Being alone in a public space at night can be terrifying. In fact, 26% of women and gender minorities give up on going out alone at night (source ONDRP 2018).

HandsAway, a charity that fights against sexual assaults in the public space decided to act on this social issue.

Being alone in a public space at night can be terrifying. In fact, 26% of women and gender minorities give up on going out alone at night (source ONDRP 2018), by fear of being attacked or sexually assaulted.

Paris and its suburbs have loads of dark and scary streets, where people feel very unsafe at night.

We had to do something about this unfair social issue, so that everyone could feel out of harm’s way in the street at night.

In order to make the darkest streets safer at night, we used existing digital billboards as light sources, from 9pm to 7am.

The strategy was simple. Light up the darkest and dodgiest streets in order to avoid any sexual assault or harassment against women or gender minorities.

The execution couldn’t be simpler: we displayed bright white images, that powerfully lit up the darkest and scariest areas outside Paris.

The response to the operation was amazing, and the idea truly travelled the world, with hundreds of reactions and articles across many countries.

Cardiff got inspired and replicated the campaign in their own city (and credited us for it, which is nice).

But most importantly, there were zero assaults reported during the time of the operation.