A Brit Abroad: #2 -- How Safe is Brussels?

This is something I often wonder.  It's something I asked plenty of people before I came and it's something I get asked quite a lot by people who've never come here.  In fact, I recently asked it of a friend of mine.  He said that Brussels ranks within the top ten safest capital cities in the world.

Then again, he's Belgian and doesn't actually live in Brussels, so I think he's very biased and quite possibly wrong.  I'd be lying if I said Brussels was totally safe.  No capital city is.  I mean, during my first few weeks, I used to get on the bus and find myself facing a poster of a missing child.  That said, I don't usually feel my life is in danger when I'm trying to cross the road and I so far haven't been mugged.

On the other hand, I have been stalked a few times -- five at the last count -- and I've been cornered on or near the metro four times by people 'asking for my phone number'.  When I told another friend of mine, this time one who actually lives in Brussels, she looked at me like an alien and demanded to know what part of Brussels I'd gone to to get myself stalked.

If you're a female under the age of thirty and are walking alone, even if you're wearing high-waisted trousers and a hand-knitted sweatshirt, there are probably going to be some strange guys who will honk their horns at you as they drive past.  I have felt threatened in Brussels, but it's only been on those nine stalking/cornering occasions.  By far the worst of these was on a Sunday morning when I was jetlagged after a flight back from the Middle East and I'd forgotten to charge my phone before coming out.  I should probably say that Brussels is completely dead on Sundays.  All the shops are closed and there's usually not a cat in sight.  My phone was as dead as a dodo and I was on the metro with maybe two other people.  This guy came on and sat down opposite me, trapping my way out because he had really long legs, and initially started asking me quite innocent questions, like "can you tell me where the Gare du Midi is?" and "to get to here, what's the best route", so I figured he was a tourist.  Unfortunately, he'd been living in Brussels for a long time (or so he told me), and he recognised a slight English twinge in my French accent, so he started speaking to me in English.

Even though everybody understands English (or a little bit, anyway), nobody is ever going to butt in unless you're obviously being harassed in French or Flemish.  Even then, it's not common, as people tend to mind their own business on the metro.  He started hassling me, saying we could meet up, asking for my phone number, insisting for it again even when I said no, saying he'd give me his, asking if we could meet up for dinner at his place and if I fancied spending a night out, etc., etc.  I couldn't get off the train in case he followed me; everybody else in the carriage s'en fichaient; I couldn't ring anybody... and the last thing I wanted to do was stay on the train.  Trust me, if it hadn't been a Sunday, I would have tried to get out like a half-starved dog after meat.  Crowds, shops -- anywhere to lose myself in would have been fine... except it was a Sunday, so there was none of that.

The other occasions were marginally better.  I've discovered that it's best to pretend I'm Swedish and that I don't understand French or English whenever I get accosted like that now.  As soon as they realise they can't communicate with you, they tend to leave you alone.  And then you run.  You run far away as fast as you can.

So, yeah, Brussels isn't totally safe.  However, I feel a lot safer here than I do in, say, Paris or London.  Brussels is a lot safer than both of them.  To be honest, it's unlikely anything bad will happen to you in Brussels, although there are some dodgy areas that are worth avoiding.  As in, they're the kind of areas you don't go in after dark.  Definitely not without considerable powers of self-defence.  And I have to go through four of them every single time I want to go into the town centre, or return home.  There are six or seven really bad ones (four of which I traverse every day): Bockstael, Delacroix, Clemenceau, Gare du Midi, Gare Centrale, Mollenbeek... and Scaerbeek, which you don't want to go into in any time of day.  I think it's got a nickname to do with pick-pocketing and thieves.  So Scaerbeek is to be avoided.  The two stations might be a little hard to avoid sometimes.

When you take into account that I've lived here nearly a year, it's not surprising I've had one or two bad experiences.  If you're coming to live in Brussels, you can probably expect to have one or two too.  If you're coming for a visit, you don't need to worry at all.

TBG <3