White Ribbon UK gives evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee

This week, Leyla Buran (Campaigns and Policy Manager at White Ribbon UK) gave evidence at the Home Affairs Select Committee on funding to tackle violence against women and girls. Leyla emphasised the urgent need to invest in primary prevention, aimed at preventing men's violence against women and girls before it causes any harm.

Video credit: Parliament Live TV

Leyla also highlighted the critical gap in how we currently measure progress. At present, crime data that reflects the aftermath of violence and the failure to prevent it. Leyla stressed that without tracking men's and boys' attitudes, as well as women and girls' everyday experiences, through regular national attitude surveys, we will continue to lack a true understanding of the scale and nature of the issue. More importantly, we will be unable to measure whether our efforts are effectively preventing these harmful attitudes from escalating into violence. 

 Leyla said: "We are not going to halve violence against women and girls in 10, or even 20 years, without serious investment in prevention."

We urge the Government to reflect the importance of primary prevention and invest in it, to avoid anyone having to experience harm in the first place, within the upcoming Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy. 

You can watch yesterday's full session of the Home Affairs Select Committee here: Parliamentlive.tv - Home Affairs Committee