London, UK, 18 December 2025: As the Government today issued its new Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy, the Race Equality Foundation welcomes its recognition that VAWG is a national emergency and its commitment to halving gendered violence in a decade. New measures, including NHS-based support pathways and expanded specialist trauma-informed services, signal progress.
However, as an organisation which works directly with individuals, families and communities, we must be clear that the Strategy falls short of the bold, preventative and fully intersectional approach needed to protect all women and girls.
Violence is both gendered and racialised, shaped by structural inequalities that place Black, Asian and minoritised ethnic women and girls at greater risk. While the Strategy’s prevention pillar aspires to ‘stop violence before it starts’, it does not sufficiently address the systemic drivers of harm, including economic insecurity, the housing crisis, and structural racism.
Nor does it confront immigration policies such as No Recourse to Private Funds (NRPF), which continue to trap migrant women in abusive relationships by making safety and shelter contingent on immigration status.
We note the Strategy’s commitments to prevent online harm. While strengthened digital enforcement is welcome, the Strategy does not address the specific, disproportionately high levels of racist and misogynistic abuse faced by Black, Asian and minoritised ethnic women online. Tech companies must be held meaningfully accountable, not merely encouraged to improve voluntary controls.
Furthermore, without robust, disaggregated ethnicity data tracking access to both preventative and remedial VAWG services, the Government cannot identify, and risks obscuring, racial disparities in outcomes. Data needs to illuminate inequalities or they can not be successfully tackled and addressed.
As implementation begins, we urge the Government to:
- Put prevention at the heart of the national response
- Invest sustainably in specialist ‘by and for’ services to ensure support
- Adopt an intersectional approach that acknowledges the combined effects of racism, misogyny and economic inequality
- Hold tech platforms accountable for enabling misogyny and hate and online harm
- Embed anti-racism across all VAWG policies, systems and services
A successful “whole society approach” requires confronting institutional racism, dismantling hostile environment policies and ensuring equitable protection is a lived reality. The Race Equality Foundation stands ready to be a constructive strategic partner, bringing evidence, community insight and lived experience to support effective delivery. But we will also hold the Government to its commitment that this Strategy must protect all women and girls living in Britain.
ENDS
For media enquiries, please contact Lauren Golding at comms@racefound.org.uk
