Emma Cowing: Will our cities ever be safe for women?

Published on Tuesday 8 March 2011 13:52

LAST Wednesday night, I went to the ballet. It was a wonderful evening, one of the best nights out I've had in a while. Yet all the way through the performance, fidgeting in my seat in Glasgow's Theatre Royal, I couldn't settle. There was a niggling thought in the back of my mind that I just couldn't get rid of. How, I kept thinking, am I going to get home?

If you're a woman, navigating your way through the streets of central Glasgow after dark has become a dangerous business. Since December, there have been three brutal rapes and a serious sexual assault in the city centre. The most recent, on 11 February, involved a 38-year-old woman who was dragged off Renfield Street and into a lane, where she was raped by three men.

I have lived in this city half my life and never thought of it as unsafe. Yet the statistics tell another story. Reported sex cimes in Glasgow rose 7 per cent in 2009-10. There were 145 rapes and attempted rapes in the same period, up from 135 the previous year.

Sexual crime is on the increase, and it's terrifying.

It's not just Glasgow, of course. In Lothian and Borders, there were 196 rapes and attempted rapes in 2009- 10, and a total of 996 for the whole of Scotland - up 3 per cent on the previous year. Even more shockingly, in Scotland as a whole, since the 1970s the number of rapes has increased an incredible 451 per cent.

I have heard a lot of dark and unhelpful mutterings in the past few weeks about who, or what, is responsible. Much has been made of the fact that the three men involved in the most recent rape were of Middle Eastern appearance.

But if we are to examine the reasons why sexual violence is on the rise we need not look much further than the amount of easily accessible and violent pornography now available on the internet.

Young men today grow up in a highly sexualised society, where everything, from music to clothing, carries a potent sexual message.

So what, then, is being done to keep women safe? It is now five years since a rash of Glasgow city centre attacks on women prompted a joint initiative between Strathclyde Police and Glasgow City Council to put gates up at the ends of Glasgow's high number of secluded lanes. The idea - and it was a good one - was to seal off these dark areas, making it far more difficult for would-be rapists to drag their intended victims off the street.

A good idea, but one that never got off the ground. Five years on, a paltry three gates have been put up, leaving most of Glasgow's lanes as accessible as ever. All three of the most recent rapes took place in lanes that have yet to be gated.

A recent report suggested that plans to gate one lane, Gordon Lane, were "under consideration". Not because of the recent rapes, but because of "antisocial behaviour".

"Specific lanes have been gated in response to problems," a spokesman for Glasgow Community & Safety Service was quoted as saying."Closures are assessed on a case-by-case basis."

At what point, one has to ask, does the fact that three rapes took place in three lanes in three months become "a problem"?

There have also been reports that, come nightfall, the city has been flooded with hundreds of police officers. While this is all well and good, it seems to me a temporary measure, a sop to the culture of fear currently prevalent in the city, ready to be discreetly withdrawn after an acceptable amount of time passes.

The city is currently pouring over 500 million into hosting the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Surely, before it starts building villages for athletes and playing host to the world, it could find some cash to ensure its streets are safe for its citizens, particularly women?

In the end, my friend and I chummed each other down to a taxi rank and saw each other into a cab. As we drove through the dark streets, I asked my driver if the ranks had been busier since the recent attacks.

"Aye," he said, nodding his head. "There's less women taking chances.

"The thing is, in the evenings, women are on their own in this city."

Peering out into the dark night, I had to agree.