Why women think Dubai is the safest city

Dubai: Holding your car key in your hand when walking out of a building at night. Crossing the road when you see a group of men walking towards you. Being hypervigilant of your surroundings. Asking each other if you arrived home safely, after an evening out. Navigating an urban environment as a woman isn’t for the faint of heart – it requires you to be switched on, prepared, and always alert. It can be exhausting. That is, until you move to Dubai – where safety is the norm, and where, finally, women can let their guard down. Just ask Jennah-Louise, a 37-year-old Australian who has lived in Dubai for nearly three years. She made the UAE her home after living in seven different countries. She said: “In having travelled to approximately 50 countries solo, I am well experienced and understand the foundation of what safety is not – having had an attempted kidnapping and attempted drugging experience – and what safety is, and feels like.” For the ultramarathon runner, Dubai and the UAE in general, far surpass any other country she has visited or lived in, when it comes to the standard of safety for women. She said: “I wake early, at times when it is still dark, to train. I experience a deep sense of freedom whether in the city of Dubai or the mountains of Jebel Jais. Unfortunately, in other countries I am no longer able to do this, having experienced several threatening situations.” Jennah-Louise made the UAE her home after living in seven different countries, including Kenya, Tunisia and Turkey. Picture credit: Supplied Women versus the world Women’s safety is a universal concern. Decades of research has shown that women, on average, scan environments more actively for potential risks and report higher levels of perceived danger in public spaces than men. A March 2024 study, published in the US-based journal Violence and Gender, involved 571 college students across four American university campuses. The study used heat maps to track where participants focused their attention when imagining a walk alone. The results were striking: men predominantly focused on the walking path ahead, while women consistently focused on areas outside the path – bushes, shadows and dark corners. Heightened vigilance and social threat assessments are part of daily life for women, whether they live in an urban city or in a rural village. But constant environmental scanning and low-level caution can take a real toll on women’s cognitive state, leading to headaches, muscle tension, and in more serious cases, insomnia, anxiety, and depression, according to an April 2023 study published in the UK-based journal BioMed Central Women’s Health. How the UAE flips the script So, what happens when you press the ‘off’ switch, on all that noise? Women living in Dubai and the UAE say they’re fortunate enough to do this, every day. The country consistently ranks as one of the safest globally, for women and solo female travellers. In 2021, the US-based Georgetown University’s Women, Peace and Security Index revealed that the UAE ranked first in terms of community safety, with 98.5% of women saying they felt safe walking alone in their neighbourhoods at night. The UAE also has robust laws that protect women, such as zero-tolerance legal framework for verbal or physical harassment, public decency laws, and strict photography regulations, where taking pictures of strangers without explicit consent is illegal. Services and amenities like Pink Taxis, operated by female drivers, dedicated ‘women and children’ cabins in public transport, like the Dubai Metro, and around-the-clock police support, all go a long way in helping women feel secure as they go about their day. The adjustment can feel strange for someone moving to the UAE from a relatively unsafe environment – from constantly scanning for threats, to leaving your purse unattended on a café table, knowing you will find it exactly where you left it. Jennah-Louise said the impact is palpable: “Interestingly, I have become more feminine and my nervous system has had the space to become nourished, rather than drained. When women do not feel safe, they more often than not go into their masculine energy, which is unnatural and can manifest in physical symptoms of sickness. A sense of threat also turns off the pre-frontal cortex in decision-making, influencing decisions to be from a place of survival rather than truth. In a fascinating way, I’ve become more authentic living in the UAE; more capacity to focus on me expanding my potential rather than protecting it.” A safe space to thrive Women who have grown up here are used to it. In the UAE, safety for women is a basic standard, not an aspirational goal. Deepti Khanna, a 40-year-old Indian national, has lived in Dubai her whole life, and said it’s easy to forget the city’s level of safety and security is not normal for other parts of the world: “There isn’t one defining moment that makes me realise how safe Dubai is. It’s the little things that have adde