The Government’s Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy follows the Government’s previous 2010, 2016 and 2019 Strategies which set out their approach to tackling crimes which disproportionately affect women and girls. They state that their ambition is:
” Firstly, to increase support for victims and survivors, through ensuring they have access to quality support appropriate to their needs (as measured through increased funded support services);
Secondly, building on increases we have seen in reporting to the police for some of these crimes, we want an increase in the number of perpetrators brought to justice (including for rape and other sexual offences, domestic abuse, stalking and harassment, and ‘honour’-based abuse including female genital mutilation and forced marriage). This will be measured via police recorded crime and court data12. In addition, given the under-reporting of these crimes, the Government wants to see an increase in reporting to the police (as measured by Crime Survey for England and Wales and police recorded crime) and increased victim engagement with the police and wider public service response. We specifically want to reduce the proportion of victims of these crimes withdrawing from criminal justice proceedings and increase public confidence in the system (measured by police recorded crime and criminal justice agency reporting data); and
Thirdly, the Government’s long-term fundamental ambition must be nothing less than to reduce the prevalence of violence against women and girls. We will achieve this by preventing more of these crimes in the first place and by identifying more of the crimes that we do not prevent. In the long term, we want to see a decrease in the number of victims experiencing these crimes in each year (measured through reporting in the Crime Survey in England and Wales, which includes information on the prevalence of crimes such as rape and other sexual offences and stalking).”