In Romania in 2024, women still do not feel safe on the street at night, and sometimes not even during the day. Everyone tries to protect themselves as best they can, because never leaving the house is not a solution.
Even the young artist Erika Isac confessed to us that, in certain situations or contexts, she shares her location with her friends in real time to feel safer. “I either had the location given to someone, or I would talk to someone on the phone until I got home if I was walking down the street at night and I didn’t feel comfortable. I didn’t always do that, I listened to my intuition. So far nothing has happened to me. Sometimes I also took a paralyzing spray with me”, Erika told “Weekend Adevărul”. She also pointed out that “abuse does not take into account age, gender or what you are wearing”.
Erika Isac is a feminist voice in the Romanian music industry, and through her songs she exposes the problems faced by women. In the spring of this year, the artist released “Macarena”, a song that quickly reached the charts not only because of the rhythm, but especially because of the lyrics that present a worrying reality: “When a man and a woman go out on a first date/ The man is afraid of being fooled by the glet/ Lest the girl doesn’t look like in the pictures./ The woman is afraid of getting psychosis,/ Don’t kill him, let him rape,/ Let him beat her, let him get drunk,/ Let him steal her, kidnap her, argue”, are just some of the lyrics that show the situations in which women feel in danger. Erika also points out in the piece the widespread measure among young women and girls to broadcast their location in real time when going out on a date.
Shortly after the song sparked a wave of reactions, its title – “Macarena” – would become a cry for help with the launch of the free service dedicated to women’s safety #GETHOMESAFE, initiated by Erika Isac, The Drop – special projects division for artists and brands from the Global Records company – and the security and protection company SSG Group, the official supplier of the Royal House of Romania. Within this free service, available on WhatsApp (Business Account), registered girls and women can signal that they feel in danger by sending a message with the text “Macarena” or an emoticon “💃🏻” to a number dedicated to them.
A free service
“Weekend Adevărul” talked to all the partners involved in the project, which is currently being carried out only in Bucharest and Ilfov, to find out more details about how it works and what its implementation meant. The representatives of The Drop – Flavia Ionescu, Head of Business, and Mihai Țițirig, Creative Director – stated that everything started from the positive movement triggered by the song “Macarena” and the viralization of the verse “Girl, let me give you a live location, in case anyway” that showed them what reality young women and girls face in 2024 and how much they use this method to feel safe.
“We came with the experience in communication, with strategy and inside, Erika is basically the inspiration and the image of this project, but we needed a partner to turn things from a theoretical strategy into reality. It was natural for us to go to the largest security and protection company with the most employees – SSG Group. From the very first meeting, they were extremely open to the idea we proposed and we all sat down to see how we could practically make things happen”said Flavia Ionescu.
Safety and protection, just a message away
“I resonated a lot with the phrase “in case of anything” in that verse, I immediately connected it with the existing threats in our society, with which we come into contact a lot. The solution was clear and obvious by the fact that we already have those operative and very well trained crews dealing with interventions. With these strategically placed crews, it was very clear to us that we could support this project”said Cătălin Netcu, executive director of SSG Group.
To benefit from the free “GETHOMESAFE” service, young women and girls can register on the official website or by calling the Call Center by selecting the branch that bears the name of this service. Afterwards, they will receive all the information about this project and sign a contract on the basis of which the intervention teams can come to their aid. The SSG representative explained to “Weekend Adevărul” the fact that, in the case of minors, the contract must be signed by one of the parents. At the same time, he said that, after signing the contract, each person will be assigned a phone number that must be added to the phone book. So, when the young woman or woman leaves the house either for a walk, a night out or a meeting, she can have a discussion beforehand with the SSG representative to give her the details of the location and the people she is meeting with, but also to get advice or guidance if the location is not quite suitable either from the point of view of the risk or the lack of intervention crews in the area.
If they are in danger, young women and girls send the text “Macarena” or the emoticon “💃🏻” in the conversation with the phone number assigned to them, and the nearest SSG team is alerted and intervenes. Also, all agents who intervene in such cases reported via #GETHOMESAFE have undergone special training, given the sensitive nature of these cases. Before the launch of the free service, those at The Drop also did tests in this regard, with the agents believing all this time that the interventions were real. Although the image of SSG agents inspires strength, power and protection, they were trained to be gentle, warm and calm with girls and women who had previously signaled that they felt at risk. Each agent has the ability to analyze the situation and call the unique emergency service 112 depending on the case. However, it is important to state that it is recommended that the meetings or walks take place in the public domain, because, according to the legislation, the intervention crews of private security companies cannot intervene in private spaces. At the same time, all the partners involved in the project emphasize the fact that this service does not replace the Police crews, but comes to the aid of the authorities.
