‘Sixteen days, ten years, one promise: Labour must stick to its mission to halve violence against women and girls’

Exactly three years ago, I sat across a table from Keir Starmer MP, then the Leader of the Opposition, in a room with survivors of domestic abuse. He was on a visit facilitated by Women’s Aid where I worked, to a women’s refuge just outside of Birmingham.

I watched as he carefully listened to each of their stories. For many of the women, it had taken up to a decade to feel that they could flee to safety. I could tell at that moment that this had moved him deeply.

A few months later, the Labour Party made a commitment to halve Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) as part of their flagship Five Missions. Their manifesto stated “our landmark mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade will require a national effort”. I, along with so many others, saw it as a once in a lifetime opportunity to consign all forms of gender based violence to the history books.

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It is an issue that has dominated media headlines with countless deaths and assaults of women and girls up and down the country.More recently, we’ve seen this issue penetrate the minds of our young people, with the rise of toxic influencers on every social mediaplatform, whilst creating no spaces for young people to talk about these issues.

From Tuesday until 10 December, it is the 16 Days of Activism against Violence Against Women and Girls. We are a long way from where we need to be. Domestic abuse and sexual violence services up and down the country are struggling, some having to close, and we are failing to have the right conversations in schools with young people about these issues. 

The women’s refuge that Keir visited, along with many others, relies on a combination of voluntary sector and local government funding alongside national grants. 

Before working at Women’s Aid, I thought there was a nationally funded safety net for women and girls fleeing abuse. There is not.  Refuges provide what is essentially an emergency service, and must fundraise just to stay operational. Recent Women’s Aid research has found that 1 in 4 women were unable to secure a suitable refuge vacancy when fleeing domestic abuse.

Councils can make a real difference, and the May elections next year are our chance to prove it. I was elected as a Councillor in Wandsworth in 2022, turning Wandsworth Labour for the first time in 44 years. I can say, with pride, that we ran on a platform of delivering real change on VAWG and we have delivered. 

I had countless conversations with young women on the doorstep who felt listened to for the first time in local politics, they felt that the council could change something they really cared about. 

In Wandsworth, we have doubled investment in VAWG and crucially, had unwavering support from our leader and cabinet. With that political will, we’ve embedded a domestic abuse specialist in housing, stabilised local services, and invested in prevention like our Safe Space in Clapham Junction. Women say the improved advocacy service means they can breathe again.

Even without additional funding, there is so much we can do, tackling this issue takes a whole community. Over autumn, I led Wandsworth’s first in-depth review of VAWG prevention, speaking to young people, teachers, parents, carers and frontline workers. We found that our prevention work is not driven by or for young people, and we are going to change that.

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As part of the review, I spoke with a boys’ football team who had never talked about domestic abuse before. We had an inspiring and challenging conversation. Yes, they had covered one hour of healthy relationships in PSHE, but they had never spoken with each other about the real-life impacts of misogynistic language. In that short conversation, you could see their views developing. How can we expect to prevent VAWG if we aren’t willing to have these conversations with young people?

So where do we go from here?

As a minimum, the Labour Government must honour the pledge to halve VAWG by 2034. In the long-term, we need multi-year funding for all domestic abuse services. 

On prevention, we need to get serious on creating spaces for young people to talk about VAWG.  We need training for teachers, parents and young people as peers to hold space for these conversations. They are up for it. We can’t be afraid of it. 

At a local level, every council leader must make VAWG support and prevention central to their manifestos and delivery plans, especially those going into the May elections next year. The Government has already signalled their intention to move power away from the centre, back into communities, and this is the perfect opportunity to put that into practice. 

By the time you read this article, one woman or girl will have been killed as a result of domestic abuse. One in four women will experience domestic abuse across their lifetime. It is very likely someone you know has been in an abusive relationship. 

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The current scale of VAWG can leave us feeling powerless, our work in Wandsworth is proof that change can happen at a local level. 

Three years ago, in a refuge in Birmingham, Keir Starmer made a commitment to survivors of domestic abuse. Their stories cannot be told in vain. 

With Labour in government and Labour councils across the country, we now have the chance to turn that promise into real change. We must take it.

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