By Aneeta Prem
The CPS VAWG Strategy 2025 to 2030 sets out a five year plan to change how rape, domestic abuse, forced marriage, so called honour abuse, stalking and online harms are prosecuted.
Tonight I spoke on Channel 5 News about this strategy. It arrives at a time when violence against women and girls is being described as a national emergency and when confidence in the criminal justice system is fragile. This is not a short press release. It is a detailed programme document that can be measured, tracked and challenged.
As the founder of Freedom Charity, and as a campaigner who helped change the law on forced marriage in England and Wales, I welcome the ambition. My test is simple. Will this strategy change what happens to the next woman or girl who asks for help.
The CPS frames violence against women and girls as a structural human rights and equality issue, not just a list of individual crimes. It recognises that abuse is layered and often simultaneous. A woman may be monitored through her phone, strangled by a partner, threatened with her own images online and told she will be taken abroad to marry against her will.
The CPS VAWG Strategy 2025 to 2030 rests on two main priorities: improving casework quality and rebuilding public and victim trust.
The CPS did not invent its Violence Against Women and Girls strategy in 2025. For more than a decade it has treated VAWG as a key organisational priority, aligned with United Nations and Council of Europe standards, the End Violence Against Women movement and the wider cross government VAWG strategy.
Since 2007 the CPS has published annual VAWG crime reports that cover domestic abuse, forced marriage, so called honour based violence, FGM, child abuse, rape and sexual offences, prostitution, pornography and human trafficking. These reports track prosecutions across every strand of VAWG. The CPS VAWG Strategy 2025 to 2030 sits on top of this history and is meant to be the next step, not a first attempt.
The CPS has also issued a public statement on male victims covered by the VAWG strategy, making clear that abuse against men and boys is taken seriously and that policies must be applied fairly to all victims.
The CPS accepts that violence against women and girls has become more complex. Abuse now runs through encrypted apps, intimate images, deepfakes and online control as well as in homes, streets and workplaces. To respond, the CPS VAWG Strategy 2025 to 2030 promises to:
The CPS also acknowledges that prosecutors can be traumatised by the material they handle and commits to better staff wellbeing support for those working on rape, child sexual abuse and other VAWG cases.
The CPS states clearly that it has not always served victims well. Many women have experienced poor communication, limited explanation of decisions and have felt ignored or sidelined.
Under the trust priority, the CPS VAWG Strategy 2025 to 2030 commits to:
On paper, the CPS VAWG Strategy 2025 to 2030 recognises both legal and trust failings and offers a route to improvement. The question is whether it rises to the scale of the problem.
Any serious analysis has to set this strategy against the hard numbers.
The Office for National Statistics now publishes a combined measure that shows how many adults have experienced at least one of domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking in the last year. For the year ending March 2025, that figure was 10.6 per cent of adults, about 5.1 million people. Around 3.2 million of those were women.
That is roughly one in eight women in England and Wales in a single year.
Alongside that:
Behind every figure is a woman or girl who has been strangled, raped, controlled, threatened or humiliated. Many are children. Many never report at all.
At Freedom Charity we have examined the latest Forced Marriage Unit statistics. In 2024 there were 812 contacts about possible forced marriage or FGM. These led to 240 safeguarding cases and 572 enquiries for advice and signposting. Cases involved children as young as 15, despite the law now banning all marriage under 18.
The figures include links to countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, India, Somalia and Nigeria, as well as cases that are entirely domestic. They show that forced marriage and what I call “dishonour” abuse are live issues that run through families, communities and schools today.
While women and girls are disproportionately targeted, men and boys also experience domestic abuse, sexual offences and stalking. The CPS VAWG framework recognises this and the Service has issued a public statement on male victims, committing to give them equal access to protection and justice and to challenge gender stereotypes that stop men reporting.
Recognising violence against women and girls as a gendered pattern of harm does not mean neglecting male victims. It means understanding that gender, power and inequality shape how abuse is used, reported and responded to.
The National Audit Office has already found that earlier government strategies on violence against women and girls and domestic abuse did not reliably improve outcomes or make women and girls safer in practice. At the same time, the Crown Court backlog has reached record levels. Tens of thousands of serious cases, including rape and violent offences, are waiting to be heard. Some victims are waiting years for a trial date.
This is the reality into which the CPS VAWG Strategy 2025 to 2030 now arrives.
There are important strengths in this plan that show the CPS has listened to survivors, campaigners and frontline specialists.
The strategy frames violence against women and girls as discrimination and a fundamental human rights problem, not simply a list of offences. That matters. It recognises that VAWG is rooted in power, control and inequality and that tackling it requires structural change, not just individual prosecutions.
The CPS recognises that domestic abuse, sexual violence, so called honour abuse, stalking and tech facilitated offending often sit in the same case. For years, criminal justice processes have carved these into isolated charges that hide the full picture.
The CPS VAWG Strategy 2025 to 2030 promises to show the whole pattern to the court: the controlling behaviour, the threats, the strangulation, the digital surveillance and the forced marriage plan. That is much closer to what survivors describe.
Training and clear action plans on honour based abuse, forced marriage, FGM and stalking are overdue. These offences are still misunderstood and in some areas minimised or dismissed. A national multi agency conference, if it brings in the right experts and survivor led organisations, can help set a higher standard.
Moving away from victim focused credibility tests and towards suspect centric, trauma informed prosecutions is vital. For too long, the questions have been “Why did she go back” or “Why did she send that message”.
A trauma informed approach asks better questions. What does his pattern of behaviour show over time. How does trauma affect memory and apparent inconsistency. How can digital, medical and third party evidence support the survivor’s account.
The CPS does not pretend that everything has been fine. It accepts that victims have often felt kept in the dark. Commitments on direct communication, Victim Service Standards and better use of Victim Liaison Officers are therefore important. For many women, simply being kept informed and treated with respect transforms their experience of the justice system.
I welcome the CPS strategy. But after decades working in schools, courts and communities, I cannot ignore the gaps.
Casework quality and communication can improve, but if women are still waiting two, three or four years for a rape trial, justice will continue to fail them. The Crown Court backlog, shortages of judges and barristers, crumbling court buildings and limited special measures are not within CPS control, yet they shape every VAWG case.
The strategy acknowledges partnership working, but says little directly about the reality of delay and the trauma it causes.
Better flagging, dashboards and national scrutiny panels are helpful, but we have already seen many years of glossy charts that did not translate into safer lives.
The test will be whether scrutiny panels and external groups genuinely listen to survivors, grassroots black and minoritised women’s organisations, specialist forced marriage and “dishonour” abuse charities, deaf and disabled women’s organisations and LGBT plus services, rather than relying on the same national voices while others are kept at the margins.
The CPS has promised to strengthen its understanding of intersectionality. That is essential because violence does not look the same for:
Intersectionality cannot be a single slide in a training pack. It has to drive changes in risk assessment, charging decisions and courtroom practice.
New training and action plans on honour based abuse, forced marriage and FGM are welcome. The danger is that these crimes continue to be treated as niche cultural issues instead of serious child abuse, modern slavery and violence.
Language matters. That is why I talk about “dishonour” abuse. There is nothing honourable about controlling, humiliating or forcing a girl into marriage. The CPS has to ensure that its prosecutors fully understand that and charge accordingly.
For the woman who has just been strangled, raped, threatened with intimate images or told she will be taken abroad and married off, everything depends on what happens when she first asks for help.
Does the police officer understand forced marriage and “dishonour” abuse. Does the prosecutor know how to build a case when a victim is terrified to give evidence against her own family. Does anyone explain her rights in plain language she understands.
Until those answers improve at the frontline, national strategies will feel distant.
For the CPS VAWG Strategy 2025 to 2030 to matter, several things must now follow.
The CPS should publish regular, accessible updates against each commitment in the strategy, including:
Data is not the whole story, but it is one way to hold the system to account.
Independent expertise on forced marriage, FGM, trafficking, child abuse, sexual violence and “dishonour” abuse must sit at the heart of implementation, not on the sidelines.
That means genuine partnership with black and minoritised women’s organisations, deaf and disabled women’s organisations, LGBT plus services, survivor led networks and frontline charities such as Freedom Charity that have changed the law and rescued girls in real time.
Many of these organisations are underfunded and overstretched. If they are not supported, the strategy will rest on a hollow foundation.
The CPS cannot deliver this alone. If trials remain delayed, if victims arrive at court without an advocate, if there is no safe housing or financial stability, even the best prosecution strategy will not keep women safe.
This means treating the court backlog as an emergency, protecting and expanding legal aid in domestic abuse and family cases, investing in independent advocates and fixing risk assessment tools that repeatedly miss high risk cases.
The document talks about culture, self reflection and learning. That must be real.
Prosecutors and police officers need leadership and supervision that allows them to challenge myths about perfect victims, prejudice about mental health, alcohol use or clothing, and stereotypes about culture and community. Without that, bias and disbelief will continue to undermine cases.
For me, this strategy is not abstract.
Through Freedom Charity I have spent years working with children and young people at risk of forced marriage and other forms of “dishonour” abuse. My work, alongside many others, helped secure the criminalisation of forced marriage and more recent protections for children under 18.
I have held girls hands on planes as they were brought back from the brink of forced marriages. I have spoken to young people who feared being taken overseas and never seeing their friends again. I have listened to parents whose daughters were murdered after the system missed warning signs. I have worked with survivors of “dishonour” abuse, FGM, domestic abuse and sexual violence who speak out at enormous personal risk.
When the CPS says it will bring more perpetrators to justice and support victims better, I want that to be true not only in London but in every town, every rural area and every community where violence is still hidden behind front doors and the language of family honour.
The CPS VAWG Strategy 2025 to 2030 is an opportunity. It contains serious proposals and clear actions. It is built on years of research, inspection findings and campaigning by survivors and charities.
But opportunity is not the same as safety.
Women and girls are still paying with their bodies, their futures and, too often, their lives. This strategy must not become another document that looks impressive and then gathers dust. It has to change what happens tomorrow to the next woman who calls for help.
The Gambia’s Supreme Court is hearing a case that could weaken the ban on FGM. This clear explainer shows why it matters for child protection worldwide.
When families watch, follow and report: the hidden stalking dynamic behind forced marriage and dishonour abuse
How AI nudification is turning everyday photos into a new form of sexual abuse against children Two strong alternatives, depending on outlet tone: How AI nudification apps are normalising sexual abuse and putting children at risk
Capacity, Consent and Dishonour Abuse: Why “no capacity means no consent” is the safeguard the world is still failing to apply
Female genital mutilation in the UK: what we don’t say out loud. Female genital mutilation is not “a problem elsewhere”. It is child abuse happening in the UK and worldwide, and girls need us to name it.
Balochistan Child Marriages Restraint Act 2025 Provincial law: minimum marriage age 18. Cognisable, non-bailable, non-compoundable offences. Forced marriage is child abuse. The shame lies with the perpetrator, not the child.