Jess Phillips on tackling violence against women and girls: ‘I’ve tried to talk to my children about strangulation – it’s not normal sexual behaviour’
There have been three strategies by three successive governments to tackle violence against women and girls (VAWG) since 2010, and one refresh.
What has been the result of these endeavours? Police chiefs in 2024 described the scale of violence against women and girls as “a national emergency” as over one million incidents were reported in 2022/3, accounting for 20% of all police recorded crime.
At least one in every 12 women will be a victim, but the number is probably higher than that, as this sort of violence is typically underreported.
You will likely know a woman who is the victim of abuse. When you look at the situation, and think of all the mums, sisters, daughters, aunts and friends, it makes you want to put your head in your hands: strategy after strategy, plan after plan, women and girls and the victims of abuse are being let down.
Today, the government will launch a new strategy, drawn up by Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, that will attempt to finally put this right.
Jess Phillips
The promise is to halve violence against women and girls in a decade after what has been, as Phillips puts it, “a catalogue of failures”.
That catalogue of failures is long.
Successive governments had “failed to deliver a genuinely whole-of-government approach”, concluded the National Audit Office (NAO) at the beginning of this year, as it detailed a string of shortcomings when it came to VAWG plans: partial implementation; failure to learn from past strategies; no oversight of government funding being used for VAWG; a focus on victim support rather than prevention; and a lack of buy-in from government departments.
Phillips, who spent her career campaigning for victims of domestic violence before becoming an MP, wants to break that chain with her new plan, which has three pillars: prevention, with a focus on boys and young men to challenge misogyny and promote healthy relationships; stopping abusers, with more efforts and power for police forces to track down abusers; and more victim support.
It is a strategy that has been delayed three times. It was first expected in the spring, then the summer, to autumn, before eventually landing 18 months into a Labour government.
The delays have drawn criticism from campaigners, frustrated they “put more lives at risk”.
Read more:
Schools will teach about healthy relationships to tackle misogyny
Beth Rigby and Jess Phillips
‘I’m going to be getting up in everybody’s business’
When I spoke to Phillips about those delays on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast, she made no apology for that: “I could have hit the deadline and missed the point.”
“I’m not really interested in a headline that says, ‘minister delivers a strategy one time’,” she said, explaining she’d had to “bang heads together” in different government departments to get buy-in and coordination (something the NAO said previous strategies lacked).
Phillips said the strategy contains a written action plan with time frames in it, as she insists the target to halve VAWG can be hit within the decade, despite the delay. There will be an inter-ministerial VAWG group to improve cross-government working.
She said: “What we have been doing is going into other government departments and building up relationships with their teams. We have VAWG-specific staff in Number 10 now. That’s never existed before. And we have been in the Department of Health. We have been in the Department of Transport. The real answer is I’m going to be getting up in everybody’s business. That’s the reason it has taken so long.”
‘Women deserve to feel safer’
Strategy also focuses on men and boys
Speaking to Phillips, you cannot doubt her determination to make it a reality, and much of this strategy focuses on men and boys as well as women and girls, with a big focus on prevention and stopping abuse.
“I would be failing, we would be failing, if we didn’t try to prevent people who were already perpetrating – and stopping people becoming perpetrators in the first place,” she said.
That involves the classroom and more conversations and bringing in men and boys to make them feel they are part of this.
Sarah Everard was murdered in 2021. Pic: PA
Risk of ‘doubling’ VAWG
When I point out to Phillips that one in four 18 to 29-year-olds had favourable views towards Andrew Tate, she was quick to make the point that three out of four don’t.
“If we don’t do something about the situation with what young people, both victims and perpetrators, are exposed to, then not only would we not halve [VAWG in a decade], but I would also be talking about the risk of doubling it,” she said.
Andrew Tate is a popular among some young men. Pic: ENEX
‘I have spoken to my children in really explicit terms’
What struck me in our conversation, and as a mum of two teenagers myself, is the role Phillips said we all need to take in talking to our children about what they are being exposed to online.
Phillips points out that the age profile of perpetrators is dropping as younger people become more exposed to violent pornography.
One of the elements in the strategy is to ban strangulation in porn. Another is to have mandatory guidance in secondary schools to offer lessons on culture, increasing awareness of artificial intelligence and how pornography links to misogyny.
Zara Aleena was sexually assaulted and murdered as she walked home in 2022. Pic: PA
Phillips, who has two sons, said it’s incumbent on all of us to have those conversations with our kids about what is normal sexual behaviour and what is not.
“I have spoken to my children in really explicit terms about the things that I think they might be seeing and think as standardised in sexual practice,” she told me. “I have tried to talk to them about things like strangulation. I have said it is totally and utterly not like normal sexual behaviour because I know what they might be exposed to.”
Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry were murdered in 2020. Pics: Metropolitan Police
Criticism over handling of grooming gangs
But as a campaigner around domestic violence and now a minister charged with halving VAWG, Phillips has also faced criticism over the government’s handling of grooming gangs.
Fiona Goddard, who was abused by an organised street gang in Bradford, quit her role on the victims panel in the autumn and called for the resignation of the minister over her handling of the inquiry setup, which Phillips admitted she found personally difficult.
Fiona Goddard. Pic: PA
She said: “I’m not going to lie and pretend that it’s nice when the thing that you care the most about in the world is the thing you are criticised for. And actually, when Fiona Goddard does that, I just take it. Fiona Goddard has every right to criticise me. When other people who never have done a bar’s work in this area, but want to use that to politically criticise, I think that’s cynical.
“One of the things that I think has been hardest about this process is that I am held to a different standard to literally everybody else. Now of course I should be held to a different standard because let’s be honest, Beth, I’m better than most people who’ve had my job before because of my experience.”
‘The strategy isn’t the end, it’s the beginning’
Phillips, the victim herself of a torrent of online abuse from Elon Musk over grooming gangs earlier this year, before the latest furore over the setting up of the national inquiry, now has police protection.
I wonder whether the launch of the strategy might be the moment Phillips steps back, but she’s having none of it.
“The strategy isn’t the end, it’s the beginning. There’s a lot of work to do. I would be lying if I didn’t say it didn’t have a mental toll on me, but I am not the only person doing this work, it isn’t all on me… the upside is better, it’s worth it,” she said.
The strategy Phillips is spearheading is the fourth in 15 years. After a series of false starts, Phillips insisted this time it will be different. For the sake of our women and our girls, I hope she is right.
