Government 'will fail to halve violence against women and girls without urgent shift to prevention'

Funded by the Open University and produced in conjunction with White Ribbon UK and the Centre for Protecting Women Online, The Case for Investing in Primary Prevention: Ending Men’s Violence Against Women, reveals that prevention work remains ‘critically underfunded’ despite being one of the most effective ways to reduce long-term harm. At present, the criminal justice system is overwhelmed in dealing with the aftermath of violence – with Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) now accounting for 20% of all police-recorded crime – and work to stop violence before it starts remains critically underfunded and unprioritised.

The report underlines that the upcoming Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy is a crucial chance to put prevention first, backed by dedicated, ring-fenced funding and to ease pressure on an already overstretched criminal justice system.

A major recommendation from the report is for the commissioning of the Office for National Statistics to include questions about misogyny and gender equality through national surveys such as the British Social Attitudes Survey. This simple step would fill a critical data gap in understanding how widespread these attitudes are, how quickly they’re changing and how effective prevention programmes really are – enabling the Government to track harmful attitudes alongside the success of preventative measures.

The research demonstrates that investing in preventing men’s violence against women and girls is far more cost-effective than paying for the consequences, and emphasises that violence is not inevitable. It outlines that already existing frameworks can be used to provide scaled up initiatives to create meaningful change, highlighting Wales as a leading example of this.

The findings praise the Welsh Government’s Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (VAWDASV) Strategy and its Sound campaign for demonstrating how engaging men and boys can shift attitudes and create lasting cultural change.

The research demonstrates that investing in prevention is significantly more cost-effective than financing the consequences of violence. To achieve this, the report urges the UK Government to take the following three steps as a matter of priority:

• Publish guidance for schools on adopting a ‘whole-school approach’ to preventing violence against women and girls, tackling harmful attitudes and behaviours among both staff and students.
• Fund the development and evaluation of programmes that support parents to have conversations with their children about healthy relationships
• Adopt a human-rights-based approach to online safety in line with Council of Europe standards.

Commenting on the findings of the report, Lynne Elliot, CEO of White Ribbon UK, said: "This research report shows that investing in the primary prevention of men’s violence against women and girls is not only cost-effective, it’s essential. By engaging men and boys, challenging misogyny, and addressing gender inequality at its root, we can create a society where everyone is safe, equal and respected. Long-term commitment to prevention is the only way we halve violence within a decade.”

Professor Olga Jurasz, Director, Centre for Protecting Women Online, also commented, saying: "The persistence of violence against women and girls, in both physical and digital environments, underscores the urgent need for a shift from reactive regulation to proactive, primary prevention. While emerging regulatory frameworks represent an important step toward improving online safety, they remain insufficient in addressing the structural, gendered and intersectional nature of online violence against women and girls. This report is a call for the Government to act now—to prevent, not just respond to, violence against women and girls online, and to promote a rights-based approach that recognises women’s and girls’ safety as fundamental to their full participation in digital spaces."

Read the report, in full, here.

For more information about White Ribbon UK, please visit https://www.whiteribbon.org.uk/.