Seminar Proceedings

This section of the Women in Cities web site contains the Proceedings of the First International Seminar on Women's Safety - Making the Links.

Summaries of all Seminar presentations are available in three languages: English, French, and Spanish. Complete presentation texts and summaries of workshops and plenary sessions are available in their original languages of English, French or Spanish.

In order to find a particular document or presentation, we suggest that you begin with the Seminar schedule and click on the main title headings to get greater detail on the particular day's proceedings. These documents can also be found alphabetically by looking on the A-Z search page. This page is sortable by author, theme, city and country.

The Themes section of this site contains the Seminar's background and preparatory documents organized according to nine themes related to women's safety.

This site also contains Seminar photos. Go to the schedule page and click on a photo.

From the 1970s to the World March of Women in the year 2000, groups of women on all five continents have worked to highlight the phenomenon of violence against women - violence in their personal lives as well as in public spaces.

Violence against women and girls and the various manifestations of inequality have a direct impact on how safe women feel. And feeling unsafe becomes in turn a fundamental obstacle to achieving gender equality. It curtails women's mobility and limits their capacity to participate fully and freely as citizens.

Safe cities for women = safe cities for everybody!

Cities play an increasingly important role today, and this means that issues related to women's participation and urban development that takes account of gender inequalities are crucial for all partners concerned: groups of women, municipalities, researchers, governments and international development agencies. The concept of "inclusive cities" cannot become a reality unless women in all their diversity are fully involved in and benefit equally from community development.

Women at the heart of the action!

When it comes to urban safety, this means that women must necessarily be "at the heart of the action" in any strategies put forward to improve public safety. Since women suffer the most from the lack of safety, solutions that are good for women and developed thanks to women are also good for the public in general. So cities have everything to gain by encouraging women's participation and the development of partnerships among local actors.

In recent years, the development of international discussion networks has facilitated the transfer and adaptation of tools and methods of work with an autonomy-based approach, i.e., participation and capacity building by and for women and girls, through community mobilization and local partnerships.

The objective of the Montréal seminar is to consolidate these discussions and "Make the Links" among the various partners working in the field of women's safety: women's groups, elected representatives and civil servants at the municipal level, associations of municipalities, researchers, crime prevention organizations, governments and international agencies. The seminar is a collaborative effort of various local and international partners.

The seminar will bring together 150 people from various fields of work who are actively involved in carrying out projects to enhance women's security and incorporate a gender-based approach in crime prevention. It will be held in conjunction with the WHO's 6th World Conference: Injury Prevention and Control.

Participants will be chosen on the basis of their work and with the goal of ensuring a fair institutional and geographical distribution.

Discussions will take the form of round tables on various themes that will help us take stock of where we are at in terms of knowledge and practices, identifying obstacles and strengths, issues, challenges and prospects. Recommendations from the seminar will be forwarded to the appropriate authorities through the Montréal Declaration on Women's Safety.

To prepare discussions and contribute to the seminar's content, we are counting on your active participation in the theme section. Thank you for sharing your experience with us!

One of the purposes of the site will be to provide a forum for discussions and documentation on women's safety. Thank you in advance for filling out the forms to be used to compile the International Directory of activities and resources on women's safety. Please send us any relevant documents or references to resources on this topic.

Thank you for participating. We look forward to welcoming you to Montréal!

Anne Michaud
Sponsor for the International Seminar on Women's Safety,
for CAFSU, the Canadian Committee and the International Committee

For further information: info@femmesetvilles.org
Tel : (514) 861-6123

© 2002, International Women in Cities Last update: Nov 28, 2003