VAWG Strategy 2025

VAWG Strategy 2025: Freedom Charity’s reality test on prevention, policing and Dishonour Abuse

The VAWG Strategy 2025 sets a bold goal: to halve violence against women and girls within a decade. That ambition matters. Yet a strategy only protects women and girls when it changes what happens at the first disclosure, the first call, and the first risk decision.

Freedom Charity exists because the first response still fails too many girls. We built prevention that works in schools, and safeguarding that moves fast when fear walks through the door.

The Government often uses the phrase “honour based abuse”. Freedom Charity does not. We use Dishonour Abuse because perpetrators use “honour” to justify harm and silence victims. By contrast, Dishonour Abuse names the behaviour plainly and keeps the focus on risk, duty and action.

In this article, I explain what the VAWG Strategy 2025 promises. Then I show, factually and calmly, where Freedom Charity has already built the delivery model that Government now describes.

Key takeaways

Freedom Charity home page 
 Dishonour Abuse framework and Dishonour Index

What the VAWG Strategy 2025 aims to do

The VAWG Strategy 2025 sets out three aims:

  1. Prevent violence and intervene earlier

  2. Pursue perpetrators and improve justice outcomes

  3. Support victims and survivors, with safer routes to help and recovery

That framework makes sense. However, the Strategy will fail if the first response practice stays weak or inconsistent across policing, schools and health services.

Outbound link to add: Official Government page for the VAWG Strategy (insert link)
Outbound link to add: EVAW campaign page you referenced (insert link)

What the VAWG Strategy 2025 means for forced marriage and FGM

Forced marriage and FGM are not side issues. They create high-risk safeguarding emergencies. In many cases, families enforce control through surveillance, threats and rapid escalation.

For that reason, the Strategy must drive early action in schools, the NHS and policing. If professionals delay, victims can disappear from view. If systems hesitate, perpetrators gain time.

Prevention and early intervention

Freedom built school prevention years before the VAWG Strategy 2025

The VAWG Strategy 2025 highlights prevention and education. It also speaks about men and boys. That focus is welcome.

Even so, Freedom Charity has built prevention into schools for years. We did not wait for a national strategy to discover early intervention.

Your timeline records a clear prevention spine:

As a result, Freedom’s prevention model already matches the Strategy’s first pillar. It puts clear language into schools. It equips staff. It also gives children safer ways to recognise risk.

 Not In My Name 
But It’s Not Fair 
Cut Flowers 
PSHE resources 

Prevention with boys

Freedom already does the work the Strategy now describes

The VAWG Strategy 2025 places more emphasis on men and boys. That is sensible.

Freedom has long worked on the same principle: if you want fewer perpetrators tomorrow, you start with what boys learn today. Not In My Name sits in that space. It speaks directly to boys and challenges harmful norms early.

Moreover, prevention only works when it is repeated over time. One assembly does not shift behaviour. Consistent education does.

Pursuing perpetrators

The VAWG Strategy 2025 will succeed only if policing improves at first contact

The Strategy promises stronger justice outcomes. Yet victims meet the system through everyday decisions.

Police, schools and health services must act with clarity, speed and confidence. Therefore, the Strategy must deliver minimum standards everywhere, not just in pockets of good practice.

Here are five practical standards that Government must make real:

  1. Record risk accurately from the start.
    Log coercive control, stalking, threats and patterns properly.

  2. Investigate with evidence, fast.
    Move quickly on digital and third-party evidence.

  3. Enforce breaches every time.
    Treat breach as a safety issue, not a nuisance.

  4. Read the pattern, not the incident.
    Look for escalation, not isolated events.

  5. Understand family and networked control.
    Recognise that forced marriage and FGM risk can involve groups and wider pressure.

A short case pattern, anonymised

A teenager tells a teacher she fears an upcoming “family trip”. She says someone checks her phone at home. She begs the school not to call her parents.

If professionals describe that as “family conflict”, they erase urgency. If police record it as a domestic concern, they lose the safeguarding window. Then the child can vanish from school.

This is why the first response matters more than the launch.

Freedom pushed the state at key decision points

Freedom’s timeline records sustained pressure and high-level engagement at moments when the state had to decide whether to act:

So, when the Government now describes “pursuing perpetrators”, it describes work Freedom has already had to drive into the public agenda.

Support for victims and survivors

Support must work when a victim cannot speak freely

The VAWG Strategy 2025 talks about support in the community. That matters.

However, many victims cannot safely call a helpline. Some cannot keep leaflets. Some face surveillance at home. Some are children. For that reason, services must offer discreet routes to help.

Freedom’s timeline records two practical delivery steps:

These are not abstract commitments. They show how access works under pressure.

Internal link to add: Freedom helpline (insert link)
Internal link to add: Freedom app (insert link)

Why Freedom uses Dishonour Abuse

Language shapes decisions, so it shapes safety

Freedom Charity does not use “honour-based abuse”. We use Dishonour Abuse.

Perpetrators use “honour” to claim legitimacy. Professionals can absorb that framing without meaning to. Consequently, the system can hesitate at the moment it should act.

Dishonour Abuse removes that cover story. It keeps the focus on behaviour, risk, and duty. It also helps professionals record cases accurately and escalate safeguarding quickly.

Freedom Charity: what we have already delivered

A dated summary that maps to the VAWG Strategy 2025

Five delivery tests for Government

What the public should see if the Strategy is working

  1. A minimum national standard for first response across policing and safeguarding

  2. Clear practice for family and networked abuse, including forced marriage and FGM risk

  3. Accurate recording and risk classification, consistently

  4. Swift enforcement when perpetrators breach protective measures

  5. Funded, sustained prevention in schools, including work with boys

The strategy becomes a legacy only when the first response changes

The VAWG Strategy 2025 sets an ambition that deserves to succeed. Still, ambition alone will not cut harm.

Instead, the country needs a consistent first response. It needs fast safeguarding in schools and health services. It needs policing that records risk correctly and acts on breaches. It also needs language that does not soften violence or hide perpetrators behind “honour”.

Freedom Charity’s record shows what delivery looks like. The government now needs to scale what already works and fund it as national infrastructure.