How do I not get raped today?
- danbrown119
- Dec 18, 2025
- 12 min read
How do I not get raped or attacked today should not be an acceptable question for anyone to have to ask themselves ever, yet listening to a discussion last week I was shocked and appalled to understand this is the case for many women in the UK, and no doubt globally on a daily basis.
The event was promoting the Women's Night Safety Charter part of the Mayor’s Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy and London’s commitment to the UN Women Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces global initiative.
According to the Mayors office London is a safe city, yet too many women feel unsafe when travelling, working or going out at night. Londoners have asked the Night Czar to prioritise women's safety. That's why the Mayor has created this charter: to make London a city where all women feel confident and welcome at night. My feeling is that there is a lot of work to do, and frankly not enough being done.
Speaking to a few football clubs who presented representing their community foundations that are doing amazing work connecting and engaging with communities, and as a man who has a wife that I love very much, a loving family of young daughters, a sister with young daughters and as someone who thinks a lot about the way the world is behind the curtain of advertising bullshit and social media, I left feeling deeply troubled to hear that a large percentage of women have to ask themselves every day how they can get through without being raped or attacked in the street. Unfortunately I then have to ask myself how many women also feel like this at home, in the office and ultimately unsafe in society.
On the way home on the train I asked my WhatsApp group for The Club of Doing Well Doing Good for the views from our community, asking if this is where we find ourselves in the world today and did they have any comments to make. The responses were deeply concerning.
Here are a few of those responses.
That’s very sad to hear Dan.
I was speaking to my two grown up daughters recently and they said,
Dad we don’t tell you as we know how upset you will be , but whether it’s a bus, tube or train we are constantly on our guard due our experiences of harassment over the years and that they have just worked out mechanisms as to how best they avoid and get away from such behaviour.
I was absolutely shocked that this has no become a normalised pattern of thinking, as to how best they protect themselves each time they get on public transport.
In this digital world I find it astonishing that we can’t keep better track of these offenders! No one should leave their home and feel worries about being attacked!
And another.
I think it's a very common feeling, and has therefore to a degree been normalised. I've felt it myself many times to varying degrees. It's not exactly that you fear being attacked at every turn, rather that you are aware of the need for a safety plan. Just the other day, some guy was following me as I was walking the dog. He didn't do anything directly to me, and could very well have been totally innocent, but his behaviour made me feel very uncomfortable, so I called Paul and he talked to me till I was safely in my car.
And another.
I have 2 boys and a girl, she's 16, and I worry about her going out on her own. The other day she was super helpful and walked the dog late afternoon. While she was out it got dark and I was feeling a little on edge until she got home. She was totally fine about being out and wasn't phased. I know they talk about this stuff at school too so she's not being naïve. There are lots of aspects to this like environment, company, location, familiarity etc.
And another.
It is something Caroline Nokes referred to in her talk about interviews held in the business world to investigate sexual harassment as part of the select committee work and she referred to it as not moving much from the 1970s in terms of sexual harassment. It does still happen in my experience and often people are sneakier about it. Having experienced an attack when I was 18, yesterday really focused my mind that I know where I need to be and that’s driving change in the way we prepare young people life. The socialisation of some of these toxic norms is taught behaviour and the social scroll impact is rife with unfiltered misogyny. Material accessed online feeds a lot of these behaviours.
And another.
I don’t have children myself but understand this anxiety from my brothers who are parents of girls and as a man I have changed the ways I walk at night in particular (crossing the street and giving space) as a lot of my female friends and family have educated me on how much of a worry it is. Sad state of affairs for society but hopefully these changes and education will help a situation I think should never exist (everyone should feel safe to walk freely).
This talk serves as a poignant reminder of the vital role we play as mentors not just to young people, but anyone who needs it. It's about being the support system needed when hope seems lost - showing empathy, resilience, and a belief in everyone's capacity for success. I urge you to watch this video and understand the profound impact you can have by simply listening and believing in someone. You can help someone rewrite their story 💖
On a more positive note I was very glad to hear from Anthea Sully, CEO at the event from White Ribbon, the UK’s leading charity engaging men and boys to end violence against women and girls. There mission is to prevent violence against women and girls by addressing its root causes. They work with men and boys to change long-established, and harmful, attitudes, systems and behaviours around masculinity that perpetuate inequality and violence. The work is preventative; we want to stop violence before it starts.
As a society, regardless of how much an individual person, project, organisation or government may like to think they are doing, it isn't working to its full potential in isolation, we are failing to understand that humanity needs the support of a global collaboration to find new ways of connecting the abundant resources of successful charitable projects, corporations, and local communities to the people that desperately need help.
Billions of pounds is spent every year tackling harmful behaviour and mental health issues
With huge challenges of all kinds playing a massive role in a battle for the mental health and wellbeing of our nations, we must find a better way to win these battles should we have hope of supporting brighter better futures and the Positive Transformation of society for our children and future generations that should not have to live with fear, doubt and uncertainty.
This is not about any one issue of violence, cost of living, jobs or any other individual factor, this a symptom of wide spread poverty and a famine of compassion, wisdom, and a willingness to help others find the resources they desperately need to survive at the most basic level.
So how do we move from trying to put a band aid on a gaping wound that is clearly killing the patient, to powerfully seeking to understand what lies beneath the mind dulling resonance of collective group think and conventional opinion about where we find ourselves today? We can start by reminding ourselves every day.
To Do Well and Do Good it will be equally powerful and uncomfortable to ask ourselves what right do we have to be breathing today above and beyond the people we now see as news stories, the people easily seen as unfortunates on social media, and those so easily dismissed as not our problem, yet we are all one humanity, one people, one community. It's a simple fact regardless of how hard we are pushing against it.
Brighter better futures are not somebody else's problem, they are ours collectively, so what positive steps, even very small steps can we make today toward changing one mind and changing one life by demonstrating the power of collaboration?
Well let's look at imabi who are on a mission to build safer communities by empowering people and organisations to take a proactive approach to safety. In doing so imabi is becoming the predictive future of prevention, education and empowerment and CEO Mark Balaam invites you to be part of their future enabling Positive Transformation of communities globally.
Mark and his team at imabi are already providing actionable advice to keep you safe, reporting functions to guide authorities, and geolocation to inform family and friends of your whereabouts. The imabi platform https://www.imabi.com/ already has over 500,000 users including being the technology driving Railway Guardian with the British Transport Police
Mark has stated that imabi will benefit the lives of everyone, everyday, everywhere,
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society,"
- Jiddu Krishnamurti.
New image in deck
We have created a first of a kind national eco system and a TRUSTED, ALL IN ONE PLACE SOLUTION for everyone, everyday, everywhere
Our central platform allows us to create tailored and customised user facing apps for education, businesses and communities
Our platform and eco system offers 5 user and organisation facing apps
Inspire – Aimed at the education market to provide safeguarding and wellbeing support to students and teachers in Schools, Colleges and Universities
Railway Guardian – Has been built on our Enterprise solution and has been tailored for the British Transport Police. It’s helping them tackle violence against women and girls and promoting active bystanders on the rail network.
We link into the 61016 text service and we have become the UK’s first and only crime reporting app
I urge anyone using the rail network to download it today and speak to myself or the BTP team here today.
Guardian – Is our new free consumer app, launching today, that has been tailored to complement Railway Guardian and help tackle violence against women and girls when not on the rail network
Community – Is our national free consumer app that is helping to create safer and healthier communities through local and national initiatives.
Pro – Is aimed at the workplace. It’s tackling workplace discrimination / harassment, harmful behaviours, mental health and helping businesses to reenforce policies, training, such as WAVE training for Ask for Angela, brand reputation and retaining talent
imabi Community CIC is our not for profit company, set up to support safeguarding in the education sector and create safer communities. Please speak to us to find out more about how you can help us and become part of our journey.
So what does it look like
Our single unified platform allows us to tailor and present a number services and features to organisations and individuals through a number of user facing apps
The one shown here is our free Community app and backend portal
Reports - makes it easier to report harmful behaviours, environmental and mental health issues
Guides - Educates and provides essential knowledge to ensure we all make safer decisions and know right from wrong
Because unfortunately we are living in a nation that normalises unacceptable behaviours
Support - Links you to support services so you can get help when you need it
Location - Provides a suite of geo location tools to share your journey with friends and loved ones and notify people when you arrive somewhereYou can use our rescue me feature when you need help and you can also be navigated to important places e.g safe havens/spaces, defibrillators, food banks
Messages - Provides real time messaging so you receive important information when you need it
Noticeboard - Links you to other essential information, partners organisations and promotes national and local campaigns
Your Voice – Is a powerful customer engagement area that provides you with the ability to share your concerns / experiences, complete surveys and quickly respond to topical snapshot questions
All this is managed by a central administration portal that organisations control
This allows endless content management and also trend analysis reporting so you know whats happening in your organisation and community
We are so proud of our partners and supporters
Our partnerships allow us to promote and signpost our users to their services and amplifies their campaigns and information
We invite you to join us and be part of our exciting journey – Please talk to us as we would love to have you working with us
Partnerships are so important to us as Together we are stronger
imabi’s platform and suite of apps all have the ability to communicate the locations and navigate users to nearby Safe Havens or Spaces or Places
Users have the option to turn this feature on and off
To ensure users are not navigated to a Safe Haven that is closed, we look up opening times and display to users in realtime
Where available we can also provide what services are provided at each Safe Haven, therefore managing peoples expectations
Once a safe haven has been selected, the user will be navigated to it
We know many organisations in this room have become a Safe Haven, so please speak with us and we will add you to our platform and apps for free.
Have you signed the Women’s Night Safety Charter?
Are you satisfied that you are doing as much as you can to meet the pledges?
We can help you meet all 7 pledges and your commitments to your staff, customers and wider communities
Meet with us and we can discuss how our platform and suite of apps can support you
imabi also supports the UN Women Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces global initiative
We are excited to announce that today we are launching our new free consumer app, imabi Guardian, to help tackle violence against women and girls
imabi Guardian has all the features and services of our other apps, however we are working with subject matter experts and charities to help fight this problem by educating and empowering society to change.
As a man, a father, and a White Ribbon Ambassador, its’s important we educate men and empower women to speak out and help us create a world that women can live their lives without fear from men.
We are reaching out to likeminded organisations in the room today to invite you to be part of our journey and help us grow the content and support services we offer.
Steering group
Community voice
Questions
How did you not get raped today?
Need slides
Need video imabi
Do an article bringing the message together
National question
What why and how
Tag the groups and speakers
CCC vision
Tell the story!
Dean
Advisory board -
Community- Fulham led - quantum questions
imabi is a social impact company with a vision to create a safer, kinder and healthier world for millions of people, everyday, everywhere
We believe that responsible and considered use of technology lies at the heart of creating positive and sustainable social change
Following on from the video that Amy showed at the beginning of todays summit, I would like to expand on what motivated me to create imabi, why we had to be different, and how we are helping to create safer schools, businesses and communities
As mentioned, my motivation and inspiration was my 2 amazing young daughters (Imogen and Abigail) hence the name imabi, who I saw where growing up in an ever challenging, stressful and harmful world
As a father, I wanted to ensure my girls and millions of people around the world are safe, healthy and mentally well
imabi is about tackling all forms of harmful behaviours, personal safety, wellbeing and mental health issues
It’s about
PREVENTION – we must stop simply reacting, but instead put effort into prevention
EDUCATION – Its important we move away from a normalised society and provide education on whats right and wrong
ACTION – we must stop simply talking about the issue, and instead take action
CHANGE – it will be essential that these actions lead to real positive and sustainable change
AND EMPOWERMENT – most importantly we must ensure everyone is empowered to speak out, report and seek support, when needed
It’s about bringing people and organisations together to create positive social change
I will leave you to read some of these statistics on this slide
However please remember that behind each one, is a person
It could be your daughter, son, partner, relative, friend, colleague, or even yourself
Whoever it is, its important we do what we can to prevent ANYONE being a contributor to these statistics
We all know the saying, prevention is better than cure
However, things don’t seem to be getting any better
For example, child and adult sexual abuse and sexual violence is now at its worse levels, and increasing
The challenges of today's world is frightening, and the personal and economic impact is huge
So why are we different
Many apps and data sources are reactive, provide misinformation, are not personalised, and often leave the user confused
Lets take Google as an example, yes you can search for anything and gain access to a wealth of information however how useful is that data?
Is it current?
Is it factual?
Is it personalised to you?
Is it actionable?
Often the answer is no, so how much help is it really, when needed for your safety, wellbeing and mental health?
imabi is about providing proactive, factual and validated information, which is personalised and tailored to the situation
We empower users to make decisions that keep them safe, well, connected and informed
We are all human beings, real people struggling through real suffering, real families, real feelings, and regardless of financial position, status in society or political influence we all have pain of some kind that increases daily with global conflict and a growing famine on empathy. Mental health has crashed, a global financial crisis continues to develop, debt, unrest and war are all now of atomic proportions and the world is fast becoming more disconnected through connection that an ever before. Going full ostrich and burying our heads in political rhetoric, screaming at each other about who is best, who is worse and who is to blame isn't cutting the mustard.
Personally I see the world, how we have become and I don't like it. I see Doing Well and Doing Good together is going to be a life long journey helping and supporting each other to remove self consciousness and the negative self perceptions that can be developed in childhood that have become so destructive at the highest levels of power, grown people behaving like children at the expense of everyone else, people with the power to destroy our planet, our lives and humanity, yet with very little influence or power over their own behaviours, and playing power games with the lives of others is not acceptable.
