Ambition is welcome. Delivery is the test.
SafeLives’ response to the Government’s long-awaited Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy
SafeLives welcomes the Government’s new Violence Against Women and Girls strategy and its commitment to halve VAWG within a decade. That ambition is urgently needed. But it will only be realised if action is sustained, joined up across government, and properly resourced, so that every adult and child survivor is met where they are, those using harm are consistently challenged to stop, and structures are put in place to evaluate what’s working.
We want what you would want for your best friend, safety, support and justice. No one should be passed from service to service at the point they ask for help.
There is real potential here, particularly where the strategy backs a more joined-up, whole-system response. Commitments to strengthen multi-agency working, including new Government MARAC guidance and analysis of whether to place MARAC on a statutory footing, align strongly with what SafeLives has long called for, clearer expectations, greater consistency, and less postcode-lottery practice.
We also welcome measures to tackle abuse within intimate teenage relationships and a focus on harming behaviour. Our Safe Young Lives programme and our group of Changemakers have highlighted for many years that young people often don’t know where the line is between healthy and harmful, and many don’t recognise coercive and controlling behaviour, especially when it plays out through phones, social media and tech abuse. Too often, they’re taught this too late, or not well enough, and don’t feel confident about who to turn to for help. Strengthening Relationships and Sex Education (RSE), improving professional responses, and ensuring access to specialist, age-appropriate support will be key.
Ending VAWG cannot sit solely with the Home Office or the criminal justice system. Health, education, housing, welfare, local government and commissioners all have a critical role to play. The cross-government nature of this strategy matters, and must translate into shared accountability.
On support and commissioning, the strategy’s intent to transform commissioning is encouraging, including clearer definitions of ‘by and for’ and specialist services. Done well, this could reduce fragmentation and make it easier for survivors to access the right help at the right time.
We are pleased to see commitments to strengthen perpetrator accountability at scale. To end VAWG, we must stop placing responsibility on survivors and instead consistently ask why perpetrators continue to harm, and challenge them to stop.
However, the Strategy’s ambition must now be matched by delivery and funding for victim services. The strategy’s headline funding commitments are welcome, but it does not yet set out the long-term, ringfenced new investment needed to stabilise and grow specialist domestic abuse and VAWG victim services, including by and for provision, so they can retain skilled staff and meet rising demand safely. Frontline services are operating under extreme pressure, facing rising demand, cost of living impacts and short-term funding cycles. As awareness, prevention and identification improve because of the welcome measures in the VAWG strategy, more people will reach out for help – and the whole system must be properly resourced to respond.
We are also concerned that children’s experiences of domestic abuse still lack a clear, distinct, trauma-informed pathway with guaranteed access to specialist support and recovery. A Whole Picture approach means keeping the non-abusive parent safe, holding the perpetrator accountable, and supporting children as survivors in their own right, together, not in silos. We remain concerned that family-group decision making could undermine protections in cases of high-risk domestic abuse.
Whilst it is welcome to see commitment to explore funding for support for children who have been victims in the home, we hope learnings will be taken from existing interventions, such as culturally competent responses through the Children Affected by Domestic Abuse (CADA) fund.
For migrant survivors, steps such as requiring police to seek a victim’s consent before sharing information with Immigration Enforcement, alongside continued investment in support schemes for people with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF), are positive. But survivors need confidence they can seek help early and safely, without fear. The strategy needs to state explicitly that information cannot be shared with other agencies if consent is not provided and it needs to set out how the follow-on support for migrant survivors will be funded.
SafeLives stands ready to work with Government, statutory agencies and specialist partners to turn this strategy into measurable progress, bringing data, voice and practice together so safety is not left to chance, but built into the system the first time someone asks for help.
Ellen Miller, CEO of SafeLivesViolence against women and girls remains at crisis levels. Children are still too often invisible in practice, people facing multiple barriers wait longest for help, and too many survivors are navigating systems that are not consistently joined up. We cannot call this a national emergency and then resource it as if it were anything less.
The ambition to halve violence against women and girls in ten years is hugely welcome, but ambition only counts if it is backed by sustained funding, clear accountability, and action across every part of government.
We have the evidence, the models and the workforce. What’s needed now is the leadership right across local and national governments and the resourcing to back them properly. New measures to raise awareness and encourage referral are excellent – but frontline services are already under pressure and need full resourcing to be able to act when people reach out for support.
This strategy has real potential if it prevents harm earlier, embeds survivor voice in decision making, and ensures perpetrators are consistently challenged and held to account. It must leave no one behind, reaching every community and removing the barriers that mean some people are least able to get help when they need it most.
Crucially, we know progress will be strongest when it’s rooted in survivor voice. Survivors, including those facing the greatest barriers to safety, know what works and what they need. Their expertise must shape decisions and delivery at every level.
SafeLives will keep bringing data, voice and practice together. We will keep centring adult and child survivors and the whole family, and we will keep working with Government and partners across health, education, housing, policing and justice so families are safer, sooner. Domestic abuse is not inevitable. With the right action and the right investment, we can prevent harm, reduce risk and support recovery – together.
Annie Gibbs, SafeLives PioneerWhile I support the ambition of this strategy, as a survivor and founder of a 'by and for' organisation it is frustrating that survivor voice and by and for services are still not clearly at the centre of delivery. Running a by and for organisation in the current climate is extremely challenging, with commissioning and funding models that can shut us out and make lifesaving work hard to sustain.
'By and for' services are trusted, culturally specific and often the first place people turn, especially migrant women and those facing multiple forms of exclusion. Government must set the standard by building the right support structures and funding models so by and for organisations can thrive, not just survive.
If the Government truly wants to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, survivor-led, intersectional responses must be properly funded, embedded across every department, and designed with those most affected leading the conversation . Removing immigration barriers for survivors sends a clear and powerful message that saving lives comes before immigration enforcement, and that safety, dignity and access to support are fundamental rights for all.