Category Archives: Violence Against Women

Rape, serious child sex and grooming offences barred from sentencing changes – Downing Street & Ministry of Justice

The Prime Minister has ordered that rape, serious child sex and other grooming offences will be barred from upcoming changes to prison sentences, protecting the public from these dangerous criminals.

This follows the Prime Minister halting planned changes to sentencing and demanding the policy be reconsidered within days of coming into office.

After listening to victims’ concerns, rape and serious child sex offences, including vile grooming gang offences, will now be blocked from the upcoming sentencing changes, meaning these dangerous criminals will see no change to their custodial sentence and stay locked up for longer.

The changes mean rape and child sexual offences will be added to the exclusions that were already in place for 18,000 offenders, including those who have been found by a court to be the most dangerous or anyone serving a life sentence.

The Prime Minister wanted to go even further, and he recognises that people will be worried about other offenders being released. The significant changes he is making go as far as possible without putting the prison system at risk of collapse, which would put the public at greater risk.

The Prime Minister has insisted that offenders face tough new surveillance after leaving prison. There will be a presumption that all offenders are tagged, tougher periods of supervision and robust new rules, including restriction zones for offenders. He has also been clear that victims must be placed at the heart of the justice system, announcing a new package of victim support – backed by £10 million – to provide better, trauma-informed contact. This is alongside a new national helpline and efforts to contact all affected victims to offer information and support.

A lack of investment in the prisons estate for over a decade has led to a situation where adult male prisons are now at 98% capacity. That’s why the Government will take decisive action to fix the broken prison system, with prison building moving at the fastest rate since the Victoria era, with 14,000 new prison places expected by 2031.

The Prime Minister has also asked the Justice Secretary to move rapidly on scoping and accelerating the next generation of prisons, providing a long-term shift in capacity to resolve this crisis. He has also asked the Justice Secretary to look at how we can remove foreign offenders from our prisoners faster and in greater numbers, review outdated Imprisonment for Public Protection sentences and free up space in the women’s prison estate.

Ministers are also delaying wider releases from prison under the Sentencing Act from September to October, giving probation staff have time to plan for releases and that victims can have a say in the restrictions placed on offenders.

The Sentencing Act will restore order to the prison system and make sure we have cells available for dangerous criminals. This will put an end to the use of repeated early release schemes prior to July 2024, which were emergency, temporary measures forced upon successive governments because of repeated capacity crises.

The changes also introduce a new progression model which will end automatic release for badly behaved offenders. Those who break the rules or are violent behind bars face spending 100% of their sentence locked up.

To read the press release in full go to https://www.gov.uk/government/news/rape-serious-child-sex-and-grooming-offences-barred-from-sentencing-changes

 

August 5, 2026

IOPC discussion groups aim to improve police response to VAWG

Domestic abuse support groups and women’s charities are sharing experiences of women and girls who have suffered physical and sexual violence in a series of events aimed at improving the police response to survivors.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is bringing the groups face-to-face with policing leads for violence against women and girls (VAWG) at regional events across England and Wales.

The events follow extensive IOPC engagement with more than 100 VAWG organisations, academics and activists who have disclosed survivors’ experiences of how police have dealt with their cases and any related use of the police complaints system.

IOPC Director and VAWG lead Amanda Rowe, said: “We have listened to stories of those who have been failed by the police or other agencies, and the impact it’s had on survivors.

“Our engagement has revealed key themes, barriers, patterns and trends from across the VAWG sector, plus suggestions for change to the wider police complaints system. We have also heard examples of good practice which are important to share.

“These events encourage the sharing of experiences and learning to help police forces better understand how policies play out in real life. They also give police forces a chance to share any improvements they have made directly with VAWG support services.”

The IOPC’s engagement work with VAWG groups identified recurring themes in police handling of cases involving women and girls with mental health, addiction or other vulnerabilities.

One charity said a big concern was a lack of empathy by police towards women in the street homeless community who had reported a VAWG offence, with unhealthy stereotypes of ‘lifestyle choice’ clouding police judgment.

Many of the groups and individuals said there was need for improved cultural competency in policing to make trauma-informed decisions and interactions, and to avoid victim-blaming language.

“We heard one case,” added Ms Rowe, “where a victim-survivor was asked to provide evidence, and witness names and contact details, three times by the officer in charge of the case. It was distressing and retraumatising to keep repeatedly providing this information.

“But it was also encouraging to hear examples of good practice. One initiative has seen an officer become a single point of contact for a women’s group to improve confidence among service users, listen to concerns or reports, and take action. Another force has created a Women in Policing Association, which supports confidential reporting for women to speak up if they have witnessed or been victim of sexual behaviour in the workplace.

“The discussion groups I took part in were focused on constructive discussion and what third sector groups and the police can do to work more closely together and improve the experience for service users.

“We hope the events and conversations will drive meaningful improvements that reflect the needs of victims and survivors and lead to better, sustained engagement between policing and non-policing VAWG partners.”

The first IOPC VAWG events were held in April for Kent, Cheshire, Merseyside and Greater Manchester police force areas. Others will follow later this year in the North East, Midlands, Wales and South East England.

The IOPC is also holding a series of online workshops for complaint handlers in police forces and local policing bodies to share learning on the handling of VAWG issues. The workshops, which complement the engagement events, will convene policing stakeholders to share best practice, encourage peer learning and improve consistency. There are seven online workshops running until July this year.

https://policeprofessional.com/news/iopc-discussion-groups-aim-to-improve-police-response-to-vawg/

 

May 21, 2026

New measures to better protect women and girls from FGM – Home Office

  • Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Summit demonstrates cross‑government commitment to tackle FGM and better protect women and girls.
  • Home Office to review FGM mandatory reporting to strengthen protections for girls at risk, and prosecutors and police to formalise working together earlier in FGM cases to build stronger prosecutions.
  • Measures to tackle FGM form part of government commitment to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.

Women and girls at risk of female genital mutilation will be better protected under a package of new measures announced on 29 April 2026 by the government.

The package was announced at the FGM Summit hosted by Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls Jess Phillips MP and Solicitor General Ellie Reeves KC MP.

At the summit, government ministers heard from experts, frontline professionals and victims and discussed a wide-ranging package of measures to improve the prevention, investigation and prosecution of FGM.

The Home Office will review the FGM mandatory reporting duty to ensure it is as strong and effective as possible and support professionals working with children to follow clear guidance on when and how to act.

New national practice guidelines for FGM Protection Orders will be developed to identify girls at risk of being taken abroad for FGM.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and National Police Chiefs’ Council will refresh their joint protocol on FGM to ensure investigators and prosecutors are better equipped to build strong cases from the outset.

The CPS will also develop a new training module for prosecutors to strengthen capability and expertise on FGM.

These commitments will deliver on the government’s VAWG Strategy, which set out the ambition to halve violence against women and girls within a decade.

The government’s first dedicated FGM Summit in ten years brought together survivors, healthcare professionals, law enforcement, and specialist organisations to drive coordinated action. The government made several other commitments including:

  • Home Office and NPCC will develop an FGM risk factors toolkit to help frontline professionals spot warning signs earlier and intervene before a girl is harmed.
  • British Embassy staff will receive additional training delivered by the joint Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office’s Forced Marriage Unit to better identify and support British victims of FGM abroad and help bring them home safely.

The measures build on the government’s commitment to put survivors at the heart of the response to FGM, ensuring women and girls receive the support and protection they deserve.

Extracts from a longer press release at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-measures-to-better-protect-women-and-girls-from-fgm

May 13, 2026

The extent of violence in England and Wales, especially against women, is obscured by official Government statistics – new study reveals

Researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London, and Lancaster University, have found that Government statistics on violent crime underestimate the extent and severity of violence against women by as much as 39%, and underestimates violent crime against men by 26%.

When it comes to domestic violence the statistics reduce serious domestic violence against women by 59% and against men by 5%.

The researchers say this is causing a sex bias in the official violence statistics and is the result of limiting the inclusion of repeated incidents.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) caps the number of violent offences against the same victim measured by the Crime Survey of England and Wales.

The current cap replaced a previous much-criticised system which stopped counting repeated violent offences against a victim after the first five.

However, this latest study, published in the British Journal of Criminology, reveals the current capping system also causes significant bias by masking violent crime against women, especially domestic assaults, which is often a repeat offence.

The study used 19 years of data from the Crime Survey of England and Wales (2001/02 to 2019/20) examining non-fatal assaults.

The authors say this sex bias in statistics on violent crime marginalises the experience of women and hides the repetition of domestic violent crime against women.

The study authors call for the capping method to be removed and, they argue, could be replaced with an alternative ‘moving average system’. This, they say, would also remove volatility in the statistics but would also prevent sex bias.

The study’s lead author, Professors Sylvia Walby, from Royal Holloway, University of London, said: “We welcome the Government Strategy to halve violence against women and girls and urge the ONS to improve the quality of its statistics by removing the capping and therefore the sex bias.

“Accurate measurement of the volume and distribution of violent crime is important for the distribution of public funding to the services that most need it in order to achieve social justice.”

Study co-author, Professor Brian Francis, from the School of Mathematical Sciences at Lancaster University, added: “By capping the actual statistics of violence against women, it underestimates what is happening in England and Wales, even though alternative statistical methods are available.

“We want to see the ONS include all repeated incidents to give us a proper and clear picture of what is happening in the UK, so we are better prepared on how to tackle violence reduction.”

The findings are detailed in the paper ‘Re-sexing violent crime: Sex bias in official estimates of violent crime underestimates the extent of violence against women and girls’, which is published in the British Journal of Criminology.

https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/sex-bias-against-women-found-in-government-violence-statistics

April 23, 2026

Cracking down on sex-based harassment in public – Home Office

New law will target those who harass women and girls in public because of their sex.

Everyone will be safer to walk the streets freely without fear of public sexual harassment after the government brought in a powerful new law on 1 April 2026.

For far too long, women and girls in particular have been expected to endure obscene comments, threats of sexual violence, and unnecessary, threatening invasions of their personal space to intimidate them in public.

These behaviours can force women and girls to change their routes, routines and behaviour just to feel safe. The perpetrators can all too often leave their victims feeling anxious, shattering their confidence, and forcing them to stay on high alert just to go about their lives freely. Too often, when this behaviour goes unchecked, we know that it can form part of a wider pattern of behaviour involving more serious crimes.

This government will not tolerate this. We have declared violence against women and girls a national emergency and are using the full power of the state to tackle these crimes with the seriousness they deserve, stepping in early to stop harassment escalating into more serious violence.

The new sex-based harassment offence introduced today gives police stronger powers to act decisively. It covers intentional harassment directed at someone because of their sex including where perpetrators target women and girls in public places, including streets, parks, public transport, taxis, shops and other everyday spaces.

Crucially, the law, which began as a Private Members’ Bill brought in by Greg Clark and Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, sees perpetrators receiving tougher consequences, including up to 2 years behind bars.

The government will work closely with police, frontline organisations, and campaign groups to ensure the new law is enforced robustly.

Police will follow new statutory guidance published today so the law is applied consistently across England and Wales, ensuring offenders have nowhere to hide and face real consequences.

Plan UK, Our Streets Now and organisations across the violence against women and girls sector have long called for stronger action on public sexual harassment, and today’s commencement delivers on what campaigners have been urging for years.

This legislation reflects the tireless work of VAWG charities, survivors and advocates who have consistently highlighted the harm caused by public sexual harassment and pushed for meaningful change.

The rollout of the law is a key delivery milestone from the government’s violence against women and girls strategy published in December, which focuses on prevention, early intervention and relentless action against offenders.

Other sweeping measures in the strategy include ensuring there are specialist rape and serious sexual offence teams in every police force to ensure rapists and serious sexual offenders are tracked down and brought to justice.

At the same time, the government is tackling violence before it starts, with new lessons to challenge misogyny and promote healthy relationships in schools, stronger guidance on teenage relationship abuse, and early intervention to challenge harmful attitudes among boys and young men.

Extracts from a longer press release at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cracking-down-on-sex-based-harassment-in-public

 

April 13, 2026