{"id":756458,"date":"2026-02-11T04:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T04:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/756458\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T04:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T04:51:09","slug":"walk-and-talk-event-puts-focus-on-womens-safety-in-birmingham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/756458\/","title":{"rendered":"Walk-and-talk event puts focus on women\u2019s safety in Birmingham"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Birmingham women\u2019s group recently joined West Midlands Police<\/a> for a walk-and-talk event through the city centre to discuss concerns about women\u2019s safety and highlight support available on nights out.<\/p>\n

The force\u2019s lead for Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) took part alongside neighbourhood officers, licensing teams and Safer Travel officers, meeting members of The Girl\u2019s Club Birmingham<\/a>, a community group that organises social events to help women connect in a safe environment.<\/p>\n

The walk began at Rosies nightclub on Broad Street, where participants discussed issues including drink spiking, personal safety while socialising and the measures venues can take to protect customers. Managers at the venue outlined a range of safeguards, including anti-spiking drink covers, staff specifically tasked with monitoring for concerns and a dedicated safe space where trained employees can offer first aid and security support.<\/p>\n

The group then moved to the Centenary Square Library Metro stop to focus on safety on public transport. Officers encouraged greater reporting of behaviour that women and girls often normalise or minimise, but which can affect how confident they feel travelling around the city.<\/p>\n

As part of that effort, the Safer Travel Partnership has launched a series of short films titled What Could I Do?<\/a>, aimed at educating passengers about awareness, bystander intervention and how to take action if they witness harassment.<\/p>\n

Paula Shortland, Safer Travel Education Officer, said the campaign was designed to ensure women felt able to speak up. She said officers were actively encouraging women and girls to report any unwanted behaviour that might otherwise be dismissed, adding that such incidents had a real impact on how they used the transport network. Shortland reminded passengers that help points linked to a 24-hour control room were available on the network, and that non-emergency concerns could be reported by texting SeeSay to 81018.<\/p>\n

The walk also included a stop at a hotel in the New Street area to discuss the expansion of the Ask for Angela scheme into city-centre hotels, before finishing at the Southside Safe Space in the Arcadian, a facility where anyone can seek assistance on a night out.<\/p>\n

Susan\u00a0Mabbett,\u00a0VAWG\u00a0lead for West Midlands Police said: \u201cIt was really beneficial to have open discussions with The Girls Club Birmingham about how women\u2019s safety can be improved. We also\u00a0highlighted\u00a0the help and support that is available in the city centre.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that women and girls are concerned about their safety, and we want to reassure you that we are working hard to make the streets safer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in the process of rolling out the Ask for Angela initiative to hotels across the city centre. The initiative is already firmly installed in many of our bars and clubs. There are also\u00a0many\u00a0safe spaces across the city such as Southside Safe Space where anyone can go to for help on a night out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe walk is just one example of our engagement work we are doing to listen and understand your concerns around women\u2019s safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

To read similar articles, check out our People and Skills<\/a> channel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Birmingham women\u2019s group recently joined West Midlands Police for a walk-and-talk event through the city centre to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,16188,4884,3181,114559,222600,529,16,15,102462,7830,155621],"class_list":["post-756458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-birmingham","tag-birmingham","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-frontline","tag-great-britain","tag-leadership","tag-neighbourhood-policing","tag-night-time-economy","tag-police","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-violence-against-women-and-girls","tag-west-midlands-police","tag-womens-safety"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116050204164487209","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}