​By: Hadiya J. Khuwaja

In the global conversation about urban parks and mental health, one dimension often remains understated: how women perceive and navigate safety in public parks.

While parks are celebrated for their restorative benefits - offering peace, stress relief, and a vital connection to nature - for many women, especially in culturally complex contexts like Islamabad, Pakistan, parks are not unconditionally accessible havens. They are contingent spaces, where the promise of well-being is unbalanced by persistent concerns about safety, visibility, and belonging.
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Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan, is nestled at the foothills of the Margalla Hills and offers a unique urban backdrop. It is the country’s only purpose-built city, designed by Greek architect Constantinos Doxiadis, who envisioned it as a series of zones with quadrilateral residential sectors carefully integrated with public parks and green spaces. At its heart lies Fatima Jinnah Park – commonly known as F-9 Park – a sector-wide green space envisioned as Islamabad’s central hub for public recreation and leisure.​

Compared to other cities in Pakistan, Islamabad enjoys a relatively abundant provision of parks and natural areas. Yet, as is common across much of South Asia, public spaces remain predominantly male-dominated. The city’s formal planning, while orderly and green, cannot fully insulate women from the social and environmental dynamics that continue to shape their experiences of urban parks.

Drawing on my recent research – a mixed-methods study examining park access and mental well-being in Islamabad (part of my graduate thesis research at NUST Islamabad) – a layered reality emerges: women’s engagement with parks is deeply intertwined with spatial justice, emotional security, and the right to public space.
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The study, conducted with 354 participants across Islamabad’s major urban development zones, revealed notable gender imbalances. Only 26% (n=91) of respondents were female, while 74% (n=263) were male (Graph 1).

​Among all respondents, approx. 10% (n=34) cited safety and security concerns as barriers to park visitation. Strikingly, 70% (n=24) of those who raised safety concerns were women, compared to just 30% (n=10) men, highlighting how safety is not just a design issue, but a lived gendered experience that restricts equitable access to parks (Graph 2).

​This sharp disparity underscores not only women’s heightened vulnerability within public spaces but also their limited engagement with them. The low proportion of female participants may itself reflect broader structural barriers – social norms, safety fears, and mobility restrictions – that systematically discourage women’s active presence in urban parks.

Parks as Potential Sanctuaries – If Safe
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This tension between the potential and the reality of parks came into sharp focus in early 2023, when a woman was assaulted by two armed men in Islamabad’s Fatima Jinnah or F-9 Park - one of the largest and, ostensibly, safest public parks in the city. Despite interventions such as linking over 200 park cameras to the Safe City Authority and increasing police patrols, another deeply unsettling event occurred in early 2025. Late in the evening, a mother and daughter were assaulted and mugged in the same park. The suspects attacked the women, robbed them, and warned they “shouldn’t be in the park at this hour” - a chilling reminder of the gendered boundaries imposed in Pakistan’s male-dominated public spaces.

In my study, respondents consistently emphasized that parks hold significant potential to enhance mental health – offering relaxation, optimism, and emotional restoration. Yet, this potential was not unconditional. Safety concerns were not peripheral; they were central.

Key concerns included:

• Fear during evening hours due to inadequate lighting
• Anxiety over harassment and mobile phone snatching, especially in dark, unpatrolled areas
• Family-imposed restrictions, particularly for young women, reflecting broader societal anxieties about public visibility

​For many women, parks were not simply spaces of leisure, but carefully navigated environments – where each visit was weighed against perceived risks. These patterns point to a deeper structural issue: the design and governance of our cities often fail to prioritize gendered experiences.

Spatial Justice and Gendered Access

This raises a critical question:

If parks theoretically exist for all, but practically exclude women, can we truly call them equitable urban spaces?

In Islamabad, safety issues are less about isolated incidents and more about chronic structural neglect – embedded in physical design, maintenance, and governance. These gaps manifest in several ways:
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• Inadequate street lighting and secure pathways

Many parks lack proper lighting, especially along jogging tracks, entrances, and inner paths – a basic feature that significantly affects women’s comfort and safety after sunset.

​​Even larger parks like F-9 Park, often seen as vibrant in daylight, experience a dramatic shift after dusk: 

​During the day, families and individuals use its open paths and shaded walks, showcasing its potential as an inclusive public space. 

But after sunset, dim (or no) lighting and dense tree cover create poorly visible zones, making the park feel fragmented and unsafe, particularly for women and solo visitors. 

​The central pavilion called Baradari glows in the distance as surrounding areas remain dimly lit, highlighting uneven illumination and the contrast between formal landmarks and underused open spaces at night.
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• Minimal or absent security personnel, signs of neglect and informal exclusion

In many neighborhood (or sector-level) parks, the lack of visible security presence – guards, community monitors, or police – amplifies the risk of isolation and assault. Structural neglect also manifests in subtle forms of exclusion – such as lack of basic amenities like greenery and shaded sitting spaces.

Mental Health: The Uneven Promise

When women felt safe, parks provided a multitude of mental health benefits: calmness, rejuvenation, clarity of thought, and a rare reprieve from daily pressures.
When they felt unsafe, the very same spaces became sources of anxiety, exclusion, and compounded stress.
This paradox - parks as both healing spaces and sites of tension - is not unique to Islamabad. From London’s night-time public realm debates to Mexico City's pink public transport initiatives, gendered safety concerns shape how women globally engage with urban environments.
Islamabad’s experience mirrors a broader global urban challenge: When parks are designed without a gendered understanding of safety, they risk reinforcing inequality, even as they aspire to promote public health and well-being.
 
Toward Solutions: Designing for Women's Safety and Inclusion

Several design and policy interventions are urgently needed to reclaim parks as inclusive, healing spaces:

• Enhance lighting along pathways, entrances, and communal areas to extend safe access into evening hours.
• Ensure clear sightlines through strategic landscaping - beauty must not compromise visibility.
• Embed community surveillance, combining security personnel, CCTV, and participatory neighborhood watch initiatives.
• Create women-centered spaces within parks, such as fitness zones, family-friendly gathering areas, and culturally sensitive programming that encourages women's presence without isolation.
• Engage women directly in the design, planning, and ongoing governance of parks, ensuring they are active co-creators, not passive users.
  
  

In Islamabad - and across the Global South - reclaiming public parks as inclusive, restorative spaces for women is not a luxury. It is a long-overdue right. Parks must be places where all citizens, regardless of gender, can feel safe, seen, and free. Public parks are not just places of leisure - they are essential to mental well-being, social inclusion, and equitable urban life. Yet for many women, the simple act of walking, jogging, or sitting alone in a park remains fraught with risk and social scrutiny. Safety, dignity, and freedom of movement in public spaces must be non-negotiable. Making parks genuinely accessible to women means rethinking not just security infrastructure, but also challenging the deep-rooted norms that dictate when, where, and how women should exist in public. It is about transforming parks from contested terrains into spaces of healing, visibility, and belonging.

Final Reflection

In her book Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs - ahead of her time - emphasized that urban safety relies not on isolated security measures but on "eyes upon the street" - organic, community-driven oversight.

Drawing from examples of several city parks, Jacobs stressed that parks must be busy, lively spaces to feel safe and inviting. Empty or poorly used parks, no matter how beautifully designed, often become areas of danger and neglect. Successful parks, Jacobs explained, share key traits: they offer a diversity of uses, are bordered by active streets and buildings, and attract a mix of users throughout the day. In contrast, parks that are isolated, monotonous, or serve a narrow demographic tend to fail, lacking the continuous, casual surveillance provided by a vibrant community.

Islamabad’s parks often lack this vibrancy, leaving safety fragile and access unequal, particularly for women. Poor lighting, disconnected layouts, and minimal passive surveillance contribute to parks becoming isolated, especially during critical evening hours. In a city where women’s presence in public spaces is already constrained by cultural and social barriers, the absence of "eyes on the park" heightens their sense of vulnerability.

To truly realize parks as safe and inclusive spaces, urban planners must move beyond installing security cameras and posting guards. Instead, they must design environments that naturally encourage diverse, everyday use - families picnicking, elderly people strolling, teenagers playing sports. It is this constant, pluralistic presence that weaves an invisible yet powerful net of safety, embodying the vision Jacobs laid out for truly vibrant and secure public spaces.
 
Public parks are powerful equalizers - but only when they are truly public.

When women must navigate these spaces with fear or restraint, the health and social benefits that parks promise become unevenly distributed, undermining their fundamental purpose.

As we reimagine healthier, more inclusive cities, the everyday safety and dignity of women must shift from being a peripheral concern to a central design priority.
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Because the right to safety, serenity, and joy in public space should not depend on one’s gender - it should be guaranteed.

Cities should always be planned and designed based on the needs of their users. On International Women's Day, let's think for a moment about the movement towards designing cities that empower women as much as they do men. With women comprising at least half of urban populations, many have pointed out that the disciplines of urban planning and design have historically been dominated by men and consequently, by the male perspective. This is a big topic. This is just a brief overview.

Thinking about designing cities 'for' women runs the risk of reinforcing all sorts of unhelpful gender stereotypes. But this isn't about superficial, potentially patronising projects. Effective city design needs to take into account the different patterns that emerge about what different people do in the city, and what they need. In  many cases, women and men have similar needs. But research also tells us that males and females do use cities differently, all over the world, and that certain factors associated with being female tend to restrict freedom of movement within the city. Many of these needs gaps, such as caring responsibilities and work patterns, will likely narrow as society moves towards gender equality. But right now around the world, certain urban design and planning factors can create challenges to women's self-esteem and belongingness, and can restrict their likelihood of accessing healthy opportunities in the urban environment, such as access to nature, exercise, or positive social interactions.

As such, this is  a matter of social justice that affects women's ability to engage in public life. It is fundamental that cities integrate the female perspective in design and planning process, and ensure that genders can benefit equally from services such as transportation, exercise venues, parks, health and social care facilities, and all other aspects of the city. So what's currently stopping them?

According to the research, factors associated with gender in urban design and planning seem to be largely divided into two main challenges: accessibility (psychological and physical); and safety. Some examples include:

Psychological and physical accessibility

• Negotiating use of space: Women are less likely than men to negotiate and assert their legitimate use of spaces. For example, girls have been found to be  less likely to use parks when they feel they have been 'taken over' by boys.
• Caring: Women are still statistically more likely than men to be carers, particularly for children and older relatives, and often more likely to run household errands. This brings about specific needs around maneuvering prams and wheelchairs around the city, and needs for public transport to efficiently cover times and places outside the city's standard 'rush hour' plan.
  
• Toilets: Women tend to need to use toilets more frequently than men, for a range of reasons, including: menstruation, menopause, more susceptibility to urine infections due to anatomical differences, more susceptibility to urinary incontinence associated with the complications of previous childbirth, and increased risk of disorders like irritable bowel syndrome. In addition women are more likely than men to be caring for children or older people who have increased toilet needs. And transgender women may, depending on their location, may feel like they have no access to public toilets.

Safety

• All genders fear crime, but studies show that women are more likely to fear crime. Women who are caregivers may also be particularly afraid of other threats to their charges, such as traffic danger. Such safety fears limit women's psychological freedom of movement, which may affect places they feel able to use in the city.

How this all affects mental health

Exclusion, anxiety, fear and marginalisation are detrimental to our mental health. Good design helps people feel included and valued, prevents isolation, and empowers us to access places that can have a protective effect on mental health, such as health facilities, natural parks, places to exercise, or settings to socialise. Feeling able to use the city also helps create feelings of community belongingness and social cohesion.

A To-do List starter for cities to deliver urban design that empowers females as it does males

1. Women should be involved at all stages of urban design and planning processes.
2. The female perspective should be an integral part of urban design and planning decisions.
   
3. Sidewalks, public transport and access points should be designed to welcome prams and wheelchairs.
4. Public transit should be safe and invest in diverse schedules beyond the standard office rush hour.
5. Pedestrian, cycle and public transit routes should incorporate natural surveillance, good lighting, and good stewardship and maintenance, and reduce the risk of unwanted interactions.
6. Consideration could be given to subdividing some public places like parks so that one group is less likely to take over the whole space, and sections feel hospitable for different people's needs.
7. Public toilets, and places welcoming for baby changing and feeding, should be plentiful, accessible and safe.

Note: gender, urban design and mental health is a challenging intersection. This op-ed cannot hope to fully cover its many facets but is intended to inspire thought about the opportunities to design more inclusive and empowering cities. If you want to examine a different angle, please submit to this blog.