Women's safety on public transport (December 2021)

We are failing our women. Reports of sexual abuse of the London Underground are constantly rising. Transport for London is lacking in funds for more security and tube lines are potentially shutting down. Something needs to be done. There needs to be a change.

Currently TFL is campaigning for women's safety by asking victims and witnesses to report any form of sexual harassment they see to the police. While holding the zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment, this is not enough. 

In the digital age, it is great that we have the ability to report harassment through the 61016 'See it, say it, sorted' text messaging number. However, not everyone has access to a phone immediately. Phones could be dead or tucked away in a pocket or bag too far to reach without making the harasser aware of what you are doing. It is also not fair for women to wait until the crime has been committed to have it reported so that it won’t happen again. There needs to be a stop before it can even happen. 

The Hillingdon Herald would like to back up the campaign that TFL has started for women's safety. The main concern is the lack of staff in certain stations. Reports show that some stations appear to be left entirely unstaffed or very understaffed. This is a huge problem, especially with TFL’s 'see it, say it, sorted' policy because there is no one around to report to. In addition to this, it would really be a benefit to have more CCTV on the trains and around the station that are closely monitored so that there is physical evidence of the harassment or abuse.  

Andrea Jenkins, a 19 year old Brunel University student from Watford explains how she was harassed on the London Underground and there was nothing she could do.

“I was on my way to uni when we had to get off the train because it went out of service. As I was waiting for the next one, this guy came up to me and started to try and have a conversation with me, asking me questions about myself.  

“I was not encouraging it at all and was being very blunt with him, hoping he would take a hint. He then asked me for my number so I said no sorry and then he kept saying come on what about your snap, Insta, WhatsApp, messenger, all which I replied no to several times but he wouldn’t stop. I gave in and gave my snap as I don’t use it as much and didn’t add him back so he would just shut up. He then proceeded to ask if I wanted to go with him to find another train but I told him I’m staying here but he can go look but he didn’t leave. 

“Once the train finally came he stayed next to me and just kept staring. I put my headphones in but he still tried to talk until he got off before me. It made me uncomfortable as a normal person would clearly see I wasn’t interested in talking to him but he just kept pestering.”

This story is very uncomfortable for someone who was just trying to get to her university. If there was someone there who saw this happen, they could have put a stop to it. Thankfully, TFL is making a change. 

Their campaign will make a change, and that change will happen fast. 

A TfL spokesperson said: “We are committed to making travelling in London as safe as 

possible and tackling sexual harassment is an essential part of making sure everyone feels safe on our transport network. Measures to keep everyone safe include more than 2,500 police and police community support officers and 500 TfL enforcement officers patrolling the network, thousands of frontline transport staff across the network to support customers and an extensive CCTV network. The police also carry out targeted policing and investigation activity to identify and apprehend sexual offenders.”

 

Having police carry out lengthy investigations will be a huge help so they can catch the offenders and reduce the amount of harassment on trains once and for all. 

A spokesperson for TFL continued: “There is already CCTV on some lines, with plans to bring it in on other lines as soon as possible. CCTV on the Central Line is part of the overall Central Line Improvement Programme (CLIP). This programme is intended to improve the safety, accessibility and reliability of our Central line trains for our customers. The CCTV designs have been completed and the prototype system has been installed with testing of the whole train CCTV system due to commence at the end of November 2021. The first train with CCTV will be running by Spring 2022.”

2022 is just around the corner and with new changes to prevent uncomfortable and more serious events like Andrea’s, women will finally be able to feel much safer travelling on the tube. CCTV onboard the trains will make a huge difference in terms of safety for everyone and for crime. The moment offenders know that they are being watched, the crime rates within the London underground should drop drastically and women will finally feel safe. 

While this is good news TFL faces an existential funding crisis which could force it to close 100 bus routes and cut down on staff which defeats the purpose of what the campaign is fighting for. 

The Labour Party have strongly suggested that the government fund TFL as it is an important asset to transport and many would suffer greatly without it. However, they do believe that taxing outside of London is not the way to go. 

Sadiq Khan has managed to put TFL in a stable position financially since 2016 but the pandemic has left them struggling. Now leader of Hillingdon Labour Cllr Peter Curling is requesting that “Conservatives step up and deliver the funding, and we urge Sadiq to think again about the options that he has."