Businesses to be shelters for women feeling unsafe

Laura Toop founded the #TogetherAsAllies organisation

Businesses in Kent have joined an initiative to create safe spaces for women and girls who feel unsafe.

Tunbridge Wells' Liberal Democrat MP Mike Martin and local women's safety organisation #TogetherAsAllies invited more than 150 businesses in the town to become a shelter as part of the Safe Havens initiative.

Laura Toop, who founded the organisation, said: "People can feel vulnerable throughout the day, it's not necessarily associated to something that is just [in the] evening, so these places will be very visible."

Businesses involved will display a Safe Haven sign and will help people call a taxi, charge their phone and offer a space to call an emergency contact.

Ms Toop added: "So often people are walking down the street and think, 'will they accept me in?' Or, 'can I step in and I'm not going to get turned away?'

"But with a Safe Haven sticker, they'll know that they're not going to get turned away."

The organisation #TogetherAsAllies is also offering specialist training to businesses so staff know how to respond to vulnerable people seeking help.

Business will also be given a support pack that signposts to local services.

Lewis Cox, whose café Even Flow is taking part in the scheme, said: "If everybody signed up in Tunbridge Wells, you'd have a safe space every 100 yard."

Blu Vasquez, who is a supporter of the scheme, said she had faced violence in the past.

"I recognise how damaged it left me and then the things I would then have to wrestle with and work through as a result of those acts," she said.

"I also recognise that there will be women everyday that go through those same things as well."

The plan is to extend the initiative to other towns in the future.