Violence against women

Violence against women perpetuates inequality and this government does not accept that it should ever be viewed as a ‘fact of life’. That is why we have identified it as one of the three key priorities for the Ministers for Women.

Also, the introduction of the Gender Equality Duty , the publication of the first gender equality scheme and the first cross-government equality Public Service Agreement (PSA) – which links to the ‘Making Communities Safer’ PSA are encouraging many public authorities to look at how gender, and specifically violence against women, impacts on their work.

The Government is keen to ensure that the changes in laws and procedures translate into solid improvements on the ground. Today there are 104 Specialist Domestic Violence Court systems; the network of Sexual Assault Referral Centres is expanding; there are specialist rape prosecutors in every Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) area; and the UK Human Trafficking Centre has opened, the first of its kind in Europe.   

Much has changed in the last ten years, and particularly in the last two. But there is always room for improvement. In order to ask people what more should be done to tackle these crimes, the Home Secretary will be launching a consultation on violence against women and women’s safety in the New Year.

Policy areas;


Tackling Violence against Women and Girls: a guide to good practice communication

 

The Government Equalities Office has developed a communications guidance and toolkit: Tackling Violence against Women and Girls: a guide to good practice communication, in order to support and inform government communication in the area of violence against women and girls. Reducing violence against women and girls requires a long-term shift in public attitudes, and GEO recognises that effective and strategic communications will play a key role in achieving this.

This is the first guidance of its kind on this topic and it is designed to support communication and campaign activity around the cross-Government VAWG strategy – Together We Can End Violence against Women and Girls.

Government communicators working in the area of violence against women and girls are the primary audience for this guidance, but we hope that others will also use it.

A note about navigation

  • The guidance is an interactive PDF. The navigation works as follows:
  • The blue navigation buttons take you to the next or previous page
  • The pink navigation button will take you to the last page you looked at
  • The house symbol on the right hand side next to the page numbers takes you back to the home page

The home page is a quick way to navigate the guidance so that you can go directly to the practical advice, information and tools. There are blue boxes on the left of the page which identify areas and issues where you might want some advice; the boxes on the right will take you to the topic and section that you need.