|
- Landmark summit brings together political leaders, senior officials, experts and advocates from across the globe to share bold and innovative solutions to make our communities safer for women and girls
- Cities across the world – including Paris, Tokyo, Bogota, Melbourne, and Barcelona - set to sign up to a new Mayoral Declaration to tackle violence against women and girls
- Sadiq will outline how London is leading the way with record £233 million investment to tackle violence against women and girls and its root causes
- The international summit comes as figures show a woman is killed every three days by a man in the UK and every 10 minutes globally.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is convening London’s first ever international summit today to tackle Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), bringing together city leaders and experts from across the globe to share bold solutions to make our communities safer for women and girls.
The City Hall summit will host CHANGE – a global network of 17 cities1 spanning six continents - with the aim of strengthening global partnerships to help tackle violence against women and girls across the world. Representatives from the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire will also attend the landmark summit.
City leaders – including those from Paris, Bogota, Tokyo, Melbourne and Barcelona – will sign up to a new Mayoral Declaration Against Violence Against Women and Girls today to help tackle the root causes of gender-based violence and create an international movement that can work together to combat this issue globally.
In a keynote speech, the Mayor will outline how London is leading the way with a record-breaking £233 million investment to tackle violence against women and girls and its root causes. This includes action to support the police to target the worst perpetrators of VAWG and ensuring the behaviour of men and boys is the focus of change through innovative enforcement programmes like GPS tagging, education in London’s primary and secondary schools and award-winning public awareness campaigns that call out misogyny in all its forms. All of these schemes put the onus on men to take responsibility and change.
Stark figures show that a woman is killed every three days by a man in the UK and every 10 minutes globally. Addressing the summit, the Mayor will issue a call to action against the global epidemic of horrific violence that women and girls experience at the hands of men. He will also call on CHANGE – a global network of cities - to help create safer spaces for women and girls, to learn from one another and to “be relentless in our pursuit of justice.”
City Hall is working closely with the Met Police to adopt an intelligence-led, data-driven approach to identify and target the most predatory men and take them off our streets. 2 Since it started in July 2023, the Met’s V100 programme has resulted in action being taken against 67 per cent of the most dangerous offenders, with 163 arrests and 116 convictions. It has proved a major success and has the potential to be rolled out by other police forces around the country.
As well as catching perpetrators, the Mayor set out London’s public health approach to supporting women and girls impacted by violence. This includes:
- Ensuring that vital services can keep their doors open.
- Funding specialist support for victims from minority groups.
- Commissioning over £54m worth of new support across London through the Domestic Abuse and Safe Accommodation programme, which has supported more than 23,500 victims/survivors since 2021. This scheme has worked to provide refuge to women increasingly forced to choose between staying in an abusive situation or face financial hardship during the cost-of living crisis.
- Launching a scheme to provide free legal advice and created a Cost-of-Living Fund to ensure that no woman is put in a position where they can’t afford their safety.
- Working closely with partners to get over 2,000 venues across London – including gyms, bars, pubs and football clubs – to sign up to the Women’s Night Safety Charter and pledge to protect women on their premises.
- Focusing not just on changing policies, but on transforming our culture, recognising that violence starts with attitudes and men must take accountability and change.
- Tackling misogyny in schools by developing toolkits for teachers to nurture healthy attitudes in young Londoners.3
- Investing in targeted early intervention work in primary and secondary schools through London's Violence Reduction Unit. This is helping children and young people to better understand healthy relationships4 and has resulted in 21,000 young people - both boys and girls - taking part in art and drama-based sessions on relationships and positive role models. More than 4,800 school staff have also been upskilled.
- Delivering the award-winning public awareness ‘Have a Word’ and ‘Maaate’ campaigns to encourage men to step up and call out misogynistic behaviour among their friends.5
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: "There is a global epidemic of violence against women and girls. It's appalling that a woman is killed by a man every three days in the UK and every 10 minutes globally. It breaks my heart that bright, brilliant Londoners - like Zara Aleena, Bibaa Henry, Nicole Smallman, Sabina Nessa, Sarah Everard and many others around the world - will never get to live out their futures and realise their dreams.
"It's simply not right that in 2025, women and girls across the globe still live in fear, in their homes and on our streets. As Mayor, I've made tackling violence against women and girls a top priority, with record investment from City Hall and tough action to catch the perpetrators. But there's much more to do. That's why we helped to establish CHANGE - a global network of cities working together on this vital issue.
“I'm pleased to be hosting London's first ever international summit on tackling violence against women in girls. We have representatives and experts from around the world coming together - from Bogota to Barcelona, Nairobi to Paris. Our cities may be different and have their own manifestations of this crisis, but our fundamental challenge is the same and there is so much we can learn from one another. My message to other city leaders is that we must turn our anger into action. We must be relentless in our pursuit of justice. And we must keep going until every woman, and every girl, in every city around the world, is safe.”
Hélène Bidard, Deputy Mayor of Paris, said: “The City of Paris has a long-standing commitment to the fight against violence against women, for equality between women and men and for the rights of gender minorities. The City of Paris is therefore delighted to be taking part in the CHANGE network's first international summit devoted to combating violence against women and girls on 29 and 30 April in London, as this marks Paris' membership of the network. I am convinced that cooperation between cities, since they are as close as possible to the realities of people's lives, is essential to improving public policies, public services and institutional responses in order to put an end to violence against women and gender inequality.
“The CHANGE network is the laboratory we need to advance gender equality in all areas of society by sharing the experience of each city's public policies implemented locally. With the CHANGE Cities Declaration, cities commit to working together to tackle the root causes of violence against women and gender-based violence, and to make cities safe and accessible for all those who live and work in them.”
Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Kaya Comer-Schwartz, said: “I am incredibly proud that London is one of the founding members of this brilliant network. Changes across the world are creating growing challenges for women in the workforce, in healthcare, in education, and in their daily lives. Today cities from across the world have signed up to a declaration to tackle gendered violence - at home, online, in the workplace and in our streets. By sharing what works in our cities we can lead the way in innovative practices and work together to drive meaningful progress.
“I have been so moved by the dedication of those gathered here today; to see the way we are working to create change across the world. This fight to tackle VAWG is all of ours, solidarity and showing up for each other is central to this international movement build a safer city and world for everyone.”
James Njoroge Muchiri, Deputy Governor of Nairobi City, said: “It is an honour to attend the international VAWG summit in London today, exactly one year since Governor Sakaja Johnson accepted the invitation for Nairobi City to join the City Hub and Network for Gender Equality (CHANGE). This platform is pivotal to building sustainable communities and relationships. The network has provided Nairobi with an opportunity and platform to work with other like-minded cities with a common goal of supporting the social, mental and emotional health and wellness of women and girls and their safety.
“Sadly gender-based violence is one of the most common forms of violence in the world and Kenya and Nairobi are no exceptions. Today’s Summit has given us the platform to share knowledge and strengthen international partnership working towards advancing gender equity in our respective cities.”
Met Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said: “The men who perpetrate this violence often move from one victim to the next using fear and intimidation in order to hide their crimes. It’s our duty to deploy every tool at our disposal to stop that cycle of abuse.
“This includes our pioneering V100 programme which has used a data-led approach to put more than 100 of London’s most dangerous predators behind bars. Combining the latest in data analytics with other advances in technology, such as Live Facial Recognition, we can take real steps to make women and girls safer both in London and across the globe.
“As well as this we have an additional 565 officers and staff in public protection roles enhancing our domestic abuse, rape and sexual offence investigation team to enable a better service for victims. We have already seen an 18% reduction in the volume of cases ending due to victim withdrawal and, in the past year, we have charged 530 more people with rape or sexual offences.
“The prevalence of violence against women and girls across society is shocking and policing cannot tackle the issue alone. It requires a whole societal shift, including prevention, education and protection – as well as enforcement.”
Leslie Crosdale, Co-Executive Director, City Hub and Network for Gender Equity (CHANGE): “Everyone should have the freedom to access essential services, participate fully in civic life, and move safely through their communities. Yet across the world, gender-based violence continues to rob women, girls, and gender non-binary individuals of these fundamental rights. We are proud to collaborate with MOPAC and the Greater London Authority to unite cities across five continents in a shared commitment to end violence against women and girls.
“This violence is rooted in systemic inequalities—and local leaders are uniquely positioned to respond to this. By exchanging knowledge, strategies, and best practices during summits like these, cities can create safer, more inclusive spaces and deliver solutions that honor the full diversity of race, religion, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression. I hope that through these collaborations, we can make gender-focused leadership the norm around the world and achieve gender equality in our generation.”
Maxine Pritchard MBE, Head Vulnerable Customer Standards HSBC UK: "Collaboration is key to making the world a safer place for women and girls, and we welcome the opportunity to share with VAWG how we raised awareness of the scale and impact of financial abuse as part of HSBC UK’s national campaign.
"All providers in the finance industry and beyond have a role in tackling this issue. By working together we can help ensure that no one is forced into financial hardship due to economic abuse – giving victim-survivors the support they need to regain control of their finances and rebuild their lives.”
|
