Women and insecurity after the okada ban

CLEARLY there are many reasons to be appalled and sickened by the continuing—and possibly even increasing—violence against women that plagues the Nigerian society. It is true that this is not a new phenomenon, because such violence has always been both native and structural in our society. However, there’s a sense in which the recent Okada/keke ban by the Lagos State government speaks to the all too familiar lack of gender considerations in key decision making, across the tiers of government, as the safety of women seem to be most times neglected and overlooked at the policy planning table quite sadly. The Lagos State government under Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu imposed a ban on all forms of commercial motorcycles (okada) and tricycles (keke) on major highways and roads in the State effective February 2020, with this generating a lot of mixed reactions. Unfortunately, the major consequence of this ban has been the sight of millions of Lagosians on the road trekking in the absence of enough buses and cabs to cater to demand in the absence of the okada and keke. And this situation evidently holds very grave implications for women and girls as they are made to face heightened insecurity in the light of this trekking context.

For one, a World Bank Group report titled “Mainstreaming Gender in Road Transport,” highlights the differences between men and women in travel patterns in relation to trip purpose, frequency, and distance of travel. It finds that women make more and more complex trips than men. These differences stem from differences in the social and economic roles of the gender. For women, transport provides access to various resources and opportunities, such as jobs, childcare, education, and health facilities, whereas men are  far more likely to rely on private vehicles. To put it differently, women are most likely to be the primary caregivers for their children, and increasingly for their aging relatives,  hence they’re typically saddled with more responsibilities for  household-related tasks and errands, which often translate to a variety of daily trips to their children’s school,  neighborhood, market, bank etc. What must be recognised, however,  is that these trips also have the potential to be less safe since many women must walk through, or wait in, unsafe areas in order to access the available buses which ever hardly meet the demands of the thousands of Lagosians daily. Moreover, at odd times of the  day and in isolated places, these transits may be unreliable. In this same Lagos, for instance, reports abound of how women are proportionally more likely to be victims of robbery between the early hours of 4am to 6am than their male counterparts. This is a critical time of day because it is when people leave for work to beat traffic. Also,  between 6:00 pm to 12:00 am, women are once again the group most affected by robberies, as they leave work or school at late hours, and being made to walk through areas that are in most cases dark and desolate now with the ban on okada and keke..

In fact, it has to be said that the situation seems to be particularly aggravating for both low-income and minority women who tend to live in high-crime neighborhoods, often come back home from work at odd hours, and typically have less transportation options than other members of the society. If a household owns only one car, for example,  the car is more likely to be used by a male and not the female. Similarly, women register much higher levels of fear of victimization in public and transit settings than men, which clearly affects their travel patterns and modal choices. In fact, dimly lit roads, dark and empty bus stations, or lonely nighttime walks across deserted car parks are nightmares for most women. There is also the persistent increased level of sexual harassment that many women encounter walking on the street, waiting at the bus stop or riding overcrowded boats and buses.

Of course, this is not to downplay the male sufferings and untold hardship in the wake of the  ban as many are forced to trek long distances to get to their various destinations. Yet, there is need to point out the critical importance of factoring gender considerations into all aspects of transport and infrastructure in the light of the higher level of susceptibility of women to violence and insecurity on the roads. This means that for public transit to be safe for women and girls, planning bodies must incorporate a gender perspective at all levels and stages of the planning and design process. In this case, ensuring safe movements for women and girls does not simply mean establishing initiatives exclusively targeted at them.  Instead, a gender perspective must be a crosscutting feature of all decisions made in relation to public transit, such that overall provision for security is made for all. In this wise, initiatives encouraging safe public transit for women and girls should not be limited to improving motorized forms of transport. Safety design measures that could respond to women’s safety concerns like good lighting and landscaping at transit stops and along roadways to replace dark empty spaces with public presence are all integral ways of making cities safe for women and girls, as well as making them more friendly and liveable in general. In concert with these efforts, public transit systems in particular must be planned and designed to accommodate women’s specific needs in terms of the routes they travel, the times of day they depend on public transit, the places they wait for public transit, and the places they get dropped off by public transit.

As aptly stated by Jona Korn of the University of Pennsylvania, “It is (our) responsibility … to recognize the power that spaces, from workplaces to public buses, have on a woman’s safety, and to make the changes necessary to ensure the security of these spaces. It is through a recognition of the ubiquity of sexual violence in the lives of all women … and an understanding of how public spaces, including transit systems, can perpetuate structures of violence against women, that we will be able to build more inclusive cities.” The Lagos State government, therefore, has the responsibility to re-examine its ban on the operation of okada and keke and its overall transportation policy to ensure that attention is paid to the security needs of women and girls and by so doing evolve a more effective and satisfying transportation experience for all Lagosians.

Yakubu is of the Department of Mass Communication, Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, Nigeria.