Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ) sets out their expectations for how the strategy will approach criminal justice reform.
This Thursday (18 December), the government will announce in Parliament its long-overdue Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy. The strategy is expected to provide both an overview and key details of how they intend to deliver on their ambitious manifesto commitment of halving violence against women and girls in a decade.
CWJ was invited to join the government’s VAWG Strategy Advisory Board, alongside leading women’s sector organisations and representatives from key criminal justice, local government, and health agencies. However, despite our advisory role, we have not been able to input directly into the formation of that strategy. It is vital that CWJ and other sector organisations are fully involved in shaping and monitoring its implementation.
In September 2025, we joined with other women’s sector organisations in publishing ‘Five key tests for the VAWG strategy’ setting out our collective priorities and expectations for the strategy.
As a legal charity with a specific focus on criminal justice, CWJ sets out below the priorities that we consider critical and in need of immediate action. Any effective strategy must confront the deep-rooted structural inequalities between men and women that underpin male violence against women - including coercive control, stalking and sexual violence. Central to this is a proper understanding of the culture of misogyny which perpetuates myths, stereotypes and victim blaming in the criminal justice system.
This requires:
Tackling the criminalisation of victim-survivors of VAWG (explained in detail below)
Adequately resourcing, training and proving effective informed leadership of units specialising in sexual violence, domestic abuse and stalking and all other forms of VAWG in all criminal justice agencies including police, CPS, the judiciary and probation.
Ensuring adequate legal aid, funding and appropriate specialist training for all lawyers who defend or prosecute cases of VAWG
Introducing a system of Independent Legal Advice for women and girls who choose to report sexual violence to the police (as per the government’s manifesto commitment)
Providing effective legislative and policy reforms to tackle police perpetrators and route out misogyny and racism from policing
Providing protections for migrant survivors of VAWG so that they may report crimes safely
The strategy must apply to child sexual abuse and exploitation
The strategy must also address adult sexual exploitation and the consequences of the unjust criminalisation of adults exploited in prostitution
Ensuring effective investigations and prosecutions relating to suicides or unexplained deaths that occur in the context of domestic abuse
Tackling the criminalisation of victim-survivors of VAWG
CWJ has engaged in consultation on the government’s Tackling VAWG strategy for over a year. Throughout this process, we have consistently made clear - alongside other VAWG sector and women’s justice sector organisations - that the strategy must not repeat past failures by leaving behind victims of VAWG who are accused of offending. This new strategy must therefore be fully aligned with the government’s commitment to reduce women’s imprisonment, as supported by the Women’s Justice Board.
Crucially, the strategy must include substantive commitments to:
Implement reforms in law and practice to prevent inappropriate arrests, prosecution and convictions of victims of domestic abuse and other forms of VAWG; and
Improve access to specialist support in relation to domestic abuse and VAWG for women at risk of, or in contact with the criminal justice system.
This must include ensuring victims have effective defences available to them. Legislation has previously been introduced to make it easier for householders to rely on self-defence when they use force against an intruder, and to provide a defence for victims of modern slavery and human trafficking when they are forced to commit an offence. Similar protections are needed for victims of domestic abuse who are accused of offending.
Nearly 70% of women in prison or under community supervision are victims of domestic abuse – many were criminalised as a direct result of that abuse. The government’s ambition to halve VAWG and its goal to reduce women’s imprisonment are fundamentally connected and cannot be achieved in isolation.
Too often, criminalised victims are left unprotected when it comes to tackling VAWG. We therefore welcome the CPS’s recent VAWG strategy 2025-30, which commits to developing guidance and training to improve how prosecutors identify where a suspect is also a victim, take proper account of their experience of abuse in any decision to prosecute, and communicate effectively with the victim’s representative.
The government’s VAWG strategy must now match these commitments.
Survivors’ testimony makes clear, reforms in law and practice are desperately needed to address systemic failures at every stage of the criminal justice process to properly consider the context of abuse when victims are accused of offending. Without this, victims are too often punished when they should be protected. Black, minoritised and migrant survivors face additional barriers to justice and support, and remain over-represented in the criminal justice system.
The government must act now to ensure these reforms are embedded in the VAWG strategy - anything less will fail victims and sustain injustice.
ENDS
Notes:
CWJ’s recently published ‘Doing his job for him’ report details the experiences of seven victim/survivors of coercive control who were subject to inappropriate criminalisation.
CWJ’s series of short films includes the stories of five survivors of criminalisation (two of whom also took part in the ‘Doing his job for him’ study).