Policy paper

Tackling violence against women and girls strategy: progress update

Published 1 March 2022

Crimes like rape, domestic abuse, stalking, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, and ‘honour’ killings, have a devastating impact on victims, their friends, family and wider community, and ultimately society as a whole.

These crimes disproportionately affect women and girls, and the statistics show they are still all too common: estimates from the year ending March 2020 show around 1 in 5 women aged 16 to 74 are victims of sexual assault or attempted assault in their lifetime, over 27% of women aged 16 to 74 had experienced domestic abuse since the age of 16, and 20% of women aged 16-74 had experienced stalking since the age of 16^{[footnote 1]}.

We published our tackling violence against women and girls strategy in July 2021 to change this. Our ambition is to increase support for victims and survivors, increase the number of perpetrators brought to justice, increase reports to the police, and ultimately, reduce the prevalence of violence against women and girls.

We made over 50 new commitments in our tackling VAWG strategy. Since its publication in July 2021, we have:

• Taken action to prevent these crimes:
  • launched a pilot tool, StreetSafe, which enables the public to anonymously report areas where they feel unsafe, so local authorities and the police can take practical steps in response such as improved CCTV and street lighting, as well as increased police presence. Around 12,000 reports have been made to date which have allowed the police to make more targeted patrols, increase presence and identify new hotspots
  • funded 79 local projects and initiatives across England and Wales totalling more than £27.7 million to improve the safety of women in public spaces. For example, Staffordshire PFCC has been awarded £300,000 through the Safety of Women at Night fund to establish safer routes to and from public transport in busy night-time economies and street marshals to offer advice and support. They will also use this funding to provide safeguarding training for night-time economy workers, set up safe spaces in venues and encourage local organisations to sign up to a Women’s Night Safety Charter;
  • put in place support for teachers to improve the quality of teaching of sensitive topic areas such as domestic abuse, pornography and sexual exploitation, taught through the relationships, sex and health education curriculum.
• Increased support for victims:
  • built on £150.5m funding for support services by increasing funding to £185m by 2024/25 to increase the number of Independent Sexual Violence Advisers and Independent Domestic Violence Advisers, who provide specialist advice and support to victims, to over 1,000^{[footnote 2]};
  • in consultation with victims and those that support them, developed a single source of support that will provide rape and sexual violence victims with easy access to immediate support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A competition for the grant to provide the service launched recently.
  • asked universities to sign a pledge that they will not use Non-Disclosure Agreements to silence victims of sexual harassment; 34 universities have signed up so far; and
  • consulted on a new Victims’ Law which will help give victims a louder voice in the criminal justice system and make criminals pay more to help victims recover.
• Strengthened the approach to perpetrators:
  • introduced measures in the Health and Care Bill to criminalise so-called ‘virginity testing’ and hymenoplasty - practices which violate the human rights of women and girls and can result in both immediate and long-term consequences detrimental to physical, psychological and social well-being;
  • investing £11.3m in domestic abuse perpetrator programmes across the country to deepen our understanding of who commits domestic abuse, why they do so, how it may escalate, and ultimately how we can prevent it; and
  • ensuring companies take robust action against so-called ‘revenge porn’ and extreme pornography, harassment and stalking in the forthcoming Online Safety Bill.
• Put in place measures to make sure all organisations and professionals are working to tackle these crimes:
  • supported the introduction of a new National Policing Lead for VAWG, DCC Maggie Blyth, to co-ordinate and improve the national policing response, providing national leadership and accountability;
  • mandating the police, local authorities and other agencies to work together to tackle serious violence, which can include domestic abuse and sexual violence;
  • established a two-phase independent inquiry, chaired by Dame Elish Angiolini QC, to investigate the issues raised by the conviction of Sarah Everard’s murderer, including scrutinising the robustness of vetting practices, professional standards and discipline, and workplace behaviour, to ensure something like that cannot happen again. The inquiry officially commenced its work on 31 January; and
  • commissioned HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services to review vetting and counter-corruption arrangements in policing across England and Wales – looking in particular at what forces are doing to identify and deal with misogynistic and predatory behaviour.

But we must go further, so we will:

• with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing, accept and implement all of the recommendations made by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services in their violence against women and girls inspection, which was commissioned by the Home Secretary. As these crimes pose a national threat, this includes adding violence against women and girls to the Strategic Policing Requirement, sending a clear message that tackling them must be a priority for national policing;
• launch the ‘Enough’ communication campaign which will challenge perpetrators, drive societal rejection of these crimes and help ensure victims know how to access support;
• appoint an independent reviewer to lead an independent review of the police management of registered sex offenders in the community to help ensure our approach is as robust as it can be;
• end child marriage in England and Wales, through our support for Pauline Latham MP’s Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Bill. This bill will raise the minimum age of marriage and civil partnership in England and Wales to 18 in all circumstances, and will extend forced marriage law to mean that it is always an offence to cause an under-18 to enter into a marriage, even if coercion is not used.
• publish the UK’s first ever standalone Domestic Abuse Plan which will complement our Tackling VAWG Strategy and drive a step change in the response to this crime. The strategy will set out our approach to prevent domestic abuse, support survivors, and pursue perpetrators;
• publish statutory guidance on domestic abuse to support frontline professionals in identifying and responding to it. The guidance will signpost professionals to resources, set out the impact of domestic abuse for victims and highlight best practice;
• issue an updated National Statement of Expectations to provide clear and consistent guidance for local areas on how to commission violence against women and girls victim support services to ensure all victims get the support they need;
• publish non-statutory Relationships, Sex and Health Education guidance covering specific topics mentioned by the Ofsted review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges. This guidance will build on the existing statutory guidance, providing more detail on specific content on harassment and abuse, including online forms of sexual abuse;
• continue to implement our Rape Review Action Plan, including expanding ‘Operation Soteria’ to another 14 police force areas and their corresponding CPS areas so that victims have confidence in the way their cases are handled;
• recognise men and boys can also be victims of these crimes, we will publish a Male Victims Position Statement – to help ensure that their needs are addressed;
• invest to better understand ‘What Works’ to prevent these crimes;
• publish a new Victims’ Funding Strategy which will improve coordination of funding across government for all victim support services, including those for sexual violence victims; and
• publish a Victims’ Bill to ensure the needs of victims, including those of violence against women and girls crimes, are at the very heart of the criminal justice system.

1. Sexual offences in England and Wales overview - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk); Domestic abuse in England and Wales overview - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) ↩

2. Research has shown that 93% of rape victims receiving support from an ISVA or other support service reported the offence to the police, compared to 54% without this support. ↩