Introduction

This chapter explores how girls between the ages of 10 and 17 in Cape Town and Abuja conceptualise dangers during their daily experiences of travelling, particularly when walking or taking public transport to school or an after-school club. Within particular areas of these cities, girls fear various dangers when travelling to school, such as rape, gun violence, traffic accidents, human trafficking or theft, and sometimes are exposed to severe insecurities on those journeys.

This data shed light on how young girls in Cape Town and Abuja talk about dangers. Still, it is essential to bear in mind that their experiences in these locations are unique and not representative of people living in other parts of the respective cities. Older women in Abuja and Cape Town emphasised the unreliability and cost of transport in their area as a key concern and mentioned harassment or dangers less frequently but emphasised that they still needed to travel despite these difficulties (Porter et al. 2021).

The children in Cape Town came from within and close by our two focus study sites (one inside and one outside the city boundary). Some of the children who participated in the focus group discussions – but not all – were from an area with a long history of gang violence – which is not necessarily typical of other townships around the city. In Abuja, our respondents, who were all girls, came from a satellite town outside the city boundary and another low-income neighbourhood located within the city boundary. In both sites, there are limited transport options, violence and traffic insecurities that were not commonplace all over the city. Just like many others, the respondents frequently travelled into the city centres, or travelled to school in their neighbourhoods.

In this chapter, Oldenburg’s theory of the third place is discussed in relation to studies of transport and security in the research’s city contexts, bearing in mind that his theory is developed in a very different setting. In his famous essay ‘The Third Place’, Oldenburg (1999) details how people in the United States enjoy so-called third places that allow them to meet informally – for instance, supermarkets, pubs or a street corner.