There is no city or country in the world where women and girls live free of the fear of violence. No leader can claim: This is not happening in my backyard.

Michelle Bachelet. Credit: UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré

In 2012, two high-profile cases ignited public outrage in their nations, which spread around the world: the shooting of Pakistani schoolgirl and girls’ education activist Malala, and the gang-rape on a bus and tragic death of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi. In every region around the world, countless other cases occurred that did not make global headlines.

Whether walking city streets, riding public transportation, going to school, or selling goods at the marketplace, women and girls are subject to the threat of sexual harassment and violence. This reality of daily life limits women’s freedom to get an education, to work, to participate in politics – or to simply enjoy their own neighbourhoods.

Yet despite its prevalence, violence and harassment against women and girls in public spaces remains a largely neglected issue, with few laws or policies in place to address it.

This week in Dublin, some 600 delegates – from mayors to leaders from the private sector and civil society – are gathered for the 8th Forum of the World Alliance of Cities Against Poverty. They have come from all over the world to discuss innovative approaches to make cities smart, safe and sustainable.

One innovative approach is the Safe Cities Global initiative. This partnership of municipal governments, local communities and organisations, and the United Nations, is working to make urban environments safer for women and girls.

Initially launched by UN Women and Habitat with five pilot cities – Cairo, Egypt; Kigali, Rwanda; New Delhi, India, Quito, Ecuador, and Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, the initiative has expanded to more than 20 cities and continues to grow.

One of the most important lessons we have learned is that each city is unique and requires a local response. This can only be achieved by conducting a diagnostic study with data and evidence, and engaging community members. Cities have taken actions to improving the lighting and design of streets and buildings, training and sensitizing police, and hiring more women police officers. These practical responses can make a world of difference.

A diagnostic study in New Delhi, for instance, revealed that a common strategy against harassment was to simply keep girls and women at home.

One girl explained: “If we tell our parents about boys harassing us, they would blame us only and say that it is our fault…Our parents might even stop us going out of the house.”

Findings like this spur action since keeping women and girls home is not a solution. Residents organised community collectives to build awareness, report crimes, and work with authorities to improve public safety and justice.

In Quito, women were encouraged to break the silence about their experiences through the Cartas de Mujeres (“Letters from Women”) campaign and a study was undertaken. The city government amended the ordinance on eliminating violence against women to include violence in public spaces. The government received some 10,000 letters.

In Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, 55 percent of women market vendors reported experiencing violence in the previous year. In response, local authorities are working with a women’s market vendors association to take cooperative action.

In Cairo, the national government adopted women’s safety audits whereby local women identify safety and security conditions in their neighbourhoods, which are incorporated into urban planning.

In Rio de Janeiro, communities are identifying safety risks in 10 of the cities’ high-risk slums, or favelas. Trained women and adolescent girls used their smartphones to map safety risks such as faulty infrastructure or services, obscured walking routes, and lack of lighting. These initial findings were presented to local authorities, and are currently being used to develop solutions.

UN Women is partnering with Microsoft to find ways to use mobile technology to stop sexual harassment and violence in public spaces.

Further efforts are expected to develop through a partnership between UN Women and the United Cities and Local Governments. Efforts will focus on collecting local data on female political participation, and expanding successful Safe Cities activities.

Here in Dublin, I am pleased to hear that Lord Mayor Naoise O Muiri has expressed interest in partnering with the Safe City Initiative, and Dublin will be the first city in Western Europe to join us.

As more and more women, men and young people raise their voices and become active in local government, and more local leaders take action for the safety of women and girls, change happens.

The meeting this week recognises that making cities smarter, safer and more sustainable requires partnership and collaboration – between residents, government, the private sector and civil society. By including women in decision-making, city governments will be in a better position to fulfill their responsibility to ensure the safety of their residents, especially women and girls.

*Michelle Bachelet is the Executive Director of UN Women and former President of Chile.

Tembari Children’s Care is providing protection, food and education to orphans and abandoned children in Port Moresby. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
PORT MORESBY, Jul 17 2012 (IPS)

In an informal settlement of 10,000 people on the outskirts of Papua New Guinea’s capital, Port Moresby, Tembari Children’s Care – a new grassroots initiative – is providing protection, food and education to orphans and abandoned children who would otherwise join the high numbers of child labourers in this Melanesian country.

Hayward Sagembo and his wife, Penny, who live in Nine Mile Settlement, became deeply concerned by the numbers of children neglected and orphaned due to their parents dying of AIDS or other causes.

“So we decided to start an organisation that would help some of them,” Sagembo told IPS. “Tembari Children’s Care started underneath our house in 2003 and we managed it there for eight years.”

With the contribution of two shipping containers by the Papua New Guinean Digicel Foundation, which have been converted into classrooms, and donations of food and materials by local businesses, the centre is able to provide the most vulnerable children with daily meals, school fees and some clothes.  Elementary to pre-school education is provided to 120 young children and day care to 280 who are homeless.

“Most of the children are malnourished and since they have been in our care their health has really improved,” Sagembo continued. “Through our early education programme, they have gained confidence and gone on to schools where they have won prizes.”

But he emphasised there were many more children in need.

“Sixty percent of children in the settlement are vulnerable and TCC is the only children’s centre at Nine Mile.  We are able to help 3-4 out of 10 children.  If our centre did not exist, these children would be living on the streets without shelter and resorting to child labour to survive,” he said.

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Asia Pacific region, which is the most child populous region in the world, is home to the largest number of child labourers aged 5-17 years, even though number of children in employment in the region declined from 122.3 million in 2004 to 96.4 million in 2008.

Earlier this year the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) and TACKLE – a four-year joint project between the European Union, the African, Caribbean and Pacific group (ACP) Secretariat and the ILO to fight child labour through education initiatives – released a report on child labour in Papua new Guinea.

Between 2010 and 2011, the report team surveyed children working on the streets and those involved in commercial sexual exploitation in Port Moresby and found that children comprise 19 percent of the nation’s labour market of 2.5 economically active people.

The findings of the report were based on a survey of 404 children in the capital. Accurate national statistics on child labour are still unknown.

Most of those interviewed were not attending school and were involved in the worst forms of child labour, including prostitution and illicit activities, such as stealing.  Sixty eight percent were doing hazardous work, such as controlling traffic, scavenging for scrap metal, working long hours and suffering physical and verbal abuse.

The prevalence of children working on the streets is exacerbated by domestic violence and abuse, family breakdown, adult unemployment, as well as political instability, weak state governance and the negative repercussions of structural adjustment programmes.

But the main cause of child labour in Port Moresby is urban poverty. Approximately 20 squatter settlements emerge every year in the capital, in wasteland areas lacking clean water and sanitation. These makeshift slums have become home to more than half the city’s population of 500,000.

Rapid urbanisation, due to rural migrants seeking employment and access to health and education, has not been matched by development in infrastructure, affordable housing and public services.

The report claims most street children are from settlements where the average salary is between 62-156 dollars per month.  Poverty is worsened by the rising cost of living and a meagre minimum hourly wage of 2.29 kina (just over a dollar), resulting in many children forsaking their right to education in order to work and contribute to their own survival or that of their family.

This year, the government introduced a policy of “tuition fee-free education” for all students from Elementary Prep to Year 10 in secondary school. But according to Larry George at City Mission PNG, a stakeholder organisation in the child labour report, “It may have some impact, but the poor families in the settlements will still be hungry and may even keep their children home from school if there is a chance of sending them out to earn money.”

Despite Papua New Guinea having ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), ILO Convention No. 138 on the minimum working age and No. 182 on the worst forms of child labour, the state is struggling to provide adequate protection to its children who are some of the most vulnerable in the world.

The ILO report also observed that “although laws do exist on child labour…..these laws were usually silent and implementation of these laws was unsatisfactory”.

In 2009 the government introduced the Lukautim Pikinini (Child Protection) Act which provides for holding parents and businesses accountable if found guilty of facilitating harmful child labour.

“The idea of the Act is good, but funding has not been given for (its) implementation,” George told IPS.  “In Lae, for example, there are only about three social workers to cover the whole (Morobe) province.  They are overworked, under-funded and work in dilapidated offices with no transport available.”

In a foreword to the report, the Minister for Labour and Industrial Relations, Martin Aini, declared, “Our country’s fundamental values, principles and hopes for the future are slowly being eroded by our half-hearted approach towards addressing the issues surrounding child labour.”

The report’s authors recommend addressing child labour with increased access to education, better law enforcement and social security for the poor. In addition, a report by the Asian Development Bank on street children in the Asia Pacific region advocates the need for behavioural change in adults in regard to children’s rights, health and education outreach work on the streets and more temporary accommodation and vocational skills training to enable homeless children to transit out of a marginalised existence.

But action to address widespread poverty is also essential, such as reviewing the minimum wage, raising standards of housing and basic services and tackling the corrosive impact of corruption which includes an increasing inequality gap.  Otherwise, the perceived need for child labour will continue.

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