Government pledges to protect more women from violence

This International Women's Day, as statistics show that a woman is killed on average every 3 days in the UK, the government has reiterated its commitment to halving violence against women and girls in a decade.

For the past 10 years, Jess Phillips has read the names of women suspected of being killed by men on International Women's Day, provided by the Femicide Census. But today she read out the names for the first time from the front benches as a Home Office Minister, and reiterated that ensuring our streets and homes are safer for women is now a top government priority. 

This comes as the data shows that 1 in 5 homicides are domestic homicides and that over the last decade there were:

• 898 female victims of domestic homicides
• of these, 698 victims (78%) were killed by a partner or ex-partner
• and over 9 in 10 female homicide victims were killed by a man (92%)

These are numbers that the government has committed to change.

Following the toxic influence we have seen on and offline from misogynistic figures, Minister Phillips also pledged that the government's milestone violence against women and girls (VAWG) strategy, expected to be published in the summer, will include actions specifically addressing the root causes of abuse – including underlying behaviours held by some men and boys.

Under the Prime Minister's Plan for Change, the government has already set out a number of initiatives to tackle these appalling numbers and the scourge of abuse suffered by women and girls in this country.

Work is already under way to improve the policing and criminal justice system response, relentlessly pursue dangerous perpetrators and provide enhanced support for victims, and includes:

• a cross-government approach to tackling VAWG: to deliver transformational change and ensure efforts remain coordinated and effective, we are spearheading a cross-government approach to tackling VAWG through the Safer Streets Mission Board

• Raneem's Law: last month, domestic abuse specialists were embedded in 999 control rooms in the first five police forces under ‘Raneem's Law', to help improve the police response to domestic abuse – these specialists are advising on risk assessments, working with officers on the ground and ensuring that victims are referred to appropriate support services swiftly

• measures to tackle spiking: in November, the Prime Minister announced a raft of measures to tackle spiking including a new criminal offence for spiking and new spiking training for up to 10,000 staff in the night-time economy to ensure they have the skills to support victims and prevent incidents

• new Domestic Abuse Protection Orders: in November, we launched these orders in select police forces and courts and in the short time since they have launched, we have seen them being used to protect victims, including those experiencing coercive and controlling behaviour – we are going even further and onboarding an additional two sites over the next two months

• measures to protect stalking victims: in December, we announced a package of new measures to protect victims of stalking, including helping ensure victims have the right to know the identity of online stalkers and widening the use of Stalking Protection Orders which can ban stalkers from going within a certain distance of victims or force them to attend behaviour programmes

Today, the Home Office lit up in the colours of green, purple and white to mark International Women's Day across four estates in the UK in a symbol of how crucial this priority is for Keir Starmer's government.

For the first time, each of the 95 women's names provided by the Femicide Census were displayed in the Home Office's headquarters in London for staff to view.

Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips said:

Today, for the first time from the front benches as a Home Office minister, I have performed the heavy task of reading out the names of women suspected of being killed by a man over the last year, provided by the Femicide Census. The statistics show that a woman is killed in the UK on average every 3 days – a number that is unacceptably high.

Each had more of their life to live and was unfairly torn away from their loved ones, and each deserves to be recognised.

The government's commitment to halving violence against women and girls in a decade is not an abstract goal – it is a top priority. From embedding domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms to launching new domestic abuse protection orders, we are taking action. But the names on today's list remind us we must do more, and we must do it faster.

Julie Davey, Killed Women Trustee, said:

Each and every year too many women are murdered by violent men. That has to stop and we welcome the government's mission to halve violence against women and girls in the next decade and the action it is taking to stem this devastating tide.

The reading out of the names of killed women has become a sombre but important tradition – and we are pleased to see that duty move to the government front benches where it belongs. We know ministers are focussed on protecting the women we are here to fight for, and delivering justice for those whose loved ones have been cruelly snatched away.

But this must be just the beginning – we hope government will deliver urgent action to address hidden homicides so that the lives of all women are recognised in the future. We look forward to working with ministers as they work to deliver justice.