Is travel safe for women?

The main reason I chose to spend a year in Canada was because of how safe I heard it was and how nice the people were. On most occasions, this was absolutely the case however a few experiences taught me that the dangers of travelling, as a woman, are real and it didn’t matter how safe I thought a place was.

Whilst in Toronto, myself and three other young women stayed in a lively area, that attracts locals and tourists because of its artisan shops and vintage markets. In the evening, we walked down the street where our hostel was located and, after looking at the menus of the restaurants, we decided to call an Uber to go downtown.

Upon approaching a small crossroad, a woman and a man came out of what seemed like nowhere – upon reflection, there was a vehicle parked further down the street. The man disappeared and the woman came to talk to us. Because we had been having conversations with lovely people throughout our visit in Toronto and in Canada, we talked to her.

She asked us our ages and seemed disappointed when we said we were 21 – she told us we all looked a lot younger. When we mentioned we were just looking for some food to eat, she kept trying to persuade us to go inside a certain restaurant. She mentioned dishes to us that weren’t on the menu (which we knew as we had just read it).

Her comments and questions made us all very uncomfortable. At that point, we walked away because our Uber had arrived and we had never been happier to get away from such a setting.

We later found out that the area we were staying in had a few cases of girls being trafficked – an area that to an outsider seemed so safe. We then realised we had almost been trafficked.

We thought it was the worst possible scenario, but the questions we were asked and the similarities of our experience to a story we later read about a trafficking case led us to this conclusion. That night none of us slept very well because we were so traumatised by the experience.

It made us think “what if?”. In that scenario, what if we had gone inside that restaurant? What if we had been a group of one or two rather than four? What if we had stayed there longer and the Uber driver hadn’t arrived? It also made us think what if we hadn’t stayed in that location? What if had been more alert and aware of our surroundings?

Another scary and uncomfortable experience I had was on the subway in Chicago. We had just arrived in the city and decided to get the subway to our hostel. We were waiting for 15 minutes for our train while being closed in by a number of men, who kept trying to talk to us. One man took out his penis and started touching himself behind us while another told us to touch it. It was so disturbing and we were scared they were going to follow us onto the train. Thankfully we arrived at our hostel safely but it impacted our time in the city in that we made sure we were always back earlier and avoided so many areas.

Travelling is something that we all look forward to, an activity that allows us to see different parts of the world and immerse ourselves in a variety of cultures. I love travelling, as through it I have been able to meet like-minded people and create memories in beautiful cities.

However, for many women, now including myself, travelling comes along with the added baggage of constantly taking extra measures to be safe in an unfamiliar environment.