This year organisations within the transport industry are coming together to publicly support White Ribbon Day and International Day of the Elimination of Violence Against Women on 25 November.
White Ribbon is the global movement of men and boys working to end male violence against women and girls. Last year Network Rail, led by Nick King, special projects director, and Lydia Fairman, lead capability and development manager, were proud to take the step in becoming White Ribbon accredited.
Over the past year we have been taking the steps to complete the three-year action plan with the aim of having a positive impact to support the accreditation.
Since the 2020 accreditation we have …
- established a White Ribbon steering group and six working groups to oversee the development and implementation of White Ribbon action plan
- updated our domestic abuse policy to support our employees within the workplace
- created a toolkit for our employees filled with resources to help both victims and potential witnesses of abuse and violence
- have had our male ambassadors publicly share why the have chosen to support White Ribbon.
This year we’re asking you and employees to get involved with White Ribbon Day and the 16 days of action following (until 10 December). Here’s how you can get involved:
Make the promise:
We are encouraging all men to make the White Ribbon promise and everyone to become an ambassador or champion.
One-minute silence:
We are asking our employees, passengers, and industry partners to join us in a minute silence on 25 November at 11:00 to remember all the female victims of violence of the past year.
Orange yourself:
In recognition of the theme ‘orange the world’ for International Day of the Elimination of Violence Against Women, we’re asking everyone to take a selfie wearing orange or holding an orange with the hashtag #OrangeYourself. You can also add the White Ribbon promise to your caption, or a fact or statistic related to female violence.
We’re happy to say our industry partners, including Rail Delivery Group, British Transport Police and Transport for London, have also come together to publicly support this cause – with some even gaining their own White Ribbon accreditation.
During this time, they will run social media campaigns, be present at our stations across Britain and help to raise awareness.
Supporting victims of domestic abuse
This year, we extended our support to domestic abuse victims by leading the rail industry in implementing an Online Safe Spaces service portal on our website.
Developed by Royal Mail Group in collaboration with crisis charity Hestia and the UKSAYSNOMORE campaign, Online Safe Spaces is a virtual portal which can be installed on websites free of charge. It provides support, advice and contact services via a pop-up window, and allowing users to access resources discreetly without leaving an online history trace.
Click the Safe Spaces logo on the homepage of networkrail.co.uk to access an untraceable web page of support and helplines.
The rail industry is supporting the Rail to Refuge scheme, launched in March 2020 by Women’s Aid, which provides free rail travel for survivors with a refuge space (extended until March 2021).
For more information on the scheme and how it works, please visit the Rail to Refuge FAQs.