Report outlines progress in campaign to end violence against women and girls

The Government has marked International Women's Day, as it has every year since 2011, by publishing a progress report in respect of its campaign to end violence against women and girls.

The main themes of the strategy are prevention, provision of good quality services, improved partnership working, better justice outcomes and risk reduction.

The progress report, which is here, states that the government has:

Provided stable funding of £40 million between 2011 and 2015 to provide a critical bedrock of support to victims of domestic and sexual abuse;
Introduced new legislation and law enforcement tools including the criminalisation of forced marriage, new stalking laws, the national roll-out of Domestic Homicide Protection Orders and the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme, the criminalisation of possession of realistic depictions of rape and revenge pornography, and new civil orders to manage sex offenders;
Recognised that domestic abuse affects young people as well and revised our definition of domestic abuse accordingly;
Raised young people's awareness of VAWG through the acclaimed This is Abuse campaign and the provision of a discussion guide for teachers based on the campaign materials;
Driven a step-change in the response to hidden crimes such as FGM through a comprehensive package of reforms, including those announced at the Girl Summit in 2014 and announced mandatory reporting for FGM;
Reformed frontline agencies' response to VAWG by driving a culture change in the police response through the HMIC review, new guidance and training for healthcare professionals and the promotion of partnership approaches through
the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) model, the troubled families programme and the emerging Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hubs (MASH);
Revised statutory safeguarding guidance to put the needs of children back at the heart of the assessment process and to focus clearly on the core legal requirements that all professionals should follow in order to keep children safe;
Commissioned the Bailey Review on the Commercialisation and Sexualisation of Childhood;
Delivered the highest VAWG conviction rate since records began through the work of the CPS including wider support for the criminal justice system to further improve the response to VAWG;
Supported local commissioners and service providers to engage with the new local structures to facilitate effective commissioning of VAWG services for victims;
Significantly scaled up our work to tackle VAWG overseas with a 63% increase in UK-funded VAWG programmes implemented in 29 countries across the world since 2012; and
Supported male victims through the Male Rape Support fund and funding the national helpline for male victims of domestic violence.

A summary report summarises the development and evaluation of the 'This is Abuse' campaign since it launched in February 2010. It is here.

There has also been published a communications insight pack to provide partners with key insights into VAWG which can help to inform communications activities.

The pack covers a wide range of VAWG areas and includes key national statistics, background information on policy, government and partner campaigns which tackle VAWG. It also signposts other useful research and how to access various support materials which are currently available to partners.

The pack is here.

8/3/15

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