Women’s Safety Audit Toolkit

Safety Audits

Safety audits specifically focus on the prevention of sexual harassment and all forms of assault by increasing women’s safety in public places and at public events.

Safety

In the context of an audit, ‘safety’ refers to personal safety – specifically, how safe a person is and how safe they feel in any given environment.

Process

A safety audit is a process that involves walking through a physical environment, evaluating how safe it feels, identifying ways to make the space safer, and effecting those changes. It often involves surveys or self assessment by attendees during an event.

Benefits

The benefits of a safety audit:

Helps organisers understand how different people experience their environments.
Often results in measurable changes that improve safety for all attendees.
Encourages individuals to take part in shaping their environment and events.
Increased feeling of safety among attendees.

Considerations

Things to consider in conducting an audit:-

Lighting level
Clear signage – navigation of area + emergency contact point
Audibility of calls for help
Security/police presence
Strategies to deal with unsafe behaviour
Entrapment sites – escape routes and obstacles
Appearance – vandalism etc.

Steps for the Audit

A Safety Audit can take various forms. In the instance of an ACT Government event, the following steps are recommended:

Pre-event

Event coordinator, or other specified person, walks through and audits the site to identify potential issues.
Event coordinator, or other specified person, develops and implements strategies to address any identified / potential issues.

During the Event

The preferred method would be dependent on available resources; agencies may choose to adopt a variety of methods to collect information.

Survey female attendees at event to determine their feeling of safety.
Self-assessments by female attendees at clearly signed designated areas and / or availability of an on-line assessment process.

Some questions for the assessment.

Would I feel safe here if I...

was alone?
was with children?
had a disability?
was an elderly person?
was part of a racial minority?
was a newcomer? was an aboriginal person?
was walking?

Post-event

Collect the information and analyse results.
Post-event evaluation and review – review outcomes and develop strategies to address issues of safety identified from the survey / assessments.

Detailed information on conducting a safety audit can be obtained from the following online resources.

http://www.metrac.org/programs/safety/downloads/metrac.safety.audit.pdf
http://www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/7381_86263_WICI.pdf