A Poster Campaign for Project Guardian

In February I learned of London based Project Guardian and connected with one of it's biggest supporters who is working at the grassroots level. It was important to me as a frequent user of public transportation when I lived in NY & NJ and now her in LA that I help in any way I can to promote awareness for a little known or discussed topic. 

Project Guardian is simply stated a 'long-term project involving British Transport Police (BTP), Transport for London (TfL), Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police, which aims to reduce sexual assault and unwanted behavior on public transport in London'. This passionate supporter who's twitter name is UnderreportedSH & address @Underreported22 learned of it in Autumn 2014 on the radio and through her own formal survey research found out that very few people who use London Transport have heard of it. Only 13.8% of survey respondents are aware but know very little about it. She was concerned by the high level of advertising space used for other safety and security issues on London public transport by the TfL i.e. 'report suspicious luggage' or take care on 'slippery stairs' but none for Project Guardian.

As a result this one concerned citizen started a campaign to push for the introduction of a widespread and long term poster campaign for Project Guardian on all forms of public transport with the message that reportable offenses include 'sexual touching, exposure, outraging public decency, lewd comments, leering and harassment'. More importantly perpetrators and those victims of sexual harassment or assault need to know that they will be taken seriously by police and bystanders. She says "as a society, we need to stop ignoring our culture of normalized violence against women and girls in public spaces!"

Although there has been no direct response from TfL to the poster campaign on Twitter and answers to queries via email have been slow they have said that "an integrated communications campaign is in development for launch late Spring". Additional information as to what this will consist of was not provided but on Twitter the British Transport Police said "it's going to be an online-base campaign for London to begin with, we understand" yet no further response when asked if posters would be appearing.

The Poster project has received very good support from the community and public as individuals, organizations and charities have re-tweeted messages. The message here is to show those in charge of Project Guardian that it is a service supported by the public yet equally people want it to be given a higher profile so that women can be empowered to take back their streets and public spaces and to feel safe in them again. anyone can become involved by contacting @Underreported22 on Twitter or Project Guardina directly asking when posters will be seen in public. A goal in the near future is to create a petition so as to make the message even louder.

Ultimately it's about focusing on trying to stop gender based violence against women and girls given the universal lack of recognition for their rights in all aspects of society, public and private lives.

A Message from the poster campaign organizer:

I would like to thank everyone who has supported me so far. Let's keep the campaign positive. Project Guardian is fantastic but more needs to be done so that it can be fully utilized. A purely online campaign is not sufficient to tackle the problem because with 2.3 million journeys made by bus alone in London a widespread poster campaign millions of travelers could be easily informed by Project Guardian. Washington DC has posters telling users of public transportation that harassment will not be tolerated, Taiwan has alarms on public transport for passengers concerned about sexual harassment so now London needs to start leading the way.