to think it's no longer safe to travel abroad as a young female

[IfyouseeRitaMoreno]

And that the kind of adventures where you used to go off, stay in hostels, have a great experience meeting new people are just too risky for young women these days.

Just in recent weeks we've had Grace Millhane murdered in New Zealand by a man who liked her, yesterday we had two Norwegian women killed and beheaded by four men in Morocco and then there's the 4 British schoolgirls and their female teacher who were raped by gunmen whilst volunteering in Ghana just last week.

It pisses me off that so many comments centre around the naivety of these women in travelling solo but if I were a young woman I just don't think I'd want to risk it.

It makes me so that young women can't go off and have an adventure be free anymore.

Wow, I was really unaware of the high levels of domestic violence in New Zealand. For some reason, I had this idea that it was a very evolved and relatively safe country for women. With regards to the OP, I would not have felt safer a few years ago travelling alone or with another female. Ironically though, I while I was in southern Italy, I could not enjoy sightseeing due to men harassing and following me. So, I would never assume to be safe closer to or at home.

New Zealand and Australia are horrifically dangerous for women. It’s easy to be fooled by it being a commonwealth country, but if it’s population were the size of India then it’s rates of female violence would be twice as high!

Earlier today I was scrolling through Facebook and a FB friend had commented on a video. The video automatically started playing and it was the video of those men decapitating one of those girls.
I am absolutely traumatised and have felt physically sick and 'depressed' since. I can't shake the feeling off at all or unsee what I saw.
I'm never going to travel alone ever again. Never going to visit a muslim country and never going to let myself believe the world is a wonderful place.

Sorry if I sound dramatic but that video has completely mentally scarred me

I like to travel at home and abroad. I've been scammed a couple of times. I've seen people do things that they would never do back home, but think that it is ok to do abroad and they have paid the consequences. Of course there are risks, but you still here stories of people traveling with no travel insurance, no vaccinations, no money etc I assume that some people have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some people may have been too trusting. The world is a big place and each culture has its own laws and morals

Do I think things have got worse ? No It's just due to 24x7x365 world news and other social media that people are made more aware of things occurring.

I absolutely won’t stop travelling alone (as a middle aged woman in my late 30s) and I’d encourage anyone to travel - alone, or with someone.

The risk of something happening is pretty small, especially compared to at home. Do you not leave the house alone at home? As long as you’re not totally gung-ho mental, and don’t look overly flashy, then you’re probably just as safe, if not safer, than at home. The opportunity and experience of travel vastly outweighs any risk, for me.

For those concentrating on these 2 or 3 cases, just think of how many hundreds of thousands of women travel alone. Isn’t it getting things out of proportion to become so fearful that you make your life smaller by not making the most of these opportunities?

quietmoon I resisted the temptation to watch it because I knew it would mentally scar me too. Plus the family asked people not to. I just can't imagine that people can be that cruel and I can't believe that Facebook haven't taken it down.

What those poor families must be going through.

YABU. There are risks to travelling alone (or even in groups) for both men and women but the vast majority come back safe and have an amazing time.

I certainly won’t stop travelling any time soon. There are precautions I take but I’ll still happily walk alone at night in most cities I’ve been to. It’s more dangerous to do things like ride a scooter in Bali without a helmet or get too close to the edge of a balcony while drunk. We don’t tell men not to go overseas though do we.

It’s more dangerous to do things like ride a scooter in Bali without a helmet or get too close to the edge of a balcony while drunk

Well yeah but they are things you can control. Being female isn't one of them.

It wasn't safe 21 years ago, OP. I was backpacking in Australia and got raped. Twice. I was intimately injured after one of them and 10 days later was seen by a female GUM nurse who commented, without me saying anything, on my injuries. Not that she did anything to help. She was Liverpudlian too, not Australian.

But back then, there was no help for me, no social media to share my story on, no anti-rape campaign to hook into online. In fact there were barely even pages telling you what to do if you'd been raped, because if you'd been raped, the majority of people thought it was your own fault anyway, back then at least. So, no method or reason to tell our stories.

I recently went to a place that has a reputation for high gun crime. I asked a local about the crime. He said that someone had been attacked. However, he explained that they had been slightly off the normal tourist route and had been carrying a hand bag. He said that the high level of unemployment and clear that this person was a tourist, made them a target. It won't stop me travelling, but I try to be careful.

No. For all the bad things that happen to some, thousands more travel with no issues. There are plenty of murders and assaults happen on home turf to males and females.

SoaringSwallow I’m so sorry. That’s awful.

It's true that many women travel alone without any issues. But it's never without risk. Whether we like it or not we are an EASY target, we are physically far weaker than an average man. It only takes one wrong turn in a situation and almost all hope is lost when it comes to defending yourself.

Tbh I believe nobody, man or woman should travel to any muslim country. They don't like us so let's stop pretending we're all friends.

but if it’s population were the size of India then it’s rates of female violence would be twice as high!

Wait, are you saying that rates of female violence would be twice as high as India? That .... I don’t believe.

I’d never go solo in the MENA or India as I don’t believe they respect solo women travelers. Street harassment is at a level that’s really hard to come to grips with.

I say this as someone who has solo travelled quite a bit in East and Southeast Asia. Mostly felt safe in those areas (Thailand was a bit dicey though I will say).

There are a lot of reasons for the high rates of domestic violence and assault against women in New Zealand. Statistics are also different based on differing ethnicities.

Something I would say, is that when it comes to being 'evolved' - no - we are evolving. Same as pretty much every country. In New Zealand, we are evolving into a country where women have more confidence reporting sexual and non sexual, plus domestic violence, because it is more likely to be taken seriously. We have a woman who was allegedly the victim of serious sexual assault by a policeman in the 1980's who is a very influential advisor to the police force as to how sexual assault advisors should be treated, for example.

A contrasting example, I'm gob-smacked that in the UK the police can apparently demand to have open recourse to a VICTIMS phone and computer data, not to mention medical data, to determine whether a victim is sufficiently worthy/pure to put their case in front of a court to pursue an allegation of rape against their attacker. And if they don't get it upon demand, that can be the end of pursuing the allegation? I don't find that, particularly 'evolved'.