Set the Location
Use the search bar or zoom in on the map to directly mark the relevant spot.
With the Safe Cities for Women Map, we are transforming women's everyday experiences in cities across Turkey into a digital map, collaboratively generating the data needed to create safer and more inclusive public spaces.
Share your positive or negative experiences in public spaces and pin their locations on the map. You can submit details anonymously and without registering.
Safe Cities for Women Map
Selecting a province displays the number of positive/negative experiences.
Using the map and sharing your experience takes just a few minutes.
Use the search bar or zoom in on the map to directly mark the relevant spot.
Indicate how the space made you feel (positive/negative) and, if you wish, briefly describe your experience.
Your report will appear on the map as soon as it is saved. You can then add other pins if you'd like.
This map enables women to make visible the positive and negative social and environmental conditions they experience in public spaces, through their own reports. Our primary goal is not to map current safety conditions, but to use these submissions as an advocacy tool to guide civil society and local governments in designing safer streets.
As in many cities worldwide, women in Turkey are unable to use public spaces freely due to the harassment they face outdoors, the constant feeling of being surveilled, and the fear of violence. This situation severely restricts women's participation in daily life and decision-making mechanisms. Even though we share our struggles with one another, these experiences fail to translate into concrete, publicly accessible data. Furthermore, there is a lack of a digital platform where women can share these experiences safely and anonymously, and where we can collaboratively map them. To bridge this gap, our project was launched to create a space of digital solidarity where women can generate their own data and make their voices heard in the demand for safer streets. The data gathered on this map functions not merely as a directory of currently safe or unsafe locations, but as a robust advocacy tool for making streets safer for women. Informed by these visualized spatial experiences, civil society and local administrations will be encouraged to formulate urban design improvements and safety policies.
This initiative, which aims to create safer, more accessible, and egalitarian public spaces for women, was launched by Sociologist Dr. Özge Altın to make the gender dynamics of urban spaces visible. As a concrete outcome of research conducted on urban sociology and spatial politics, the foundations of this project were laid during Altın’s doctoral studies, completed at the Department of Sociology and the Institute for Housing and Urban Research at Uppsala University. The project's data mapping and participatory research practices are currently progressing in parallel with ongoing academic studies at the Institute for Turkish Studies at Stockholm University. More than just a digital platform, this map is also a qualitative and participatory action research project that centers on women's everyday spatial experiences within the city.
This map, as part of the "Digital Map of Gendered Urban Safety: A Pilot Initiative for Inclusive Digital Democracy in Turkey" project, is supported through the Digital Spark granting scheme, as part of the Regional Support Mechanism EECA project, implemented by Metamorphosis Foundation and TechSoup, in partnership with CIVICUS and under the Digital Democracy Initiative (DDI) that covers the Global South. The DDI Program is supported by funding provided by the European Union Commission, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation.
Current distribution of places marked as positive or negative experiences.
Summary of collective markings
Community contribution density
Latest areas marked
Please feel free to contact us with your questions and suggestions.
You can reach us by filling out the form. Your details are used only to respond to your request.
