Belfast councillor "frustrated" as women's safety all about self-protection

A local councillor has said she is “frustrated” that Belfast initiatives on women’s safety continue to put the “onus on women protecting themselves” rather than men changing their behaviour.

At a Belfast City Council committee meeting, Alliance Councillor Jenna Maghie made the comments after a council official’s update on work relating to violence against women and girls and possible interventions to improve women’s safety in the city.

Attention has been slowly focusing on what has been described as a growing “epidemic” of violence against women in recent years in Northern Ireland. Aside from domestic incidents, a particular area of concern has become women and girl’s safety in the city centre, particularly at night.

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Since January 2020, 23 women have been murdered in Northern Ireland. There were more than 33,000 domestic abuse incidents in NI in 2023, and in the last year there were more than 4,000 sexual violence and abuse reports.

Two weeks ago a city centre “multi-agency operational taskforce” met on the issue, with representatives from the council, Stormont, the police, the Belfast Business Improvement Districts, Retail NI, and the Belfast Chamber.

Councillors learned that activity in the run-up to Christmas includes the distribution of personal safety alarms to members of the Linen Quarter Business Improvement District, and University of Ulster and Queens University Belfast hosting a number of pop-up safety events and supplying a number of personal safety alarms to students.

Belfast Council Safe Neighbourhood Officers are planning additional programming over the December period, which will see an increased visibility of police officers and SNO officers throughout the day and evening.

At the November meeting of the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee, Councillor Maghie said despite these actions little was being done towards structural change.

She said: “I obviously give massive thanks to everyone who has been involved in pulling this together, and all those who contributed across all of the committees this has come to recently. It is really sad we have to shine a light on this again, but it is really important work that the council is doing.

“I want to restate that I am really grateful for the list of things that are in here, the suggestions that are here, and all the work that lots of organisations are doing.

“But I have said I am going to do this every time it comes up, and I am doing it again today. I am so frustrated that when we bring any paper on this, the onus is always on women to protect themselves. You have to carry an alarm, you have to carry your own anti-spike kits, because a lot of hospitality places don’t want to stock them, and you have to take a self-defence class.

“These are immediate things that we can do, and they are important, and we should do them. But systemic change is the bit we always have to talk about.”

She added: “Even in reports like this, we have to talk about the fact that the responsibility for women in our city to be safe is not just on them to take steps to protect themselves.

“It is men who have to do this, who have to change their attitudes, and it is only through continuing to say it, that we will see the message get across. Unfortunately when men say it, it is heard more than when I say it.

“It is a real source of frustration for me, that while we cannot fix this before Christmas, it is not there in the report. That is the piece of work that has to happen.”

DUP Councillor Sarah Bunting said: “If someone comes to us and says 'what can you do to help protect women in our community' we need to know where to signpost with confidence. We need the ability to do it there and then.

“An inter-agency meeting, which could be set up for all councillors to attend, with key stakeholders such as the PSNI and the SOS Bus, would be really important. And (designed) so it is not the same few people that show up.”

Green Councillor Áine Groogan said: “The worst we could do is not mobilise the energy around this at the moment. We should pull together some sort of civic meeting on this and try to map a way forward, that would be really useful, because we know there is money coming down the line from the Executive Office. But we need to act strategically and have a cohesive voice moving forward."

Belfast Council has a commitment to Belfast being recognised a 'Safe City' by signing the White Ribbon Charter, and has signed the Onus Workplace Charter on Domestic Violence.

The council also has its Gender Action Plan 2024-27, in which it works with the Stormont Executive Office to deliver the £3 million strategic framework to End Violence Against Women and Girls, released this year. It is also in a partnership project with Queen's University to improve the design of public spaces for interventions to end such violence.

The council also works with the police on the Policing and Community Safety Partnership plan.

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