The government’s commitment to halve violence against women and girls within a decade is necessary and long overdue. The measures outlined in Freedom from Violence and Abuse are welcome, particularly the acknowledgement that there is a need for safety in ‘every corner of public life’. The ambition to realise a ‘whole of society approach’, however, demands systemic transformation – what’s missing here matters.
The strategy treats violence against women and girls as a criminal justice problem requiring better responses, not as a human rights violation rooted in women’s structural subjugation. It acknowledges symptoms while leaving the systems producing them intact. The strategy fails to prioritise the voices of specialist ‘by and for’ organisations to address the specific harms experienced by Black and minoritised women and girls, nor does it go nearly far enough to protect migrant and asylum-seeking women, offering little to no guarantee of their safety. After years of delay – during which services have operated in commissioning limbo, contracts have ended, and specialist staff have been made redundant – it fails to address the funding crisis that has gutted the specialist women’s sector.
Liz Mack, CEO of Advance said:
“As a member of the Partnership Delivery Group under the Women’s Justice Board, we see the explicit inclusion of criminalised women as essential, not progressive. We have known for decades what causes women’s criminalisation. The question isn’t whether we understand the problem – it’s whether we’re prepared to disrupt and imagine properly resourced solutions for the systems perpetuating it. Specialist Domestic Abuse Diversion Advocates in custody suites aren’t an innovation to pilot – they’re urgent necessity. Every day without this provision, women arrested for domestic abuse-related offences are misidentified, re-traumatised, and pushed deeper into cycles the strategy claims to disrupt. Perpetrators will continue weaponising criminal justice processes until we fundamentally restructure our response. Half measures won’t halve violence.”
Dali Kaur, Advance Director of Services for Young Women and Girls and Criminal Justice said:
“Girls and young women have carried responsibility for their own safety while systems fail to hold perpetrators accountable for too long. This isn’t new information – it’s decades of lived experience finally acknowledged in policy. Consent education and helplines matter but prevention requires sustained, specialist, age and gender-specific infrastructure – not piecemeal initiatives vulnerable to the next funding cycle. Programmes like Maia and our Bloom Hub demonstrate what’s possible when we invest in building confidence, identity and safe relationships. The strategy must match this ambition with commensurate, secure funding. Otherwise we’re simply documenting harm more comprehensively while failing to prevent it.”
Amrita B, Head of Domestic Abuse Services at Advance said:
“Our 27 years of embedding specialists in health, criminal justice and statutory settings have proven what works. Independent Domestic Abuse Advocates in maternity wards, sexual health clinics and A&E departments save lives. Criminal justice IDVAs and specialist domestic abuse courts improve outcomes. Recognising the need for cross-government response while maintaining precarious commissioning arrangements is a contradiction that costs lives. The strategy commits to ‘radically change the commissioning landscape’ – we’ll measure success by whether specialist provision becomes essential infrastructure or remains charitable goodwill. Co-location and multi-agency models must be mandated and properly resourced, not piloted in pockets while women elsewhere go unsupported.”
What happens next: We will hold this strategy to the standard it sets for itself. Halving violence against women and girls in a decade requires systemic transformation, not system management. We’re prepared to prioritise survivor-centred responses and demand systemic change. The women we work with deserve nothing less.
Read Policy Response
Media enquiries
For more information, please contact Tracie Couper, Press Officer at Advance, at tracie.c@advancecharity.org.uk or on 0743 2700 287.
About Advance
- Advance’s vision is a world in which women and children lead safe, just and equal lives so that they can flourish and actively contribute to society. The charity works with women who experience domestic abuse to be safe and take control of their lives, and women who have committed crime or are at risk of offending to break the cycle.
- As well as providing direct support, Advance works with statutory services, government agencies and other women’s charities to ensure a holistic approach to the issues these women face.
- Women must be referred to Advance, via statutory services or the charity’s self-referral scheme. For more information about who Advance is able to support, please visit Get help.
- For facts and statistics about domestic abuse and women in the criminal justice system, as well as Advance’s work, please visit Our impact.
