Violence against women and girls is rarely far from the headlines, but that doesn't mean it's inevitable; it's not.
Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has cited “eyewatering” figures from an upcoming study that says there are up to 4 million perpetrators of violence against women and children, who are mainly men.
He told the London policing board:
“When you look across violence against women and children, there are millions of offenders in the UK. Some of the numbers are eye-watering.
“The scale of this is way beyond policing and the justice system and we need a frank conversation about it, that looks at prevention work, protective work, as well as enforcement … work.
“This is largely men offending on women and children … You’ve got millions of men in the country who pose a risk to women.”
A YouGov poll found that 68% of the public believe the government should be doing more to tackle violence against women. Additional reports from the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) show the following disturbing stats:
- 50% of the public do not trust the police (very much or at all) to tackle VAWG
- 46% do not trust schools (very much or at all) to tackle sexual offences that occur on the premises
- 68% of the public believe the government should be doing more to tackle VAWG
Last October, a coalition of over 70 leading organisations working to end violence against women and girls (VAWG) – including EVAW, Refuge, and Women's Aid – signed a joint manifesto calling on all political parties to tackle VAWG at the next general election.
The manifesto notes that women's and girls’ right to live free from violence should be a “key election issue”, yet all too often, the subject is “co-opted or weaponised” by political parties to justify regressive policies and/or stoke anti-migrant sentiment. Either that or it's barely mentioned at all.
Since the last general election in 2019, the public's perception of violence against women and girls in the UK has shifted. When then-serving police officer Wayne Couzens murdered Sarah Everard, many people woke up to the threat of male violence from within the police – compounded by its overhanded response to mourners at the vigil for Sarah, the arrest of serial rapist David Carrick, and the subsequent Casey review, which found damning evidence of rape culture within the institution.
In late 2023, Elianne Andam, a 15-year-old girl, was stabbed on her way to school. A 17-year-old boy has pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The week before, a joint investigation by The Sunday Times and Channel 4's Dispatches spoke to four women who accused the comedian Russell Brand of rape and sexual assault. Brand strongly denies the allegations. He is being investigated by the Met Police and Thames Valley Police after further reports of “harassment and stalking”. Earlier in the year, the headteacher at Epsom College, Emma Pattinson, and her seven-year-old daughter, Lettie, died from shotgun wounds believed to be inflicted by her husband, George Pattinson.
For all the stories of male violence against women that reach the headlines, there are thousands more that don't. Violence against women has seeped into the fabric of all our lives, whether it affects us or our loved ones. The political parties must do more than “take it seriously” – they've supposedly been doing that for years. We need substantial, meaningful change.
The VAWG sector is calling for all the political parties to incorporate the following ten key areas into their general election manifestos:
1. Rights and inequalities
Violence against women is a human rights issue – and should be treated as such.
Recommendations:
- Protect human rights legislation
- Protect the right to protest
- Identify inequalities in the outcomes of Black and minoritised, migrant, D/deaf and disabled and LGBT+ survivors
- Ensure migrant women have equal access to support to escape abuse
- Introduce Valerie’s Law (more info here)
- Bring forward a comprehensive ban on so-called “conversion therapy”
- Update the definition of domestic abuse to reflect abuse by non-family carers
Right now, 1,000 Metropolitan Police officers are currently suspended or on restricted duties with another 450 being investigated for historic allegations of sexual or domestic violence.
2. Prevention
We must tackle the source of violence against women and girls by challenging misogyny across society, including schools and online.
Recommendations:
- Adopt a public health approach to preventing VAWG
- Investment in schools to deliver education and training
- A Tech Tax that ringfences tax collected from tech companies to fund preventative online gender-based violence work
3. Funding and commissioning of specialist VAWG services
The specialist VAWG sector needs better funding so all survivors can access support.
Recommendations:
- Deliver a secure, national multi-year funding settlement for the specialist VAWG sector
- Introduce national ring-fenced funding for specialist services led ‘by and for’ Black and minoritised women, D/deaf and disabled women and LGBT+ survivors
- The government must commit to re-commissioning of the Rape and Sexual Abuse Fund as a multi-year fund beyond 2025.
4. Economic barriers
Economic safety is key to women and girls’ physical safety and long-term recovery.
Recommendations:
- Reform of the welfare-benefits system so that it supports survivors' economic independence and does not facilitate economic abuse
- Better provision of legal services for survivors
- Emergency funding should be made available for domestic abuse victims (including migrant women with No Recourse to Public Funds)
- Reduce energy costs for all refuges and community-based services during the cost-of-living crisis
- Ensure there is monitoring of the prevalence and nature of sexual harassment, including racialised forms of sexual harassment to which Black and minoritised women are subjected to in the workplace.
One in six women have been financially abused.
5. Partnerships and multi-agency working
Multi-agency working should have an intersectional approach that centres the survivor’s voice and experience.
Recommendations:
- Deliver adequate funding for all public sector agencies to tackle VAWG
- Incentivise and encourage local areas to work together to respond to the changing nature of all forms of VAWG in their area
- Clearly define the specialist VAWG sector as expert providers and critical strategic partners
6. Health and adult social care
Healthcare professionals should be empowered and trained to support those affected by VAWG.
Recommendations:
- Mandatory, in-depth training for GPs and all health professionals on sexual violence and abuse indicators
- Mandatory, continuous training on VAWG and mental health for all healthcare professionals.
- Fully funded long-term, trauma-informed, specialist counselling, therapeutic and psychoeducational support for all survivors of VAWG
- Specialist mental health support to meet the specific needs of child survivors of VAWG without the fear that this will be used as evidence against the mother in any child contact or child protection proceedings
- Adopt a ‘social model approach’ which addresses disability as a social and economic as well as health issue and does not assume that disability automatically equates to poor health
- A review of outcomes for disabled survivors of abuse who go through the safeguarding process
7. Housing
All survivors and those attempting to leave their abuser(s) need a safe and stable home.
Recommendations:
- Improve access to adequate social housing and safe accommodation
- Review the freeze on Local Housing Allowance rates to ensure they are linked to market rent levels
- Support local authorities to implement the automatic priority need for housing for survivors of domestic abuse
- Exempt survivors of domestic abuse from local connections or residency requirements for applicants of social housing
- A simplified legal mechanism for survivors of domestic abuse to apply directly to the county court to remove a perpetrator of domestic abuse from a secure or assured social tenancy
- Ensure all asylum-seeking women have access to safe and dignified accommodation which recognises women’s specific experiences and needs, while they wait for a decision on their asylum claims
The cost of living crisis is forcing survivors of domestic abuse to stay with abusive partners.
8. Family courts and children’s social care
The family law courts must be reformed to prioritise victims of domestic abuse and their children's safety.
Recommendations:
- Introduce a firewall between statutory services and the Home Office so that people can seek support without fear of immigration enforcement
- Children's social care must seek proactive models of support and advice when supporting parents and children affected by VAWG
- Specialist domestic abuse organisations to quality assure children’s social care programmes in terms of training, assessment and screening tools and other materials
- To end the Reducing Parental Conflict programme.
9. Criminal justice reform
The criminal justice system – from the police to the CPS to the courts – must be reformed so survivors can access justice.
Recommendations:
- Ensure access to Specialist Domestic Abuse Court measures for all victims
- Ensure fast-tracked, priority listing and guaranteed fixture of rape and sexual offences trials
- Ensure availability of specialist sexual offence courts where all staff receive trauma-informed training and special measures as default
- Commission independent research into who and who does not access the justice system and the reasons for this
- Repeal the ‘carers’ defence’ for the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour in intimate or family relationships
- Introduce Banaz’s Law to make the use of ‘honour’ an aggravating factor in sentencing on so-called honour-based abuse and VAWG
- Make training on controlling or coercive behaviour, including less recognised forms such as economic abuse, mandatory for the police, judges and other criminal justice agencies
- Introduce more robust police vetting and suspension pending investigation for all officers charged with VAWG-related misconduct
10. Perpetrators
Reduce the harms caused by perpetrators, as well as improve access to rehabilitation.
Recommendations:
- A whole systems approach must include well-published and accessible helplines for those using harmful behaviour
- Ensure better alignment between civil and criminal systems ensuring family courts do not place child victims of domestic abuse in the home of the abuser
- Ensure all government departments and public services are actively holding perpetrators accountable
- Support effective victim-centred quality assurance systems for perpetrator work which ensures that interventions funded by public sector agencies are always accredited, designed to keep survivors and their children safe, and delivered alongside survivor support provided by specialist VAWG organisations.
- Connect sexual violence and domestic abuse offences to any new online harms strategy
For more from Glamour UK's Lucy Morgan, follow her on Instagram @lucyalexxandra.
Women and girls are dying at the hands of radicalised men and boys.
