In England and Wales, a woman is killed by her partner or ex-partner every five days. It’s against this background that Labour is set to fulfil its pledge of halving VAWG in England and Wales within a decade, but are they doing enough?
Meg Warren
From international tragedies such as the murder of Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei and the ongoing trial of Dominique Pelicot in France, to the reports of rape and sexual violation that surround Sean Diddy, violence against women and girls (VAWG) has been a dominant feature of the news agenda across the globe over recent months. In the UK specifically, VAWG has been declared a national emergency, with 3,000 violent crimes against women being recorded each day.
This summer, new data revealed that violent offences against women and girls on public transport has increased by around 50% in two years, and only last month the BBC reported that the Met receive reports of a rape every hour. This is the context in which Labour has come into power, and aims to fulfil its pledge of halving VAWG in England and Wales within a decade. But what does this actually mean? And will it be enough?
One issue highlighted by recent media coverage of VAWG is the systemic problem of individuals perpetrating violence from positions of responsibility with impunity – from the news that former Harrods boss Al Fayed “stalked” the department store’s floors looking for women to assault, to a recent report by the Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ) which found issues with police officers carrying out abuse, often without meaningful consequences. Among their findings were that officers accused of abuse being promoted to roles which require them to investigate other VAWG-related crimes – a phenomenon which was recently documented by a survivor who says her abuser was promoted within the force despite being a rapist.
After much sector campaigning, new Labour policies on VAWG including suspending officers accused of certain violent offences pending the outcome of an investigation, but according to Andrea Simon, Executive Director of End Violence Against Women (EVAW) this must be done in conjunction with an “overhaul of standards and vetting” to prevent police-perpetrated violence from occurring in the first place. The comments are even more poignant in the wake of polling which reveals women and girls lack confidence in the police to the extent that 39% said they had ‘not much or no trust in the police to handle the issue of violence against women and girls’.
While measures like the automatic suspension of officers and improved police responses should be welcomed, experts in the sector caution that it is also essential that officers receive specialist and trauma-informed training on VAWG. The Casey Review exposed a misogynistic, homophobic and racist culture within policing, which can be an obstacle to survivors accessing justice across the spectrum - well beyond police-perpetrated abuse.
Labour want to halve VAWG but what are they actually doing about it, and is it enough
Almost a year on, despite the government’s focus on improving standards within policing there is much to be done. According to Women’s Aid, while there have been offshoots of progress like Operation Soteria – designed to prevent victim-blaming and shift the investigative process onto suspects – “the pace of change remains far too slow”. In the last month there have been several high profile cases of police-perpetrated abuse and countless reports and reviews show the police are still failing to protect the public from known perpetrators, as evidenced in the inquiry into failings to prevent the murder of Zara Aleena.
Concerns highlighted in the latest Police Chiefs’ Council report include inexperienced officers investigating sensitive abuse cases and officers lacking specialism in investigating sexual offences. While domestic abuse charity Refuge welcomed the raft of measures announced by the Home Office this month, which include embedding trained abuse experts in 999 police control centres, CEO Abigail Ampofo says there needs to be much more detail on how specialist staff will be safely recruited and vetted.
Technology-facilitated abuse is another rising issue (with referrals to Refuge’s tech team surging by 258% from 2018 to last year) that urgently requires addressing as part of the government’s VAWG strategy. According to Andrea Simon, while the hard-fought Online Safety Act affords some protections around VAWG, it does not go far enough. A key barrier to justice is the array of gaps in the law around intimate image abuse. While the new law criminalises the sharing of explicit images including deepfakes without consent, a campaign being led by EVAW calls for a new comprehensive image-based abuse law. Proposals include the criminalisation of the creation of intimate images without consent, civil mechanisms such as court orders to ensure survivors can have harmful images taken down, and an online safety regulator dedicated to fighting online abuse. The measures are “essential to reducing both the prevalence of image-based abuse, and the harm it causes,” says Durham Law Professor Clare McGylnn.
Prevention must also be a key strand of Starmer’s pledge when it comes to all kinds of VAWG. “If the new government is serious about its mission to halve violence against women and girls in ten years, it must prioritise and invest in work to prevent abuse, rather than focusing narrowly on responding after harm is done,” says Simon. In particular, preventative measures are crucial to avoiding the misogynistic cultures that enable offenders to act with impunity. Such measures could include running campaigns to address harmful attitudes, and ensuring tech companies that promote misogynistic content and profit from survivors’ abuse are held to account, as well as building in safety features to the design of platforms.
While Labour’s elaborations on how they plan to fulfil their VAWG pledge through more systemic measures, including fast-tracking sexual violence cases, this must go hand in hand with proper funding. Already, says Simon, survivors experience huge delays between reporting and getting to a courtroom. “Rape victims frequently wait years to have their case proceed to trial, if it even gets that far,” she explains, adding that the government must also “urgently address” the backlog of crown court cases and other “systemic failings in the criminal justice system” – including legal aid funding gaps which leave survivors with no other choice but to self-represent.
But experts agree that strictly justice-related reforms will not be enough. Preventative work is no quick fix - the party itself has acknowledged that tackling misogyny in schools could take up to 20 years to have an impact on society – but it is essential, along with holistic efforts to address issues with the wider justice system. In summary, as Simon observes: “We need an approach that is not piecemeal and looks beyond just the criminal justice system to address prevention, housing, health, education and much more, as well as centring those who face the greatest barriers to support and protection.”
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