Violence against women and girls in 2025

Mariam Keating

Labour’s 2024 manifesto pledged to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) in a decade. This pledge forms part of the government’s wider mission to “Halve serious violent crime and raise confidence in the police and criminal justice system to its highest levels, within a decade” (PDF).

The government intends to set out how it will halve VAWG in a new strategy that is set to be published in summer 2025. However, a report published by the National Audit Office (NAO) in January 2025 questioned the effectiveness of VAWG strategies issued by previous governments. There have been three such strategies since 2010. The NAO made recommendations for what a new strategy could include to be effective.

This Insight looks at the effectiveness of previous strategies and considers what a new strategy could include.

How prevalent is violence against women and girls in England and Wales?

In July 2024, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing said that violence against women and girls is a “national emergency”. According to the NPCC, VAWG makes up just under 20% of all recorded crime in England and Wales.

The chart below, published by the NAO, shows the number of police-recorded rape and sexual assault offences against women and girls between 2009–10 and 2023–24. According to the NAO, there was a 264% increase in the number of police-recorded rape and sexual assault offences during this period.

A bar chart showing the number of rape and sexual assault offences against women recorded by police in England and Wales between 2009/10 and 2023/24. During the period shown, there was an increase in the number of offences reported. In 2009/10, there were about 35,000 offences reported, and in 2023/24, there were about 123,00 offences reported. The only notable decrease occurring in 2020/21, which coincided with the covid-19 pandemic. — Source: Office for National Statistics, Crime in England and Wales: Appendix tables, March 2024 edition, Table A4a.
Notes:
1. The Office for Statistics Regulation classifies police recorded crime statistics as official statistics, not accredited official statistics.
2. Offences included in the data: Rape of a female aged 16 or over; Rape of a female child under 16; Rape of a female child under 13; Rape of a female – undefined; Sexual assault on a female aged 13 and over; Sexual assault on a female child under 13.
3. Some of the changes in the levels of police recorded crime over time can be affected by changes in police recording practices and more victims coming forward to report these crimes.

The graph below shows the estimated number of victims of domestic abuse between 2009/10 and 2023/24. It shows that in the year ending March 2024, over 1.2 million women and over 550,000 men between the ages of 16 and 59 are estimated to have been victims of domestic abuse.

A bar chart showing the estimated number of domestic abuse victims between the ages of 16 and 59 in England and Wales between 2009/10 and 2023/24. The number of women who were domestic abuse victims is consistently about double the number of men who were domestic abuse victims. In 2009/10, the number of women who were domestic abuse victims was about 1.5 million, and in 2023/24, the number of women who were domestic abuse victims was about 1.2 million. There is no data for 2020/21, which coincides with the covid-19 pandemic. — Source: Source: Office for National Statistics, Domestic abuse prevalence and victim characteristics, March 2024 edition, Table 5.
Notes:
1. The Office for National Statistics’ User Guide provides definitions of the various types of domestic abuse, sexual assault and stalking.
2. The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) defines domestic abuse as outlined in the part 1 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.
3. The CSEW does not give an estimate of the number of victims of domestic abuse for the year 2020/21, as the covid-19 pandemic made face-to-face interviews impossible; the telephone survey that year excluded questions related to domestic abuse because of confidentiality and safeguarding concerns.
4. CSEW data for the year ending March 2022 is not designated as accredited official statistics, so should be used with caution. They are based on a reduced six months of data collection from the face-to-face CSEW between October 2021 and March 2022.
5. Estimates for the year ending March 2023 for domestic abuse, sexual assault and stalking are based on eight months of interviews and exclude the affected survey months. Caution should be taken when using these data because of the impact of the reduced data collection period on the quality of the estimates.

Previous government VAWG strategies

Since 2010, the Home Office has published multiple VAWG strategies:

A strategic vision for ending VAWG (November 2010) and an action plan for ending VAWG (March 2011), issued by the coalition government.
The Ending violence against women and girls strategy 2016 to 2020 (March 2016), issued by David Cameron’s Conservative government. A “refreshed” Ending violence against women and girls strategy 2016 to 2020 (March 2019) was issued by Theresa May’s Conservative. government, alongside an update on the work done to achieve the commitments in the 2016 strategy.
The most recent strategy was the Tackling violence against women and girls strategy (July 2021), issued by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government. The Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan (March 2022) was also issued by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government.

How effective have previous government VAWG strategies been?

NAO report findings

The NAO report Tackling violence against women and girls examined the Home Office’s leadership of, and progress towards implementing, the 2021 VAWG strategy and the 2022 ‘Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan’. Some of the NAO report’s key findings included:

VAWG commitments partially implemented

As of July 2024, the Home Office had implemented 78% of the commitments in the 2021 VAWG strategy, although it had originally aimed to implement all the commitments in the strategy by December 2024. The NAO found that the Home Office had not been on track to achieve these commitments since the launch of the strategy in 2021.

Lack of “buy-in” from government departments

The Home Office, the lead department for preventing VAWG, has not led an effective “whole-system” response to VAWG because it has struggled to get “buy-in” from other departments.

Failure to learn from past VAWG strategies

The Home Office produced the 2021 VAWG strategy “at pace” and did not develop this VAWG strategy based on what works. The NAO also found “little evidence that the Home Office had applied learning from previous strategies”.

No consistent definition of VAWG

The lack of a consistent definition of VAWG across public bodies, and their differing approaches to measuring VAWG offences, has made it challenging to measure progress in a consistent way.

Lack of oversight of VAWG prevention spending

There is no oversight of all government funding that is being spent on preventing VAWG. Between 2021–22 and 2023–24, the Home Office underspent its own budget allocated to the VAWG strategy by an average of around 15%. This underspend came to around £22 million, against a total £149 million budget for that period. Other government departments spent a total of around £979 million on implementing the VAWG strategy during the same period.

Limited progress on VAWG prevention measures

The Home Office has made little progress developing measures to prevent VAWG, with most departments leading prevention activities in the 2021 VAWG Strategy focusing on supporting victims.

Government response to NAO report

These findings were presented to Home Office officials at a Public Accounts Committee evidence session in March 2025. Sir Matthew Rycroft, who served as Permanent Secretary to the Home Office at the time, asserted that the government’s new mission structure would address some of the key themes emerging from the report. Specifically, he said this would involve improving coordination across departments, funding and data.

What have stakeholders said about a new VAWG strategy?

In response to the NAO’s report, Amelia Handy, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at Rape Crisis England and Wales, said that the government should learn from the report’s recommendations when considering future strategy:

The NAO report provides a vital opportunity for this Government to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors, and to ensure any future strategy is underpinned by expert advice, specialist stakeholder engagement, and buy in from all Government departments.

The promises from the current Government into responding and tackling violence against women and girls is encouraging. Yet we need much more meaningful and robust stakeholder engagement from officials and ministers to ensure that the upcoming strategy prioritises sexual violence and abuse survivors.

Baroness Newlove, the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, welcomed the government’s commitment to halving VAWG, but said that a coordinated approach across sectors was needed for it to be effective:

[..] this report makes clear, there remains a crucial lack of understanding about what truly works. We know we cannot simply police our way out of this crisis; an effective strategy will require co-ordinated action across all sectors, with a shared vision underpinned by strong leadership from the centre.

For the government to meet its ambition of halving VAWG, the NAO said that it should consider:

establishing a shared vision of how it intends to halve VAWG.
strengthening accountability for implementation against its target.
embedding learning and evaluation.

In relation to the final point, the NAO recommended:

developing and embedding a long-term evaluation plan into the strategy, backed by appropriate resources; and
encouraging local innovation, particularly on preventing VAWG, and learning from this to identify opportunities to increase effective interventions.

The government says it is aiming to “deliver a cross-government, transformative approach”, underpinned by a new VAWG strategy which will be published in summer 2025.