Gender equity in the South African context – what does the data show regarding mobility and personal security trends?
Authors: Marianne Vanderschuren, Tanya Lane-Visser and Heather Allen
5 Minute ReadIt is well established that women and girls experience transport differently to men, and to a lesser extent boys. Women use and rely on public transport more than men, making more frequent, shorter and chained trips and are significantly more exposed to gender-based violence and sexual harassment. In the African context, their vulnerability is increased by the fact that public transport is mostly informal.
Vanderschuren et al. (2019) established that in South Africa travel patterns did not differ much between males and females, according to the 2013 South African Household Travel Survey (SAHTS), in contrast to many other countries described in the literature, which often shows women being less mobile than men. For daily travel times, this is still the case in 2020 (Vanderschuren and Lane-Visser, in press). For both, males and females, travel times have continued to increase between 2003 and 2020 (measured before the restricted travel of the Covid-19 pandemic). Modes of transport differ somewhat between the two genders, and changes can be observed over the period from 2003 and 2020 (see Figure 1). The percentage of trips using public transport has reduced and, while females still use public transport more than males, the gap is clearly diminishing (see Figure 1). For both, males and females, the role of walking (as their primary transport mode) has increased over the research period, and the increase has been greater for women (from 38,1% in 2003 to 56,6% in 2020). Unfortunately, this is not due to environmental consciousness, but out of economic necessity (Vanderschuren and Lane-Visser, in press) as women have less money to spend on transport.
As transport costs increase, women and girls become even more exposed to potential personal security risks. This can result in sexually motivated harassment, violence and worse. The impact of transport restrictions during the COVID pandemics further compounded the vulnerability of girls as many were encouraged or coerced into sexual relations in exchange for transport (CREAW, 2020).
Safety, security and accessibility remain major concerns for women everywhere but in particular in African cities and over 80% of surveyed women in Kampala, Uganda, and Nairobi, Kenya, said they experienced sexual harassment on public transport (Dusabe and Thai, 2024). EMPOWER collected data from Blantyre, Malawi and Lagos, Nigeria and found a shocking 73% of transport managers, 44% of operators and 88% of commuters had heard of or witnessed cases, with most incidents occurring at bus stations and in vehicles (Vanderschuren and Allen, in press). Furthermore, the majority of cases go unreported. Four out of five South African women change the way they dress because of harassment experiences, and 72% of them report to have been followed by one or more men in the past (Elsherif and Belding, 2015) and this is also to be found in Kenya (Santos & Seol, 2015; USAID, 2020).
The SAHTS includes data on the perception of personal security related to public transport services. This data is sourced from the head of the households and can, therefore, not be split between males and females. In 2013, respondents perceived personal security levels as (very) dissatisfying when traveling to and from (56%), waiting for (33%) or being on (47%) a train (Vanderschuren et al. 2019). In 2020, these percentages increased to 71%, 58% and 65%, respectively (SAHTS, 2020). The reader needs to keep in mind that a large part of the South African train system collapsed between 2013 and 2020. These changes must, therefore, be interpreted with caution, although it does indicate great dissatisfaction with personal security on rail services up to 2020.
As the minibus taxi industry is the most important public transport provider in South Africa, and changes in bus related statistics are not significant, the authors elected to conduct a trend analysis on personal security specifically for this mode (see Figure 2). For all categories, namely walking to/from, waiting at the stop/rank and on the vehicle, satisfaction with personal security has improved by 5%, 8% and 11%, respectively. The fact that between 23% and 33% of respondents are still (very) dissatisfied with the personal security situation related when using minibus taxis in 2020 is, however, of great concern (Vanderschuren and Lane-Visser, in press).
Women’s personal security when using public transport is still compromised on a daily basis and despite many studies showing that this insecurity hampers women fully contributing to society and the economy - policy change has not been forthcoming in Africa. While recognising that the response is complex, more can be done to ensure zero tolerance of harassment and violence when using transport services. This would also increase the systems image and ridership, and make it safer for all.
Related
An Introduction to the Issue of Sexual Harassment in Public Transport
The simple act of ‘stepping outside’ the residential quarters is often linked to fear – from a young age, girls are taught to avoid walking on certain streets after certain hours; being alone in certain areas/neighbourhoods; wearing certain types of clothing.
Passenger-driven approaches to address sexual harassment in public transport
Over time, several bottom-up strategies have emerged to protect female public transport passengers from sexual harassment. Although effective in terms of managing personal risks, these strategies come at a high cost to personal freedom and access to opportunities for the women who employ them.
References
Centre for Rights Education and Awareness of Women (CREAW) (2020). Kilifi Bodabodas join the campaign to end teen pregnancy, Blog post, https://home.creaw.org/2020/01/31/kilifi-bodabodas-join-the-campaign-to-end-teen-pregnancy/
2. Dusabe E. & Thai, T.T. (2024). No Safe Journeys for Women: Why Mobility Systems in African Cities Are Failing Women’s Needs, The City Fix, Published by the World Resource Institute.
3. ElSherief M. & Belding, E. (2015). The Urban Characteristics of Street Harassment: A First Look. In ACM Workshop on Smart Cities and Urban Analytics, colocated with SigSpatial 2015. DOI:10.1145/2835022.2835027.
4. Santos I. & Seol, B., (2015). #MyDressMyChoice: Tackling gender discrimination and violence in Kenya one tweet at a time, World Bank Blog post, https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/developmenttalk/ mydressmychoice-tackling-gender-discrimination-and-violence-kenya-one-tweet-time.
5. South African Household Travel Survey. Raw Data 2003, Statistics South Africa.
6. South African Household Travel Survey. Raw Data 2013, Statistics South Africa.
7. South African Household Travel Survey. Raw Data 2020, Statistics South Africa.
8. USAID, (2020). Gender-Based Violence on Public transportation – A review of Evidence and existing Solutions. USAID's Communications, Evidence, and Learning (CEL) Project (contract GS00F061GA 7200AA18M00006), https://urban-links.org/wp-content/uploads/GBV-on-Transportation_6-26-2020_updated_DM.pdf.
9. Vanderschuren, M.; Phayane, S.; Gwynne-Evans, (2019). A. Perceptions of Gender, Mobility, and Personal Safety: South Africa Moving Forward, in Transport Research Record, 2019, Volume 2673, Issue 11, pp. 1-12, DOI: 10.1177/0361198119854087.
10. Vanderschuren M. & Allen H. (in press). Creating Inclusive Public Transport – Addressing Gender Based Harassment - Experiences and Improvement Opportunities, International Conference Series on Competition and Ownership in Land Passenger Transport, Cape Town, 29 September – 3 October 2024, in press.
11. Vanderschuren, M. & Lane-Visser T.E., (in press). Transport Equity in South Africa - How much Progress was made over the Last Two Decades? African Transport Studies Journal, in press.