Violence against women and girls has been thrust into the national spotlight as the UK government unveiled an ambitious strategy to combat what Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has now declared a "national emergency." The sweeping plan, announced on December 13 and 14, 2025, promises to overhaul how police forces in England and Wales tackle rape, sexual offences, and domestic abuse, with the bold aim of halving such violence within the next decade.
"The criminal justice system fails women," Mahmood stated bluntly in a recent interview, reflecting on her experience in government. She highlighted that the response to victims is often a "postcode lottery," where outcomes hinge on geography rather than justice. The new strategy, she insists, will change that.
Central to the plan is a mandate that every police force in England and Wales establish specialist rape and sexual offence investigation teams by 2029. According to the BBC, more than half of all forces already have such units, but the government is determined to ensure nationwide consistency. These teams will be staffed with officers trained to understand both offender behaviour and the complex needs of victims, aiming to address cultural issues in policing that have led to victims being dismissed or mishandled in the past.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley welcomed the move, noting that the government intends to replicate the Met’s V100 programme across other forces. This initiative uses data to identify and target men who pose the highest risk to women. "We built an entirely new system focused on pursuing and prosecuting men who commit violence, and I am pleased the government is now asking all forces to have the same principle," Rowley said.
The strategy doesn’t stop at traditional policing. Nearly £2 million will be invested in covert online police teams, described by the Home Office as "crack squads," to target those harassing and abusing women and girls in digital spaces. These undercover units will use intelligence-led techniques on apps and websites, a move Mahmood described as a "pilot scheme for 18 months"—the first time the state has ventured into the online sphere specifically for violence against women and girls. She told Sky News, "We’ve never gone into the online space looking at violence against women and girls. But I think it is important that the state take some action because, you know, we’re not willing to sit back and just accept that violence against women and girls is a fact of life."
Other measures include a nationwide rollout of Domestic Abuse Protection Orders (DAPOs), which have been trialled over the past year. These orders allow courts to impose non-contact conditions, curfews, electronic tags, and exclusion zones on perpetrators—including indefinite restrictions where necessary. Breaching a DAPO can result in up to five years in prison. According to the government, the early evidence from the pilot schemes has been "very, very positive," with a significant number of arrests for breaches.
Mahmood emphasized that DAPOs "take the onus away from the woman, the victim herself, to chase her abuser all the way around different bits of the legal system in order to enforce the order and actually puts it back on the police." This shift is intended to make the protection of victims more proactive and less burdensome for those already traumatized by abuse.
The government also plans to reform human rights laws to enable the faster deportation of foreign sex offenders, prioritizing the safety of British citizens. Additionally, there are proposals to expand the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (also known as Clare’s Law), potentially allowing more information about past convictions for various forms of abuse to be shared with potential victims. The aim is to "give women greater power and control over their own safety" by providing them with vital information, as reported by Sky News.
Despite the bold promises, the strategy has drawn criticism for both its timing and its funding. The announcement comes after several delays—three this year alone—and the government has stated that no additional central funding will be provided for the new specialist teams. Police forces will need to absorb these costs from their existing budgets, raising concerns that implementation could be uneven. As noted in the BBC’s coverage, the speed at which specialist teams become operational may depend on the resources and expertise already available in each force.
Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp was quick to voice his skepticism. Calling the announcement "too little, too late," Philp told the BBC that it was "disappointing" it had taken the government a year and a half to produce the strategy, and criticized the modest funding allocation. He also pointed to systemic issues, stating that "the criminal justice system is quite slow and bureaucratic," citing changes to evidence disclosure rules after a 2017 prosecution collapse as a factor that had "slowed the whole system down." Philp further accused Labour of "shrinking from uncomfortable truths, voting against tougher sentences and presiding over falling sex-offender convictions. At every turn, Labour has failed women."
In response to questions about resources, Mahmood acknowledged that the online investigator network would begin as an 18-month pilot due to its novelty. She insisted, however, that the state "can’t just sit back and accept that violence against women and girls is a fact of life." The strategy, she said, is about "calling time" on the normalization of such violence across society.
The Labour government’s approach builds on previous policies, including the use of facial recognition technology to identify offenders, improved protections for stalking victims, making strangulation a criminal offence, and placing domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms. The broader goals are to prevent the radicalization of young men, stop abusers, and support victims—a triad that reflects Labour’s general election manifesto pledge to use "every government tool available to target perpetrators and address the root causes of abuse and violence."
Yet, as a recent report highlighted, more than a quarter of police forces in England and Wales had not implemented basic policies for investigating sexual offences. Sexually motivated crimes against women in public remain widespread, and the report criticized the limited data available on such crimes, calling for urgent action to prevent repeat offending.
Some survivors of domestic abuse have told the BBC that "the time for talking is over"—insisting that these measures must be implemented swiftly and effectively. The government, for its part, has promised that changing attitudes among boys and young men will be central to the new strategy, with a focus on both prevention and support.
As the strategy finally moves from the drawing board to reality, all eyes will be on how quickly these promises translate into real change for women and girls across England and Wales. The stakes could hardly be higher, and the nation—rightly—expects action, not just words.
