A new interactive map that enables women and girls to pinpoint 'danger spots' and report incidences of harassment has been rolled out across Sydney.
The "Free To Be" map lets users drop a "good" pin on city locations they consider safe, and a "bad" pin where they feel uncomfortable.
The tool is an initiative of the NGO Plan International Australia, which worked with mapping software company CrowdSpot and Monash University’s XYX Lab.
Plan's head of advocacy, Hayley Cull, said a survey of more than 400 young women found 90 per cent felt unsafe in Sydney at night. The new tool is also being launched in Delhi, Kampala, Lima, and Madrid.
The Sydney roll-out follows a successful pilot in Melbourne two years ago, in which more than 1,300 pins were dropped.
Alice Rummery told SBS News she has experienced harassment on the streets of Sydney many times, including just yesterday.
"I was walking home with two other friends and a group of four older men approached us," the uni student said.
"They started yelling profanities in our face about our appearance. It's a feeling of defilement and a feeling of shame, and it's really hard to respond."
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Dr Nicole Kalms, director at the XYX Lab at Monash University, will lead an analysis of the pin-dropping data from the five cities. Researchers will also look closely at racially-motivated attacks.
"Our job is to look at that research and to code it and read all of the women's stories, and to look at particular tendencies within the research," she said.
"The thing that we wanted to refine in this survey was to look really carefully at how ethnicity relates to sexual harassment.
"I think that's really appropriate for Sydney, because it's quite a diverse community of young women."
The findings will be shared with local authorities, councils, and businesses in a bid to address locations in which women and girls feel unsafe.
