Labour: We’ll treat violence against women like terror and gang crime
The Labor Party has promised to take tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG) as seriously as the fight against terrorism and organized crime, as it announced its long-delayed strategy on the issue.
Promising to make women and girls “finally safe”, safeguarding minister Jess Phillips promised “change will come”.
“The whole of society must step up and end the epidemic of abuse and violence that shames our country,” he said, adding: “The challenge is great, but I have never felt more confident than I feel today that we can meet this challenge.”
But campaigners said the strategy did not go far enough, with children’s commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza saying she was “deeply concerned” that the strategy did not do enough to protect girls under 16, while Refuge said the funding included in the strategy was just “a drop in the ocean”.
Meanwhile, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has faced criticism, saying the strategy is too focused on young men and too influenced by Netflix drama. Pubertyinstead he called for people from “cultures that do not respect women” to be removed from the UK.
Ms Phillips said the strategy was backed by £1bn over the next three years, including £480m already approved in local government budgets and £550m in the Ministry of Justice budget. The Home Secretary announced on Thursday that an extra £19 million will be invested in safe housing support; Refuge said this figure is definitely not enough.
Key measures outlined in the VAWG plan include:
- Every police force in England and Wales will have a specialist rape and sexual offenses team by 2029
- New forensic technology will be used to track down rapists and sex offenders
- A crackdown on online deepfake abuse, including a ban on “nudification” tools
- All secondary schools in England to teach pupils about healthy relationships
- Councils will receive £19 million funding support to provide safe housing for victims of domestic violence
Ms Phillips also said police forces would use “the same data-driven approach to tracking criminals that we apply to terrorists and serious organized criminals”, and new forensic technology would be used to track down rapists and sex offenders.
In a statement to the House of Commons, the protection secretary vowed to make the UK “one of the most difficult places for children to access harmful content and misogynistic influences online” and said so-called “nudification” tools that allow users to remove clothing from photos would be banned.
The government will also work with tech companies to make it impossible for children to take, view or share nude photos through “nudity detection filters”.
Other measures include new interventions in schools when pupils display “harmful” behaviour, changes to the curriculum and new training for staff.
But campaigners said more needed to be done and called for more funding to be allocated to the issue.
Children’s commissioner Dame Rachel said she was “deeply concerned” that the strategy did not do enough to protect girls under 16.
He praised the plan to ban nudification tools and the focus on education, saying the strategy was “an important step in our shared ambition to end violence against women and girls”.
But he added: “I am deeply concerned that too much of this strategy will only protect girls aged 16 and over.
“We need robust data metrics to see whether the strategy is working, but this cannot come at the expense of listening to and responding to the risks every girl faces from a young age.”
Refuge, meanwhile, welcomed a raft of measures announced and said that “with ongoing accountability, this approach has the potential to deliver the lasting, systemic change that women and girls deserve”, although the charity also warned that the strategy failed to address the “profound and ongoing underfunding of specialist support services”.
Refuge CEO Gemma Sherrington added: “Without this vital investment there is a risk of diverting survivors into a system that is already stretched beyond its capacity.
“Unless these fundamentals are urgently fixed, the strategy’s ability to deliver real change will be severely limited.”
He continued: “While it is welcome that the Government has committed an additional £19 million towards safe housing over the next three years, this represents only a drop in the ocean compared to the number of survivors for whom safe housing could be the difference between life and death.”
While Women’s Aid said additional funding for safe housing and other specialist services was “welcomed”, it argued that the government “must go much further, including investing in services for and by Black and minority women, and specific support for child victims”.
But the organization praised the government’s “ambitious commitment to halve violence against women and girls over the next decade” and said it was “delighted to see the strategy’s emphasis on long-term prevention.”
Under Labour’s latest initiative, all secondary schools in England will teach pupils about healthy relationships, following concerns about the influence of self-described “misogynist” influencers who appeal to young men by pushing an agenda characterized by toxic masculinity.
A new helpline will also be set up where young people can get help with concerns about their own behavior in relationships.
Ms Phillips said: “This strategy does something no one has done before. Until now, responsibility for tackling violence against women and girls has been left solely to crime departments, often working in isolation.
“Providing vital support, but often too late to really change the narrative. This strategy is different.”
But Ms Badenoch posted on social media: “It’s not 11-year-old boys who commit violence against women and girls. We must remove people from cultures that do not respect women from our country! Not all cultures are equally valid.”
He also called for more police on the streets and the deportation of “all foreign criminals”, saying: “Pretending that a few extra lessons at school will fix this is complete nonsense. Labor should stop watching.” Puberty and be realistic.
But Ghadah Alnasseri, co-executive director of Imkaan, a charity tackling violence against women from ethnic minority backgrounds, accused the Conservative Party leader of “dangerous” rhetoric, saying: Guard: “This is extremely wrong, misinformation and spreads racism.
“We know that there are charities that have had to remove their signs to avoid being attacked, that women have had to seek help through back doors. This kind of language is really problematic.”
Andrea Simon, Director of the Coalition to End Violence Against Women, added that gender-based violence “is not an imported problem.”
