As the UK government launches its violence against women and girls strategy, the situation it is seeking to remedy makes for hard reading.

One in eight women in England and Wales experienced sexual assault, domestic abuse or stalking between March 2024 and March 2025. Between June 2024 and June 2025, almost 200 rapes were recorded daily. More than 150 women are killed each year.

The picture is similar for young people too: 39% of teens aged 13 to 17 experience emotional or physical abuse in a relationship.

The strategy emphasises prevention and early intervention – stopping violence before it occurs, or before it worsens. It centres support for victims and accountability perpetrators.

The strategy is built off the back of a number of interventions that have already taken place. These include making sexually explicit deepfakes a criminal offense, laws on cyberflashing and the introduction of interventions of “honour” abuse.

The goal is to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. It’s an ambitious target that requires action in multiple different areas. Below are four key points from the strategy and consideration as to why they’ve been included.

Significantly, the strategy envisages a whole-society approach to this problem. That means that it recognises male violence as a public health crisis rooted in patriarchal norms and hegemonic masculinity.

Addressing this requires early........

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