual assault against women and girls. Women have
“the right to the city,” to all of its infrastructure and services, and to
equal citizenship. Activities aimed at increasing public awareness,
including both long-term sensitization campaigns and short term
outreach efforts, have been an essential feature of addressing
patriarchal norms and values, and for asserting the constitutional
rights of women.

Smart Cities and Gender: Research and policy
development area
• In the quickly advancing interdisciplinary debate on smart cities a
specific gender dimension is not fully taken into consideration,
even when an inclusion or equality issue is raised.
• 6 key dimensions which motivate the relevance of gender as a key
variable in studying urban innovation policies.
• Mobility and transport as a specific vertical area of intervention is
highlighted as an example of how fertile could be an integration of
gender issues into smart cities.

Smart Cities and Gender: Research and policy
development area
• Participation of Women in local Politics

Women and/in ICT
• Women and/in ICT
• Low representation of women into ICT professions leads to having
male dominated teams of ICT designers.
• Gendered digital divides (along with class, ethnicity, age and
disability) negatively affects women’s empowerment as smart
citizens.

From the Gender Digital Divide to users’
types divide.
• According to recent research, age and Internet access are the most
salient predictors for digital divide,
• whereas gender and household seems to be less relevant but still
important. There are some differences between genders with regard to
user types, but these are not very acute. There are generally more
male advanced and entertainment users.

Gender neutral/blind (urban) innovation
• Gender blind design of smart cities ICT solutions
• Gender studies on innovation criticize techno-centric visions of innovation
and their being blind in terms of social and environmental impact. It is
recognized that including women among the stakeholders in innovation networks
would increase the robustness of innovations.

The lack of women’s participation as active
citizens impacts also on web
• The lack of women’s participation as active citizens impacts also
on web

The big urban challenges of the 21st Century to be
looked at with ‘gender lenses’
• Economic and financial crisis effects such as increased unemployment rates
have a gender dimension. As for now female unemployment rates have dropped
less than male ones, as male- dominated sectors like building and manufacturing
have been hit by the crisis more than the service economies where women are
mostly occupied. On the reverse, there are clear signals that fiscal
consolidation can lead to cutting public administration jobs where there is a
prevailingly female work force and to curtailing welfare provisions with
strong impact on gender equality
• Due to the gender pay gap and more discontinuous careers, senior women are
at greater risk of poverty and they are definitely one of the vulnerable groups
with unmet needs which social innovation initiatives shall pay attention to.
Moreover, healthcare and long-term care are among the sectors where the
female work force is higher than other occupational areas: all social
innovation initiatives targeting these sectors shall take this into consideration.

• Environmental challenges such as climate change
demand for a radical transformation of industrial
production and energy consumption which are also
relying on changes in personal behaviour and
consumption patterns.
• Research undertaken by the European Institute for
Gender Equality is showing how women are actually
more sensitive towards issues of sustainability and more
prone to adopting an environmentally friendly behaviour.
The big urban challenges of the 21st Century to be looked
at with ‘gender lenses’

Environmental challenges & Gender
Equality

Gender and Social Innovation
• Gender and Social Innovation
• As it has become more and more clear that tech driven orientation
in smart cities policies need to be balanced by bottom up
approaches that leverage on citizens empowerment and their
autonomous initiatives to re-invent and self organize public spaces
and services, the need to integrated technological and social
innovation has been arising into research and policiers agendas.

• The contemporary promise of increased citizens’ participation and
involvement in urban planning as well as in services’ provisions
through social innovation is strongly connected to digital
technologies contributing to shape new forms of civic participation
and social relations: the widespread use of social media, peer
collaboration, knowledge sharing and civic hacking platforms can
therefore be seen as triggering social. Gender equality is a widely
recognized milestone among the major social changes

• Along with urbanization, empowerment of marginalized groups
and the rise of mass media, transformation of gender roles is
included among the social innovations : if gender equality is to be
intended as one of the major forms of social innovation and, then
it is important to get the most out of the interconnections between
these two fields of action and policy.
• The aim, then, shall definitely be to build and capitalize on what
civil societies of women and institutions have already managed to
achieve until now and at the same time exposing them to new alliances
and innovative urban environments.

Applying a gender perspective to vertical smart cities areas
of intervention:
mobility and transport as an example
• Where smart cities policies are implemented (mobility, energy
efficiency, e-government, health & well being).
• Mobility and transportation provide a good example to this
respect as there is substantial research already carried out on
gendered motilities' some applications in practice have also proved
how a gender inclusive perspective is useful for improving smart
mobility services.

Different Mobility Patterns
have been detected, kept constant against other factors such as
education,
marital status and income.

Embedding a gender perspective in
transnational smart cities policy level initiatives
• Smart cities & gender issues would strongly benefit from
becoming mainstreamed into transitional policy level initiatives
jointly with an attention to other dimensions of inclusion/potential
discrimination and with an intersectional approach.

Embedding a gender perspective in
transnational smart cities policy level initiatives

Smart Women In Smart Cities
• “SMART WOMEN IN SMART CITIES quality of life, public
health, entrepreneurship and services with a view on the gender”
opens many different in-depths paths with a view on the gender,
trying to highlight where there might be problems, because the topic
of gender is not faced and where there are opportunities due to the fact
that difference can bring a value.
• From one side it is necessary to identify the different ways in which
women can experience the city;

• One of the areas where technological innovations have come up in the
past few years has been in addressing women’s safety in cities, apps in
the market we have seen many mobile. How effective are these in
addressing enhanced gender safety in cities is a question that
comes to mind.
• Many of them are emergency apps which support women in
situations of danger or crisis by providing link to the police and
others who can help them. Further there are now people building
wearable devices that provide the same services. These apps aim to
equip women to deal with dangerous situations.

• SMART WOMEN IN SMART CITIES
• City and environment with a view on the gender
• We live inside an urban world and in the next decades, a huge part of
the population will gather up in megalopolis. As a result, urban areas are
the part of the planet where we could pay the main social and economic
costs of global warming. For these reasons, it appears even more urgent
a specific attention to plan action in urban areas.
• This urbanization process brought to complex dynamics, in terms of
economic and social environmental impact. This resulted in an imposition
of new socio urban models able to respond to the actual changes; the most
common is connected to the idea of “Smart City”. More and more often
we hear about Smart City as the city of the future, one in which
technologies will improve the quality of life of citizens.

• Smart cities aim to combine innovation, environment and quality
of life But when we talk about smart cities, we talk about smart
people.
• So from a social perspective, we need to highlight the central role of
human and relational capital.
• From this point of view, a smart city is a city where its community
has already learned how to comprehend, innovate and be flexible,
with particular attention to the achievement of social inclusion of
residents and participation of citizens in urban planning So, we are
not only talking about technological innovation and environmental
sustainability, but also about a high level of social inclusion.

• we speak of social inclusion we must take into particular account
women. If It is recognized that women have a strong sense of civic duty
and a deep sensitivity to social issues such as family welfare, education
and a traditional function of care.
• Women represent more than a half of the market and recently their
purchasing power has greatly increased, as well as their decision-making
power that extends also to areas traditionally considered male.
• Do not forget that women hold the role of education, really important
in the growth of future generations; This means to have a good vehicle to
transfer the information to young people, with a view to urban change.

Social inclusion of Women in Public
Service

The city; we think for example:
• - to the different ways to live the mobility by women (shorter
distances, predilection of soft mobility and public transport, different
timetables than men);
• - to the role they can play in improving energy home management
- to the different levels of security and public order in the city that
they require.

• On the other side it is important to highlight the active role that women
can have in a smart city. All this in order to provide a picture of the quality
of life in the cities to administrators, entrepreneurs and private citizens,
through women point of view. The main goal of these is to create a plan of
recommendations and the promotion of an intervention action, necessary
basis to design processes of co-planning for an increasingly inclusive and
smart city.
• To conclude, women could offer administrations useful indications to adopt
a broader, structured and inclusive view in a smart city.
• For these and other reasons, women should be considered privileged
partners to plan proper strategies to face the challenges of modern society.

Active role that women can have in a smart
cities

City Security: Smart Security and
Policing
• To make streets safer for women
• Transforming policing through digitization
• Role of policing in setting current and future strategies in building
safe, secure and resilient cities

City Security: Smart Security and
Policing
State Response: Law Enforcement and Public Safety
• Identifying urban city threats for women
• Evaluating security preparedness and meeting security challenges
• Building a safe and secure city by allocating adequate funding and
implementing timely and cost effective solutions

City Security: Smart Security and Policing
How to make streets safer for women
• CCTVs with real time monitoring across the city that are linked to
the nearest police stations along with CCTV monitoring of buses,
autos and cabs.
• Increasing community involvement by creating youth groups in
communities

Transforming Policing Through Digitization
• Establishing public-private partnerships in a bid to install high-
tech technology to secure women in smart city
• Establishing high-tech forensic laboratories

City Security: Smart Security and Policing
How to make streets safer for women
• Increasing the proportion of women in the police force
• Sensitizing the judiciary as well as police to bring about a shift in
attitudes towards
• survivors of violence and women in general, so as to shift the blame/shame
of abuse from survivor to perpetrator
• Creating a police-public dialogue and transforming public image of the
police
• Building a Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS)
• Bettering the working conditions and environment of police to increase
their productivity
• Easy access to helpdesks at all police stations

Increasing the proportion of women in the
police force
All-Women Police Station in Ghaziabad

Evaluating security preparedness and
meeting security challenges
• A multi-sectoral approach must be ensured
• Setting national targets which could be pursued by civil society
organizations across the country in a unified manner to eradicate or
minimize problems one by one effectively
• Ensuring that recommendations by national organizations are
heeded and used while planning action plans to tackle city’s problems

Evaluating security preparedness and meeting
security challenges
• Creation and passing of gender budgets to avoid holding up of
laws due to lack of funds
• Utilizing of fund for police training/setting up for forensic labs so
that existing funds are not wasted

Technological Innovations Addressing
Women’s Safety
• One of the areas where technological innovations have come up in the
past few years has been in addressing women’s safety in cities, apps in
the market we have seen many mobile.
• Many of them are emergency apps which support women in
situations of danger or crisis by providing link to the police and
others who can help them. Further there are now people building
wearable devices that provide the same services. These apps aim to
equip women to deal with dangerous situations.

HEART- Help Emergency Alert Rescue Terminal.
"Help Emergency Assistance Rescue Terminal" (HEART) — a helpline which would enable
women to seek immediate help of police through mobile phones in times of emergency.
"Through this one step solution system our aim is to reduce the response time of the police to provide
help to those women or girls who are in distress,”
HEART has been assigned a toll free number, 1091 on which, any women, who urgently need
police assistance, can call either from their mobile or a landline and within minutes police
assistance will reach her.
"The victim does not need to speak. Once it presses the speed dial key or call the toll free number,
HEART immediately searches the location and sends it to the nearest police mobile van, which will rush
to the spot in no time,”
http://policeheart.com/

181-Women-helpline
• “Abhayam” – Women Helpline 181 in the State of Gujarat
• GVK EMRI in association with Gujarat government has launched 181 - the
Abhayam Women Helpline for all women in Gujarat. The helpline, launched
in collaboration with the home and women and child welfare departments,
will be synchronized with the existing "1091 - Gujarat Police Helpline" and
other women-oriented services. The free 24x7 helpline, 181, is a toll-free number
to support women in distress and is accessible through any mobile or landline.
• Any women can access 181 “Abhayam” helpline for the purpose of
counselling, guidance, information and also for the rescue in various
threatening situations including domestic violence.

181-Women-helpline
• Objectives of 181:
To provide 24X7 free counselling, guidance and information through centralized response centre.
To rescue in emergent situations like domestic or any type of violence to shift women to safe
places.
Response to 100% calls through technology integration.
Services to Women will be provided through:
Counselling, guidance and information through centralized response centre
• Rescue in domestic or any type of violence to shift women to safe places
• Important information will be provided like local government services, women police
stations, and free legal services, counselling centre, NGOs and rescue officer.
• If any women will feel threatened or facing any violence she will be transferred to the nearest
safe place for which she can call any time.

SHE TEAMS Dial 100
• SHE TEAMS
• SHE TEAMS has been introduced in Telangana state with a motto to
provide safety and security to women in Telangana and to make
Hyderabad a SAFE AND SMART CITY.
• SHE TEAMS
• The program of SHE teams was launched on 24th October, 2014 with
the aim of curbing eve teasing in all aspects, in all forms, at all places,
providing safety and security to women in the society, facilitating
healthy environment for women mobility thereby building up confidence in
women to fulfil the Telangana Government commitment of safe and secure
Hyderabad City to women.
http://www.hyderabadpolice.gov.in/SheTeams.html

SHE TEAMS Dial 100
http://www.cyberabadpolice.gov.in/she-team.html

Women Power Line 1090
• The Women Power Line 1090 is a IVRS based dedicated service in
Uttar Pradesh, India, to empower women from all forms of harassment
and ensure their safety in society.
• 1090 is a toll-free number that provides immediate help to the
harassed women suffering from an antisocial behaviour or any
other format of assistance which is sought. This helpline handles the
cases of offense against women and ensures speedy protection to
women and girls

Mobile Safety App for Women
• Women safety is one of the most controversial issues in our
country. molestation, eve-teasing or kidnapping – these heinous
crimes are now carried out in broad daylight which has dampened the
morale of women to step outdoors.
• When travelling alone, it’s best to raise your guards, stay alert and
make use of the technology that entertains you and lies
comfortably in your purse – your mobile phone, for your safety.
Yes, there are a few apps that can be of help if you land in an
uncomfortable situation.

SOS – Stay Safe!
• SOS – Stay Safe!: This is a free Android App. No need to type in
the phone unlock code, just keep this app activated and shaking it
a couple of times (customizers will trigger alert along with your
geographical location to the emergency contact.

Eye Watch Women
• Eye watch Women: This app not only sends an alert message, but
also instantly captures the audio-video of the surroundings to the
preset contacts. It has been appraised for high location accuracy,
functioning without GPRS and Safety confirmation feature. By
pressing I am Safe button, you simply let your kin’s know that you
have reached safely

VithU
• VithU: A V Gumrah Initiative this is a real time interactive safety
application for women. All you need to do is press the power button
of your phone twice and the alert message will be sent to pre-set
contacts along with your location.

Safetipin
• Safetipin: A wholesome package featuring alert
message and GPS tracking, available in Hindi and
English languages.
• You can even browse the Directory option for public
emergency service. Browse map with pins signifying the
particular area to be safe or not. In emergency situations,
it sends out messages to the users pre-defined friends
and family

Smart 24×7
• Smart 24×7: A security app which is linked with the police. The
Panic button allows you to place a call to the police. Alert calls can
also be initiated to the pre-designated emergency contact. If GPRS
is not functional, the location is sent via SMS. The App clicks photos
and records audio-video of the situation. Has plenty of other features
such as tracking, customer care and chat

Himmat
women safety mobile application of Delhi Police
• Himmat is an initiative by Delhi police
especially for women.
• Himmat is an emergency service,
comprised of an android emergency
application, which can send a distress
call or emergency message to Delhi
Police officials and specified contact or
group in an emergency situation faced
by a woman. The Police personnel will
get these SOS alerts and locations on a
portal and as a sms on their mobile
phones as well.

Himmat
women safety mobile application of Delhi Police

Wearable devices
• Safer -Leaf Wearable
• A tech start-up that makes smart jewellery products for women safety
• Safer is a smart necklace, which connects to the wearer's phone over
Bluetooth and sends SOS alerts with your whereabouts to friends and family
when tapped twice. Guardians can be preset in the companion app and there's
also the option to share your location on a map in real time while travelling.
• So far, so standard. But Safer also lasts seven days between charges, the crystal
pendant looks as pretty as regular costume jewellery and very cleverly, will send a
text message when your phone can't reliably connect to the internet.
• Safer also handles notifications and can act as a selfie button but these are very
much added extras on top of the core feature. It features a 90dB buzzer to act as
an alarm and it recharges in 15 minutes via Micro USB.

Wearable devices
• One of its applications enables users to enter their start point and
destination, in case they feel the route is unsafe. The location of the
device can be tracked real-time.
• Leaf Wearable was chosen amongst the top 10 innovative start-ups
in India by Department of Science and Technology. These firms
accompanied Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi

References
Ms. Karuna Gopal, is an Internationally acclaimed Thought Leader, Columnist, Keynote Speaker and Advisor on SMART CITIES.
http://www.futurecities.org/people.html
Pia Mancini: How to upgrade democracy for the Internet era
http://democracyos.org/
PoliceHEART-1091 HEART- Help Emergency Alert Rescue Terminal.
http://policeheart.com/
SAFER Smart Pendant by Leaf Wearables
https://leaf-wearables.myshopify.com/
LIFE
SHE TEAMS SAFE AND SMART CITY.
http://www.hyderabadpolice.gov.in/SheTeams.html
SMART WOMEN IN SMART CITIES
https://asa.unicatt.it/asa-Abstract_Braga.pdf
SMART WOMEN IN SMART CITIES
http://conference.pascalobservatory.org/sites/default/files/conference2015/papers/smart_women_in_smar_cities_0.doc.
Smart Cities and Gender: main arguments and dimensions for a promising research and policy development area
Maria Sangiuliano
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/WRGS/GenderDigital/MariaSangiuliano.pdf
Top 10 Safety Apps For Women In India On Android
http://www.beingtheparent.com/top-10-safety-apps-for-women-in-india-on-android/
WOMEN’S SAFETY IN SMART CITIES
http://www.livemint.com/Specials/W6PyDWoKS6UMJdJFqS25kJ/Womens-safety-in-smart-cities.html
12 Female IPS Officers Who Are The Inspiration For Indian women!
http://www.storydecker.com/life/12-female-ips-officers-inspiration-indian-women/
181 Abhayam Women Helpline
http://www.emri.in/181-women-helpline/

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Women's safety in smart cities

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