Safeguarding Minister Satvir Kaur has said victims of violence against women and girls have waited too long as the government speeds up its programme to tackle the issue. Writing for The Mirror, she said the scale of the challenge is terrifying and must be met with the same level of ambition.
Kaur, who is also Minister for Violence against Women and Girls, said she often thinks about the world her one-year-old daughter will grow up in. She said she wants her daughter to be free to walk home at night without checking over her shoulder, free to say no without fearing what might happen next, and free to go to work without being harassed.
Scale of the problem
Around 900,000 people over the age of 16 experienced sexual assault or attempted assault in the year ending March 2025. Around 3.8 million experienced domestic abuse and 1.4 million experienced stalking. Kaur said these are not just statistics but represent mothers, daughters, friends and colleagues carrying pain and living in dread.
She said the government will not stand for it, and that the enormous scale of the challenge must be met with the same level of ambition.
Specialist teams brought forward
The Prime Minister will announce that the deadline for every police force in England and Wales to have a specialist rape and sexual offence team is being brought forward. These teams will now be in place in every community by December 2027, a year and a half earlier than planned.
The teams will be dedicated to investigating some of the worst crimes imaginable. Their officers will have specialist skills and knowledge, support victims and survivors with trauma-informed care, and build stronger cases to put dangerous offenders behind bars.
Protection order teams and investment
The government is investing £13.3 million in new Violence Against Women and Girls Protection Order Teams, where up to 10 police forces will pioneer tougher ways to enforce court orders placed on perpetrators. The teams will try out new ways to make sure protection orders are properly enforced while helping to monitor perpetrators to prevent further harm.
These orders cover a range of offences including domestic abuse, stalking, forced marriage and sexual offences. They can ban contact with the victim, force offenders to wear an electronic tag or attend programmes to change their behaviour. If someone under an order breaks the rules, they could face up to five years in prison.
These measures are in addition to the government's £53 million investment to expand the Drive Project across England and Wales. This scheme targets high-risk, serial domestic abusers to keep victims safe. Ten new areas are now benefiting from this approach where dedicated workers challenge their behaviour, with the police, local partners, and other services working together to protect survivors.
All of this is underpinned by a wave of measures and part of the government's £1 billion mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. Kaur said victims and survivors remain at the heart of government action, and told them directly: "You deserve to be believed. You deserve to feel supported. And you deserve policing and protection that actually works." She said the government will not stop until this is achieved.
