Women's charity partners with Southeastern Rail to tackle safety
New forum aims to improve confidence for female passengers in Kent.
With crimes against women and girls on UK railways rising by more than 50% over two years, Soroptimist International Great Britain and Ireland (SIGBI) has stepped up efforts to enhance safety through a new partnership with Southeastern Railway.
Launching this summer, the collaboration aims to create a community-led forum focused on improving the safety and confidence of female passengers across Kent.
The partnership stemmed from SIGBI’s relaunched ‘The Future of the Railways’ survey last year, when members from the charity’s Medway and Maidstone clubs connected with the Safeguarding Liaison Managerat Southeastern Railway.
Adam Downing, Safeguarding Liaison Manager at Southeastern Railway, said:
“At Southeastern, we recognise that safety is not measured solely by reported incidents, but by how safe people feel when travelling on our network.
“That is why we are proud to be working alongside SIGBI and wider community partners to establish a community-led forum that will help shape meaningful action to improve safety, trust and confidence for women and girls.
“This is about listening, learning and working together to create a railway where everyone feels safe, supported and able to travel with confidence.”
Dr Roxanne St. Clair, President of Soroptimist International South East England, praised the initiative as a positive step toward improved passenger safety:
"We will be working together to get the questions out, arranging for our clubs and other parties to speak to people from different groups to actually gauge their responses so that they can actually feed into what South Eastern Rail are doing in order to improve things for women.
"And I say improve, but sometimes it's a case of us as passengers being more aware of what's available for us on the railway.
"The forum will be ongoing. So it's still early days yet. There's a lot of work ahead, and it will continue to evolve as and when information comes in,
"That's when we can report back to South Eastern as to what the findings are, and they can then review it."
"I think this is a fantastic initiative. And I know that this is something that the railways in general are looking at the safety of women and girls as they travel.
"If we can do the best with what we've got and show that we can get some really good results and some good feedback, then hopefully this can roll out further and further.
"And we continue to see the changes and people continue to feel supported."