A couple of weeks back a British woman was gang-raped in France. Now an Australian woman has also been gang-raped by five men ( source: https://7news.com.au/sunrise/australian-woman-allegedly-gang-raped-in-paris-ahead-of-the-olympics–c-15443604 )
Having lived in a big French city and seen the issues first hand – my partner and I no longer felt safe and moved to a more rural environment.
They say that as much as 1 in 10 sex crimes go unreported, with the numbers already hovering at 52 per 100k women, that'd put France leagues beyond even Sweden who is at 88 per 100k.
Is your country safe for women (and men) to go out after dark?
36 comments
I live in Denmark, so… yes.
Croatia yes yes. Quite a lot of neighbouring countries are too, Balkan or Central European
Yes, it very safe here. I walk often at night from the city center to my apartment (20-30min) and never had any problems.
The city is mostly empty.
I’m a woman and generally in places I’ve lived yeah. I am from a small city and now living in Madrid and have felt very safe, there are some sketchy parts but overall safe.
Yes. There is always a chance you run into some idiots, its the tax of a city of 600 000 people (Bratislava), but I never had any issues and you can expect problems only in high-traffic areas, where young people drink too much like around disco-bars or downtown Friday/Saturday night. You should be vigilant, but not afraid.
Yeah, safe pretty much everywhere
Well, in Germany it is like in many other european countries: Regarding sexual assaults, women are statistically much safer on an open street at night than at home
I can just speak about Zürich in Switzerland, yes, the streets are safe.
Majority of sex crimes that go unreported are committed within the family or friends.
That has nothing to do with big cities
Macedonia – Used to be, and for most part it probably is, but lately there is a lot more crime that the police is not bothered to care for. As child I remember we would go out by ourselves to stores and not worry, now in last few years, I am more afraid to go out with bag or smth as literally there is a lot of pickpocketing, and people who had their bags,wallets stollen. Last summer I remember vividly when in span of one week at least 10 people (coworkers,family, neighbors and friends) had been robbed in the same area or had their homes robbed. Record was my mom’s friend who had her home robbed twice at the same fucking weekend. But other than that, it’s safe from terrorist attacks or gun shootings stuff like that are very rare.
Czechia – yes, pretty much everywhere it is considered safe.
In Lithuania I see women jogging at 11 pm in park, so I think yes. And it’s a park/forest, it has extremely dark areas, but they just stick to the roads with the illumination.
Anyway, I was impressed by that at first.
Absolutely, a few sketchy parts of Lisboa, but otherwise an incredibly safe country.
I knew this was about Paris before clicking, so that answers that, I suppose.
I do feel safe in Graz and I guess it’s not just a feeling; statistically it’s probably the safest city (so not counting less urban areas) I’ve ever lived in.
That said, I’m aware that my personal “safety radar” is broken. I felt safe living in Lyon, I felt safe visiting Paris, I felt safe living in La Plata, and then a couple experiences led to me feeling unsafe at night in Düsseldorf when I lived in the area. Let’s just say Düsseldorf, statistically, is not exactly the most dangerous of those cities.
> They say that as much as 1 in 10 sex crimes go unreported, with the numbers already hovering at 52 per 100k women, that’d put France leagues beyond even Sweden who is at 88 per 100k.
I wouldn’t find it hard to believe that the real rates in France are higher than in Sweden — but France isn’t the only country where not all crimes get reported.
I live in Gabrovo, Bulgaria and it’s very safe at night. Never had anything bad happen to me. Well, I’m a relatively tall man, but my girlfriend, mother and other women in my closest circle also feel safe. I’d say this about Bulgaria in general.
The only problem is when you have to cross the road or just walk along the main streets. People drive especially crazy at night and there are too many drunk drivers.
Bucharest is extremely safe. You can walk home after clubbing at 4 AM and nothing will happen to you.
Lemme get it straight : somehow, 1 in 10 sex crimes being unreported only happens in France and not in Sweden ? It’s so convenient that you see that France has less sexual crimes than Sweden, but decide to disregard it. Then, you take two random news tidbits (the one linked by the way doesn’t give any facts, just a filed investigation) from the most populated city in Europe, and most visited in the world, and somehow this should be a reason to feel insecure ? I wish my views were so malleable.
Find facts : in France crimes are in an all time low since the 1990. In France, catcalling is a sexual offence, not in Sweden.
I feel quite safe to walk around in the dark in the cities I know well, of course I’m always vigilant and careful. The one time I was minority assaulted in a city was on the Paris metro in broad daylight in front of a whole carriage of people, not exactly a lone dark alley.
Yes of course. People say Barcelona is “dangerous” but these people I think have never lived anywhere with actual danger. The biggest threat is pickpockets
Despite what you may hear, yes.
If you are unlucky or if you look for any, you might find problems, but chances are that you won’t.
Of course you cannot eliminate every bit of risk, but compared to other countries (and especially eastern European countries that are often praised for their safety) our homicide rates etc. are still pretty low.
On the other hand, I do think that women experience a lot of cat calling here, which especially at night I imagine is really frightening.
Your chances of running into problems go up exponentially if you walk around drinking hotspots with lots of drunk, young men of course.
You may hear alot of bad things about Romania but our cities are pretty safe compared to some western countries.
I’m a woman who lives in London and I feel pretty safe going out at night. There’s always this (inter)national media narrative that criminals are waiting for you at every corner in London and you’ll get stabbed as soon as you step out of the airport/railway station, when in fact it’s a reasonably safe city for its size (as far as huge cities with 9m can be – you need to have some level of common sense and distracted tourists are easy prey for pickpockets, alas).
The likelihood of my being attacked by strange men is pretty low. Women are far, far, far more likely to be attacked by their partners or someone they know.
I think Eastern Europe is pretty safe overall, at least when it comes to sexual crimes
FYI: statistics tend to mislead people who are not familiar with the methodology or the related law. Sweden for example is way up the statistics because sex related crimes are universally outlawed. The law is the most far reaching in Europe. Additionally there is a high level of awareness on the one hand and a high level of trust in the police on the other hand leading to higher rates of reports, thus higher levels of statistically documented cases. That does not mean people being raped more often in Sweden but the country taking these crimes more seriously than countries with low trust rates in the police or very narrow laws on what rape actually means leagally.
Yes, because we have curfew. Nobody except military, police and some infrastructure workers is allowed to be on streets between 00:00 and 05:00. As for me curfew was only one thing that improved my life since beginning of the invasion.
Work as an alert responder in Scotland, have done loads of night shifts alone in a van and feel totally safe.
Well I got followed on my birthday night and a man raped and killed a cat feeder in the early hours of the day so i would say…. no.
Woerden/Utrecht, the Netherlands: absolutely. Utrecht a little less than Woerden, but I’ve been taking night walks for years, going out and hanging in parks with other women until 4AM and it’s never been dangerous.
In Finland, men tend to avoid women at all cost. So by all means i think it’s the safest among any country.
Depends on what you mean by “safe”.
In general, you don’t have to fear for your safety in German cities. Even the “worse” parts (and I live in a part of the country famous for having cities with “worse parts”) are no places where you will get mugged or assaulted or the like if you just go through there.
But for women, there is obviously always risk involved, doesn’t matter where. Even the nicest parts of town doesn’t protect you from some guys.
Germany here, I was robbed and assaulted with a knife before so I’d honestly say not anymore. When I was a child it was perfectly normal to go outside without worries, nowadays that’s not possible anymore.
its relatively safe here in Ireland, with the usual issues of anti social activity being highlighted as anomalies…
but, 1 in 5 women have reported being sexually assaulted (https://www.womensaid.ie/get-informed/facts/) and less than 1% of rapes lead to convictions. in the cities, young women especially are at risk due to the drink culture, and the lack of protections (ie – majority of taxis turn off their meters and tracking when picking up women in city centre without any checks by police). its generally safe, but the statistics show that it’s not all good
Germany is pretty safe but I get sexually harassed by non locals here quite often. It’s especially older Muslim men who can’t keep their hands to themselves, but other than that it’s quite safe in my experience
It’s a complicated answer
I will always recall that 97% of women in the UK have experienced some kind of gender related harassment
I am deeply aware that for most women their gender identity is confirmed to them by being harassed and groped. This happens before we get to come to terms with our changing body. I will always remember when I first got groped, on a city bus in Eastern Europe. There was a middle aged woman next to me who saw everything and said nothing. She looked me in the face. I was 13yo, too stunned to react
So all of you saying yes your countries are safe: no, we need to change the culture.
It’s not yet done.
Look at how the Spanish football player got kissed on the mouth by essentially her boss when she won the championship.
I’m upset that girls that could now be my daughters still have to put up with what I dealt with in my teenager years
(Yes, superficially, the answer is that I feel in a safe country. I’m not naïve though.)
I’m from Milan, Italy, and no I wouldn’t call it safe. Cat calling is everywhere and I got harassed multiple times at least verbally. I personally go around by bike and avoid public transport at night, that way I feel much safer.
Now I live in London and weirdly I feel much safer. Maybe it’s because I see so many girls and women going around half naked and drunk af alone at night and nobody bats an eye, in Italy they would be assaulted and cat called to oblivion :/
I’m Polish and it’s safe in Poland. I live in the Netherlands and it’s safe here too. We lived in hood and it was not scary to walk at any given time. Crime still happens it’s just a small chance for it to actually happen to you.
In Poland if you have big mouth it’s not completely safe for man alone at night (fights with drunk guys) but now it’s way better than it was 10-15 years ago. Being scared about getting robbed on street or something it’s not something people in Poland and the Netherlands bother so much.