Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG): Halving it Through Prevention

Perspectives

Samantha Cunningham, Executive Director (Strategy) | Callyane Desroches, Head of Policy and Strategy | Rosie Margolis, Senior Analyst | Anousha Karim, Junior Analyst

Friday 24 January 2025

In this series, we address the government's commitment to halve VAWG. Building on our work to help shape the Policing VAWG National Framework for Delivery [1], we apply the 4P framework – Prevent, Protect, Pursue, Prepare – to identify tangible actions, beyond policing, that are needed to drive forward a consistent, unified response to VAWG.

To begin this series, we focus on prevention. The other blogs in this series will explore broader opportunities for prevention, beyond interventions aimed at children and young people.

The problem

The National Policing Statement describes violence against women and girls as an epidemic [2], setting out a troubling landscape in which the volume and complexity of VAWG offences continue to rise. More widely, growing evidence shows that misogyny and gender discrimination are closely linked with extremist movements [3], reinforcing the critical need to prevent VAWG - not only to protect women and girls - but also to combat broader societal threats. Efforts to combat an epidemic of this scale will only succeed when prevention is prioritised in equal measure to enforcement.

To this point, efforts to address violence against women and girls have largely been driven by specialist services, rightly focused on providing safety and support for victims and survivors in their recovery from violence, coercion and abuse. While long-term, consistent funding for these services is critical, there needs to be a concerted, national, and fundamental shift if the government is to deliver on the pledge to halve violence against women and girls. This requires a radical, preventative approach that will turn off the taps on violence and misogyny at their source.

We recognise that risk can escalate at various points throughout life and that prevention is thus a golden thread which must run through the whole system response. However, evidence shows that both victims and perpetrators of VAWG are getting younger [4] meaning this risk is increasingly urgent for children and young people (up to the age of 25). A targeted, effective strategy is essential to halting this trend, to (a) address the known risk to children and young people caught in intergenerational patterns of violence, coercion and abuse, and (b) tackle the drivers of rising child-on-child abuse.

Drivers of VAWG

Childhood exposure to violence, coercion and abuse significantly increases a young person’s risk of further involvement with violence against women and girls, both as a victim and perpetrator. These patterns often stem from intergenerational cycles [5], whereby children and young people affected by VAWG are more likely to go on to engage in harmful sexual behaviour, patterns of offending and ongoing victimisation from or perpetration of violence, coercion and abuse [6]. Despite this known harm, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner has described the ‘chronic lack of awareness and specialist support’ for children affected by domestic abuse, driven by a ‘broader tendency within child safeguarding providers to fail to recognise the importance of their role in the local response [7]’ to VAWG.

Furthermore, social media algorithms are exposing children and young people to violent and misogynistic content [8], normalising harmful ideologies [9] and likely contributing to the concerning rise in child-on-child abuse [10]. In 2022, the Vulnerability, Knowledge and Practice Programme (VKPP) reported that 52% of all Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSAE) cases involved children aged 10-17 offending against other children, with 14 being the most common age [11].

This stark reality demands immediate action to safeguard children and young people, confronting the key drivers of violence, and disrupting cycles of abuse to prevent future VAWG victimisation and perpetration.

The solution

Prevention efforts must go beyond education. Although schools play a key role in raising awareness around violence against women and girls, the solution must be more comprehensive than primary prevention alone. While we fully support the ongoing delivery of mandatory Relationship and Sex Education (RSE), the rise in child-on-child abuse highlights the need for a more robust, targeted strategy that extends beyond the classroom and addresses the root causes of VAWG.

The Government has committed to reducing VAWG, but achieving this requires a fundamental strategic shift. Backed by substantial resources, a targeted approach to preventing both victimisation and perpetration must be prioritised to achieve lasting change.

Reimagining targeted interventions

First and foremost, this requires an integral transformation to child safeguarding. The 2021 Domestic Abuse Act was groundbreaking in recognising children as victims in households where a parent is being abused [12]. Yet this has not translated into effective identification and the tracking of needs across statutory and voluntary services; vital for the delivery of effective support. The government must partner with local authorities to champion a model of proactive safeguarding, building on Operation Encompass [13] to mandate national standards on immediate interventions for children and young people exposed to violence, coercion and abuse. Any situation where children are affected by VAWG should automatically be treated as a safeguarding risk.

While this lays the groundwork for effective prevention, the statutory duty must go further, embedding targeted interventions for all children and young people at risk of perpetrating or experiencing abuse. Current VAWG prevention efforts vary widely, from alcohol and parenting-based programmes to initiatives addressing harmful male attitudes and behaviours, and empowerment strategies for women and girls. Amongst these programmes, there are common factors that pertain to success, and from which learning must be taken: delivery at an appropriately early age; tailored interventions that address the needs of marginalised groups; community buy-in and co-production; and facilitation by skilled specialists [14].

However, to meaningfully reduce VAWG, prevention efforts must be specifically designed for children and young people, rather than simplistically adapted from adult-focused approaches. This requires developing and testing evidence-based interventions - drawing on Child First principles - to establish what works; clarify commissioning responsibilities; and define key performance objectives. Crucially, these interventions must be integrated within wider systems of child safeguarding and support, to create a cohesive and effective strategy that reduces vulnerability and breaks cycles of abuse.

Reinforcing online safety

The government must also strengthen online safety measures, holding social media platforms to account when they fail to prevent harassment, exploitation and abuse. While Ofcom's Online Safety Act Codes of Practice [15] are a positive step, it is disappointing that protections for women and girls are not codified as robustly as child protection, limiting enforcement capability [16], and missing a critical opportunity to address the scale of the VAWG threat online.

This gap is particularly concerning given the growing evidence linking pornography to harmful sexual attitudes and behaviours [17]. Emerging research shows that mainstream pornography sites often feature content normalising sexual violence, readily accessible on their front pages [18]. Concurrently, the threat of deepfake intimate abuse has become increasingly prevalent, the scale and severity of which is largely unknown [19]. Further work is essential to understand and prevent the uprising of harm online. In failing to do so, harmful norms are perpetuated, further exacerbating the epidemic of VAWG [20]. The government must prioritise the online protection of women and girls with the same urgency and rigour as child protection to ensure that efforts to reduce VAWG succeed.

Conclusion

The Government's pledge to halve violence against women and girls will not be achieved unless violence and misogyny are addressed at their source. This requires a systematic shift, redefining prevention to better and more comprehensively target those at greatest risk of VAWG. To turn off the taps, child safeguarding, tailored interventions, and robust online safety measures are essential levers to prevent VAWG - both on an individual and systemic level - from causing further harm.