Young people need to be educated if real change is to be made to tackle violence against women and girls according to the Mayor of Liverpool.
At the end of February, the second year of a campaign to increase women’s safety, particularly around the transport network, was rolled out across the whole of Merseyside. Following on from the success of the first phase of the project in Liverpool city centre last year, the Safer Streets campaign has been expanded to increase efforts to tackle Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) and improve women’s feelings of safety across the region.
The campaign was developed following a survey, run by Merseyside’s Police and Commissioner (PCC), Emily Spurrell, which showed 54% of women felt unsafe using public transport in Merseyside at night and nearly 42% had concerns about using it in the day.
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Following a second successful bid for £576,000 of Home Office funding by the PCC and Liverpool City Council, Safer Streets Merseyside will be scaled up, with key aspects of the campaign being taken region-wide. As part of the campaign, pupils from St Cecilia’s Catholic Junior School in Tuebrook took part in a “Send me a selfie” workshop delivered by the Ariel Trust.
This educational training is being delivered to more than 130 primary schools across the region raising awareness of staying safe online, sexual harassment and misogyny.
Speaking at the event, Mayor Joanne Anderson said engaging young people was crucial to ensuring violence against women and girls was curtailed. She said: “When you talk about young people and children of primary school age being involved with something like this, you question what do they know about it?
“It’s so impressive to see young people being able to talk about their emotions, understanding how they feel and being able to say no. It comes under the broader term of how to tackle misogyny in society and what the school has done is really impressive.
“If we don’t educate our young people, we’re not really making a change. We have to start with education and if we don’t educate people to think differently, then we won’t really make a change.”
Last year, Merseyside was hit by the shocking murders of a number of women and girls, including council worker Ashley Dale, and nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel. PCC Mrs Spurrell said a long-term approach was needed to fully stamp out serious crime.
She said: “I think it’s been really positive, women and girls appreciate that it’s being taken seriously, they see the messages out on the public transport network and the CCTV and lighting are things women have told us made them feel safer. There’s probably no quick wins to this and the education piece we’ve seen is part of that longer journey in terms of how we challenge the attitudes that can lead to that sort of violence.
“When we talk about this, it’s easy for people to get absorbed with what’s going on on social media and we want to give them the ability to challenge that and not accept it as the norm. This is a huge cultural and societal issue round the world, not just the UK or Liverpool, we are determined to tackle it, but it’s going to take a long term approach from all of us working together to sustain that activity.”
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