Urbanization, she said, has two sides. It can bring marginalization, violence and sub-standard housing for the poor, while at the same time offering opportunities to grow and advance.
ActionAid will take part in a presentation at the World Urban Forum on the insecurity women face in cities. Vijeyarasa said this includes unlit, insecure spaces, police departments that are insensitive to women’s issues and higher levels of crime.
“Really, we’re often talking about migrant women in these areas, as well. So even more isolation and even less access to services and ways of reporting crime and violence,” she said.
She added that better urban planning can address some of these issues.
“Certainly, ideally, we would be looking at cities that are new and emerging. So a lot of the peri-urban or rural communities that are increasingly urbanizing present a really good opportunity to design the city in a gender-sensitive way. But as you know, a lot of the cities that we’re talking about, for example the work we’re doing in Kenya or Ethiopia, are already established cities. So we’re working to try and fix the problem.”
However, Vijeyarasa said there are plenty of solutions available. But she says people must first be aware of the problems before they can solve them.
She said, “I think gender really isn’t necessarily on the table. Urban planning is a very male-dominated sector. And I even expect that the World Urban Forum is a particularly male-dominated space. So the first thing is to get gender on the agenda and to seek accountability from stakeholders, who are responsible for urbanization, urban planning and safety and security. There are all sorts of mechanisms that have been tested in some places: an increased number of female police, training of police forces generally, even training of transport workers have been tried in countries like India.”
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25