Our Take On UK’s Violence Against Women and Girls (2025- 2030)
At RSVP, we welcome the Government’s recently published Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy. We are relieved it has finally been released, following several postponements, making it long overdue. We are relieved, because actions to reduce and respond to VAWG are needed now more than ever.
Growing numbers of children and adults require specialist support from organisations like RSVP. Yet, despite us being open 7 days a week, the need for support is growing faster than our service capacity, resulting in survivors facing more distress as they wait even longer for support. The need for an ambitious strategy is clear and urgent. However, long‑term ambitious goals must not ignore the rapidly widening gaps in specialist support that require attention and action now.
Key Concerns about the VAWG Strategy
- Education alone cannot counter the scale of pornography harms:
Expecting parents, carers and teachers to offset the influence of multi‑million‑pound porn platforms, designed to push violent, misogynistic content to children, is unrealistic. We need stronger action on the platforms themselves and a society that stops profiting from the sexualisation of women and girls. Young people also need ongoing, specialist‑led reflective spaces to explore and unpick what they’ve seen. Evidence‑based programmes, like Time to Talk delivered by Safer Together and other by the specialist sector, must be prioritised. - Teachers are not specialists, and cannot be expected to carry this work alone:
Improvements to Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RHSE) are welcome. However, disclosures, trauma and creating safety for young people to have complex conversations requires specialist skills and survivor‑informed practice. Properly funded specialist services must work alongside schools, supporting already overstretched teachers, who are not fully trained to respond to abuse and misogyny. - NHS referral expansion without resourcing specialist services will lead to increased distress for survivors:
Health already refers around a third of survivors into specialist organisations like RSVP. We are concerned that rolling out “Steps to Safety” nationally will increase referrals to our sector even further, with no additional resource provided to meet this rising demand. Without investment, survivors will simply face longer waits and experience greater distress. - Commitment to provide “holistic, tailored support” can only happen with long‑term funding:
The Strategy sets out a vision for a coordinated, responsive system over the next decade. Without secure, ring‑fenced funding though, these commitments will remain aspirational, and fail to become reality. Survivors need support now, they cannot wait years for a system that works. - Children under 16 are missing from the Strategy’s headline measure of VAWG:
The goal to halve VAWG relies on data that excludes children under 16, despite high numbers being subjected to sexual abuse in childhood. This omission risks masking the true scale of abuse, and leaves a significant group of children invisible in national targets. - Child sexual abuse (CSA) survivors are still waiting for the promised “standalone response”:
The Strategy acknowledges that CSA requires its own specialist approach, yet provides no timeline. After years of delays in implementing the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.
Our Final Thoughts:
Investment in the specialist sexual abuse sector is long overdue and essential. For decades, services like ours have been asked to do a lot with very little. Now, more than ever, we are being stretched beyond capacity. During Covid, additional funding recognised our work as vital and an emergency service. Now, we need the same level of prioritisation again if we are to avoid letting survivors down.
Proper funding means we can respond well, reduce distressing delays and ensure every survivor gets the support they need, when they need it, in order to rebuild their lives with hope and confidence after sexual abuse.