'Apps' against sexist violence: neither problem nor solution

Criminal-free routes, emergency buttons, contact alerts in case of attack and recordings to have evidence. In the United Kingdom, where the murders of Sara Everard (33 years old) and Sabina Nessa (28) have once again put sexist violence at the center of public debate, a whole artillery of applications triumphs to get home

. Technology is offered as a lifeline and many women feel somewhat more protected, mobile in hand. But perhaps this is just a Band-Aid, a new way coated with the patina of innovation, to carry the keys between the fingers. In the UK, 90% of women have experienced sexual harassment in public, according to a 2021 YouGov UN Women survey.

The Hollie Guard

shares your location, video and audio recordings with your pre-selected contacts. With Where You At, your friends will see your exact location inside the nightspot even when there's no signal. WalkSafe and Safe and the City browsers use police data to keep you from walking down dark alleys. The Epowar watch, a project from the University of Bath, measures body movement to detect if the wearer is in danger. BSafe, SafeUP…, the list is long.

After Everard's murder, WalkSafe had more than half a million downloads and in the last six months its emergency button has been pressed more than 20,000 times. The creator of the application, Emma Kay, acknowledges that this is not the definitive solution to violence, but emphasizes: “Until these social problems change from the point of view of legislation or education, many people take comfort in knowing that there is a tool that helps them to be safer”.

Among the critics of these applications, there is concern about the final use of the data and the racist bias that the police and citizens may have when it comes to marking certain areas as dangerous. Several feminist organizations disapprove that these methods seem to center the responsibility for sexist violence on women. In October, in response to the government's support for an application that consists of sending a message with the estimated time of travel to then check if the user has arrived home and, if not, alert the police, the vice president of the Labor Party , Angela Rayner, sentenced: "Instead of following the movements of women as we make our lives, what if the Government tackles male violence?".

For Maya Tutton, co-founder of Our Streets Now, a platform for the criminalization of street sexual abuse, the problem with these applications is that they are not preventive: “We have to stop being reactive and short-sighted to really address the root of the problem, starting with education and laws”.

The executioner continues to be male violence.

In the meantime, these tech patches "are there for whoever needs them," suggests Kay.