Île-de-France Mobilités and RATP inaugurated, on Wednesday December 6, at Auber station – on the RER A line – the first “secure location” in the Ile-de-France transport network. It is intended to enable women who are victims or threatened with “sexist and sexual violence” to be welcomed.
The place, located in the heart of the Auber RER station in Paris, is a Relay store whose employees were trained by Umay, a start-up which promises to make travel in public spaces safer. Anyone feeling threatened is supposed to be able to find refuge in this reception point called “safe place”.
“Our training for employees aims to teach them to collect, reassure and provide information”explained during the inauguration Pauline Vanderquand, co-founder of the small company which already has partnerships with communities, such as the city of Rouen, since 2022.
Other reception points will be deployed in the coming weeks and months in the Ile-de-France transport network. “We offered traders present in our trading zones to become safe places for victims”specifies Sandrine Charnoz, project manager for combating sexual harassment in transport at RATP.
Nine out of ten women victims of “sexist or sexual harassment” in transport
This proposal met with a favorable response within the Lagardère group, which manages several Relay and Monop’ points of sale in Paris metro stations, via its Lagardère Travel Retail sector.
Benoît Verdier, deputy general manager of the company, announced during the inauguration that all of its points of sale on the RATP network would be certified “safe place” by 2024. “This concerns thirty-five points of sale and eighty employees”whose training will again be entrusted to Umay, specifies the manager.
This system is put in place when nearly nine out of ten women claim to have been victims of “sexist or sexual harassment” in transport, according to figures from the Ministry of Ecological Transition. “Forty percent of women do not feel safe on our networks, this is unacceptable”deplored for his part Jimmy Brun, spokesperson for the RATP, citing an investigation which has not yet been published, but which should be presented at the beginning of 2024.