Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women Project
in Guatemala City and San Salvador
a project in cooperation with United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
Violence against women has
increased substantially in
Guatemala and El Salvador.
More than 3,200 women in
Guatemala, and 1,000 women
in El Salvador, have been
kidnapped, murdered, raped
and tortured in the past 7 years.
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
Violence Against Women has worsened
• Recently ended civil wars
• Repatriation of criminals
• Worsening economy forcing women
to move to cities for work and live in
dangerous slums;
• The attitudes towards women in
society.
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
The Safe Cities for Women initiative
has been applied to Latin America
where the highest incidence of
violence occurs:
• Guatemala City with the
Municipality of Guatemala y
Livingston
• San Salvador with the
municipalities of San Salvador,
Santa Tecla and Suchitoto.
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
• Raise awareness of
Gender Based Violence
• Media campaigns
• Public debate among
policy makers
• Advocacy among
communities, women’s
organizations and
networks.
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
• Building to suit the safety needs of
women in inner cities will benefit
the poorest neighbourhoods where
approximately 3,500 people live.
• Entire neighbourhoods of women
and their families will benefit from
improved urban planning and
policies.
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
The Safe Cities for Women project will strengthen
the rights of, and reduce violence against, the
women of San Salvador and Guatemala City.
The project will build on a
larger, ongoing UNIFEM
regional effort, in four other
Latin America urban areas.
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
• Providing information
on gender and urban
security
• Adding a gender
perspective into urban
safety policies.
• Providing tools to
influence urban policymaking.
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
• Launch campaigns on women’s rights
and security in the most violent districts
of the cities
• Empower women’s organizations to
influence public policies on security in
neighborhoods
• Revise penal codes and discriminatory
legislation
• Criminalize men’s behaviours that are
offensive to women in public spaces.
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
• Understanding the link
between urban violence
and gender.
• Adding the issue of Gender
Based Violence to agendas
of social organizations and
governments
• Including concerns of
women’s organizations in
urban development plans
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
• Allowing women’s networks
and organizations to
influence public policies
about gender issues and
women’s safety
• Providing information about
violence against women
and urban security through
regional channels.
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
• Linking improved urban
planning and reduced
gender based violence
• Sensitizing the public to
violence against women
issues in urban areas.
• Developing public
policies, with gender
perspective, that help
ensure women’s safety.
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
• Ensuring decision-makers,
municipal planners and
local women’s NGOs work
together to adapt policies
and urban planning.
• Providing information
about successful practices
to the public, media and
relevant stakeholders.
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
• Women’s organizations submitted
proposals to improve public spaces
and identify insecure spaces.
• An abandoned house used by drug
addicts and alcoholics has been
made into a day shelter for people
living with HIV/AIDS.
• Women created a map highlighting dangerous places that
might give rise to violence and local authorities committed to
implement the recommendations.
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
Second Phase
• Increasing visibility and the
impact of VAW in cities by
distributing information
• Incorporating the issue of
VAW and HIV/AIDS
• Duplicating the results from
all districts to the capital cities
of the two countries.
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
Primary Partnerships
• Women’s organizations and
key municipal authorities
• Media to raise awareness
about gender discrimination
and security risk in urban
areas.
• UN, international
development agencies and
Zonta International.
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
• The safe cities for women
approach is a relatively new area
of activism
• While conditions in Guatemala and
El Salvador are challenging, they
do not diminish women’s capacity
to make their cities and their lives
safer.
• Urban planning and policies can
ensure that women are not at risk
of violence because of their urban
environment.
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
• Recently, UNIFEM and UN-HABITAT
promoted the implementation of a global
program on safe cities for women and girls,
to carry out strategic safe cities for women
actions in different countries worldwide.
• The new Global Programme on Safe Cities
Free of Violence against Women and Girls
builds on Zonta International’s efforts to
promoting safer cities in Latin America.
Zonta International
Safe Cities for Women
• The women of Guatemala
and El Salvador thank you
for your contributions to
the Safe Cities project
• Please continue to give