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deal with Violence against women and girls (VAWG) The crackdown on terrorism and organized crime will be taken equally seriously, Labor As soon as the party unveiled it, it pledged long delay strategy to the point.
Security minister promises to make women and girls “finally safe” Jess Phillips Vow that “change is coming”.
He said that “the entire society must come forward and end the epidemic of abuse.” violence It shames our country”, he said, adding: “The challenge is huge, but I feel more confident today that we can tackle it than I have ever felt before.”
But campaigners say the strategy does not go far enough, with Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza saying she is “deeply concerned” that the strategy does not do enough to protect girls under 16, while Refuge said the money contained in the strategy is just “a drop in the ocean”.
Meanwhile, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch faced criticism after saying the strategy was too focused on young boys and was too influenced by the Netflix drama. adolescenceInstead, calls were made to expel people from “cultures that do not respect women” from Britain.
Ms Phillips said the strategy is backed by £1bn over the next three years, including £480m already confirmed in the local government budget and £550m in the Ministry of Justice budget. An extra £19 million will be invested to support safe housing, the Home Office minister announced on Thursday – with Refuge saying the figure is simply not enough.
Key measures unveiled in the VAWG scheme include:
- Every police force in England and Wales will have a rape and sexual crimes specialist team by 2029
- New forensic technology to be used to detect rapists and sex offenders
- Crackdown on online deepfake abuse, including ban on “nudification” tools
- All secondary schools in England to teach students about healthy relationships
- Councils to be given £19 million to provide safe accommodation for survivors of domestic abuse
Ms Phillips also said that new forensic technology would be used to track rapists and sex offenders, with police forces using “the same data-driven approach to tracking criminals that we apply to terrorists and serious organized criminals”.
Delivering a statement to the Commons, the security minister promised to make the UK “one of the hardest places for children to access harmful content and misogynistic content online”, adding that so-called “nudification” tools, which allow users to take off their clothes in 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 students display “harmful” behaviour, changes to the curriculum and new training for staff.
However, campaigners said more needed to be done and called for more money to be poured into the issue.
Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel said she is “deeply concerned” that the strategy does not do enough to protect girls under 16.
She praised the plan’s ban on nudification devices and its focus on education, saying the strategy was “an important step forward in our shared ambition to end violence against women and girls”.
But he added: “I am deeply concerned that too much use of this strategy will only protect girls aged 16 and over.
“We need robust data measures to see whether strategies are working, but this cannot be at the expense of listening and responding to the risks every girl faces from an early age.”
Meanwhile, Refuge welcomed many of the measures unveiled, saying that “with sustained accountability, this approach has the potential to deliver the lasting, systemic change that women and girls deserve”. However, the charity also warned that the strategy fails to address the “deep and ongoing shortage of specialist support services”.
Gemma Sherrington, CEO of Refuge, said: “Without this vital investment, it risks directing survivors into a system that is already stretched beyond capacity.
“Unless these foundations are urgently fixed, the strategy’s ability to deliver real change will be seriously hampered.”
He added: “While the Government’s commitment of an additional £19 million to safe housing over the next three years is welcome, it represents just a drop in the ocean compared to the number of survivors for whom safe housing could be the difference between life and death.”
Women’s Aid said that while additional funding for safe housing and other specialist services is “welcome”, they argued that the government “needs to go much further, including ring-fenced investment in services run by and for black and minority women, and dedicated support for child victims”.
But the organization praised “the government’s ambitious commitment to halve violence against women and girls over the next decade”, saying it was “pleased to see that the strategy emphasizes long-term prevention”.
Under Labour’s latest initiative, all secondary schools in England will teach students about healthy relationships following concerns about the influence of self-described “woman-hating” influencers who seduce young men by pushing an agenda featuring toxic masculinity.
A new helpline will also be set up for teenagers to get support about concerns about their own behavior in relationships.
Ms Phillips said: “This strategy does something that no one has ever done before. Until now, responsibility for tackling violence against women and girls has been left solely to crime-fighting departments, which often work in silos.
“It’s important to provide support, but it’s 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 are committing violence against women and girls. We need to drive people out of our country who come from cultures that don’t respect women! Not all cultures are equally valid.”
He also called for more police to be deployed on the streets and for “all foreign criminals” to be deported, adding: “Pretending a few extra lessons at school will fix this is complete nonsense. Workers have to stop seeing this adolescence And get real.”
But Gadah Alnassery, co-executive director of Imkan, a charity that tackles violence against women from ethnic minority backgrounds, accused the Tory leader of “dangerous” rhetoric. Guardian: “This is extremely wrong, it is misinformed and it is spreading racism.
“We know of charities that have had to remove their signs so they don’t get attacked, where women have had to seek help through the back door. This kind of language is really problematic.”
Andrea Simon, director of the End Violence Against Women coalition, said gender-based violence is “not an imported problem”.