Marseille City Council Launches App to Combat Sexual Harassment on Beaches

A city in France recently launched an app to protect women from sexual harassment on the beach.

No one should feel uncomfortable or unsafe, but unfortunately sexual harassment is a widespread problem, especially for women.

According to a 2018 study by IFOP (French Institute of Public Opinion), 81% of women have been sexually harassed in public places.

To combat this problem, Marseille City Council, in collaboration with over 20 French feminist organizations, has developed an app aimed at making public beaches safer for women.

Safer Plage offers users three options: “I’m being harassed,” “I’m being harassed,” or “I’m in danger,” which alerts volunteer beach mediators to the situation. A mediator supports the user while one takes care of the perpetrator.

One mediator explained that their main concern is to ensure that women feel safe.

“We ask her if she would like to come with us to the first aid station to get her to safety, discuss things and explain the situation to us.”

🇫🇷📲 FLASH | The city of #Marseille After launching a free application called “Safe Beach”, you can denounce sexual and sexual violence to any person, without victims or deceptions on certain beaches during life.

👉 Once the alert is given,… pic.twitter.com/CA4lGd2Lre

– Cerfia (@CerfiaFR) July 18, 2023

The app was tested at several music festivals last summer before being rolled out to five areas in Marseille.

During the festivals, the Safer team operated a booth with trained volunteers to help those who felt unsafe or were facing unwanted attention. So far they have been represented at almost 80 events.

Since launching, the beach version of the app has been downloaded over 1,000 times, showing clear public interest in tackling the issue.

In just over a year, the original Safer app has been downloaded around 27,000 times and appears to be becoming a relatively efficient deterrent tool.

However, that doesn’t mean it’s without limitations. Safer Plage is not yet perfected and app users have been quick to point out its limited opening hours.

One user noted that while it was a “great idea,” mediators were only available at certain times of the day.

Although there is still a long way to go, Safer Plage is a significant step forward in making public spaces safe for everyone.

Hopefully the downsides are simply due to expanding operations, which seems realistic at the moment.