Taxis only for women gain ground in Finland

CopenhagenExclusive taxis for women are gaining ground in large cities in Finland such as Helsinki and Tampere. Although the Nordic country usually ranks among the safest and most egalitarian countries in the world, for many women daily commutes, especially when returning home alone at night by taxi, can involve the risk of suffering harassment or sexual violence. This is reflected in the increase in reports of sexual crimes in taxis and the perception of insecurity among female passengers, which have driven a new service model that seeks to offer women an alternative.

A survey conducted in Helsinki and Espoo, collected by the Finnish public broadcaster Yle, indicates that 43% of the women surveyed had experienced some situation related to their safety on public transport, compared to 30% of men. According to the study, this feeling of vulnerability can influence the mobility habits of female passengers, to the point that some choose to limit or avoid the use of public transport. Recently, the issue has returned to the center of public debate following a case that has shaken the country. Indignation arose when it became known that a taxi driver convicted of raping a passenger continued working and holding his license for two years before it was revoked. Far from being an isolated incident, according to police data, in Helsinki alone there have been a hundred reports of sexual crimes allegedly committed by taxi drivers since 2018, when the sector was deregulated.

Katariina Kainulainen realized that she had not used a taxi for more than ten years because she no longer felt safe, especially if she took it alone and at night. “A car is an intimate, very small space, where you are together with a person you do not know. Maybe it is late and you have had a few drinks, and you simply no longer feel safe,” she says. Kainulainen shared this concern with her friends and they realized that it was more common than thought among women. Thus, a few months ago they decided to found the company Wowo, an acronym in English for Women to Women, a pioneering taxi service that works through a mobile application where users must register and indicate their gender. Taxi users can travel with children under 14 years of age, but not with male partners.

The other difference with conventional taxi services is that all vehicles are driven by women. “We immediately saw that there was also a need among taxi drivers to feel safer when doing their job, so the Wowo model benefits in both senses,” says Kainulainen.

Tara Oinonen is one of the drivers who, before working for herself for Wowo, had to face situations of harassment while behind the wheel. Oinonen remembers that a client grabbed her by the head to kiss her on the lips, while another touched her inappropriately from the back seat.

Some of these episodes were reported to the district court, but as is the case with other acts of gender-based violence, the Finnish authorities admit that these types of harassment crimes often end up never being reported. On the other hand, the founder of Wowo acknowledges that recruiting female taxi drivers to launch the service was a challenge, which gives an idea of the low representation of women in this sector: “All the drivers we found spread the word to other colleagues, and that is how we have managed to have a significant fleet of taxis to cover the city,” explains Kainulainen.

Accusations of discrimination

Since Wowo was launched at the beginning of this year, other competitors following the same concept have already emerged, such as the company Naistaxi, while the company Bolt has incorporated the option for its female clients to request a taxi driven by a woman, a fact that signals the acceptance that the service has had.

However, the initiative has not been free from criticism. The founder of Wowo admits that, in the beginning, some taxi drivers accused the service of being discriminatory: “There were male taxi drivers who argued that we should be boycotted because, according to them, we were giving a distorted image of the taxi world”. Since Kainulainen and her partners already anticipated the criticism, they turned to the Ombudsman for Equality, which acknowledged that the service addressed a specific concern of many women and contributed to guaranteeing a fundamental right such as the freedom to travel by public transport safely.

For its part, the public television station Yle has investigated the increase in reports of sexual harassment in taxis, which in Helsinki reached their peak in 2023, with 40 cases recorded that year. A year ago, in a case of sexual assault in a taxi that also shook the public, the chief inspector of the capital's police, Ritva Elomaa, pointed out that the vast majority of drivers investigated for sexual offenses were of foreign origin, some with Finnish nationality. The Yle investigation attributes the increase in the number of assaults to the fact that the sector was deregulated in 2018, which eliminated mandatory training for drivers and relaxed the requirements for obtaining licenses.