New mobile app maps out catcalling and sexual harassment across London

A new mobile app has been launched revealing the capital's worst areas for street harassment so that men and women can plan their routes around it.

Safe & the City has been designed to create personalised walking routes that avoid areas with high numbers of reported sexual harassment incidents.

Routes are based around information accrued from crime data, the amount of lighting on a street, the number of businesses open and crowdsourced reports of sexual harassment in the street.

Jillian Kowalchuk, CEO of Safe & the City, said she came up with the idea for the app when she moved to London from Vancouver.

She said the app's developers worked with the Metropolitan Police to locate areas in London which have a high risk of crime.

“I was using CityMapper and Google Maps to get around but these didn’t necessarily take me down the safest routes,” she said.

After she was catcalled in the street in Soho and felt particularly distressed, she decided she wanted to do something to help tackle sexual harassment in the city.

“I was walking to Soho to meet a friend and I took a shortcut down a dark alley as my maps was telling me it was the quickest route.

“I didn’t want to go, but I didn’t know another way," she said.

“Some kitchen staff who were on their break started catcalling and saying things they wanted to do to me and I felt quite threatened.

“I realised I was in an environment that was really at risk,” she continued.

Ms Kowalchuk said she realised that it is often the case that women are reluctant or afraid to report harassment.