Living life in a female body can be scary, exhausting and petrifying, but a new app is hoping to conquer the prevalence of women feeling unsafe in the streets.

The Sorority, which launched in France in 2020 and is now available to download worldwide, is billed as ‘the first global support network uniting us to act together in the face of all forms of violence.'

Women on phones
Getty Images

It operates on the simple premise that if anybody should feel unsafe, they can register their whereabouts on the app by contacting more than 80,000 registered users across the world. By using a person's location, the app can analyse how many fellow The Sorority users are within close proximity to them, and can alert them to your cry for help.

FIND OUT MORE ON ELLE COLLECTIVE

The app was founded by Priscillia Routier in a bid to help women feel safe in all public spaces. The appetite is clear, too. Since the app’s inception, it has been downloaded more than 250,000 times, and now boasts 80,000 verified users and provides 6,500 safe locations for users who feel they may be in danger.

According to The Sorority’s own data, 93.9% of users feel that it allows them to feel safer on the street, with 84.3% agreeing the same for public transport, figures that only serve to reiterate findings by the Office of National Statistics, which found in data revealed last year that 82% of women feel unsafe after dark while out in some public spaces.

DOWNLOAD THE SORORITY APP HERE

For critics of the app, who are of the belief that such instances should be reported to the authorities, The Sorority's purpose is clear: it intends to give users the ability to report feeling unsafe before any crime has actually been committed. It is about the collective responsibility that all of us should feel, and indeed employ, when any one of us might feel unsafe or uneasy in any given situation.

women on phone elle uk
Getty Images

Far from the first of its kind, in the past few years alone, a coterie of women's safety apps have launched. Among them are WalkSafe, which has been downloaded more than 560,000 times and enables users to plan their safest route home by looking at recent crime data; Shake2Safety, which has been designed to allow users to notify emergency contacts in case of an emergency via message, location, photo, and audio and bSafe, which has an emergency alarm feature that is voice-activated that then starts live-streaming video and audio to chosen contacts and records everything that happens.

In its latest update Apple also added a new feature to its location feature, which enables users to notify their chosen contacts when they reach their destination safely.

ELLE Collective is a new community of fashion, beauty and culture lovers. For access to exclusive content, events, inspiring advice from our Editors and industry experts, as well the opportunity to meet designers, thought-leaders and stylists, become a member today HERE.


Lettermark
Naomi May
Acting News Editor

Naomi May is a freelance writer and editor with an emphasis on popular culture, lifestyle and politics. After graduating with a First Class Honours from City University's prestigious Journalism course, Naomi joined the Evening Standard as its Fashion and Beauty Writer, working across both the newspaper and website. She is now the Acting News Editor at ELLE UK and has written features for the likes of The Guardian, Vogue, Vice and Refinery29, among many others.