Violence in opposition to ladies and women on British railways has risen by greater than 50% over two years, in line with official figures.
The variety of crimes in opposition to ladies and women rose from 7,561 in 2021 to 11,357 in 2023, and the variety of sexual offences rose 10% from 2,235 to 2,475, in line with a survey commissioned by British Transport Police. The survey, first reported in the Occasions, additionally discovered the variety of sexual harassment reviews doubled to 1,908, over the two-year interval.
“I believe it’s only a reminder of the truth that we’ve bought this difficulty of violence in opposition to ladies and women that isn’t going away and if something is getting worse,” stated Anna Birley, a co-founder of Reclaim These Streets, which organised the London vigil for Sarah Everard, 33, who was killed by the police officer Wayne Couzens in 2021.
“I wish to be clear I believe there may be additionally a rise in VAWG [violence against women and girls]. I don’t suppose it’s merely a case of elevated reporting,” Birley advised BBC Radio 4’s As we speak programme, including that reported crimes throughout completely different police networks, there had been a rise in VAWG in each police space, “not simply British transport”.
A British Transport Police (BTP) survey launched final yr revealed greater than a 3rd of all ladies commuting by rail have been more likely to be assaulted – predominately throughout rush hour, in line with figures – and confirmed 51% of feminine victims reported that different rail passengers intervened to attempt to assist.
The figures come because the Guardian revealed the identities of fifty ladies allegedly killed by the hands of males to date in 2024 as a part of a year-long venture documenting violence in opposition to ladies.
Ministers within the new Labour authorities have already pledged to halve violence in opposition to ladies and women inside a decade, as police forces are nonetheless being broken by a funding disaster and courts throughout England and Wales face a backlog of circumstances and a collapse in rape prosecutions.
Earlier than coming into energy, Labour pledged to ascertain 80 new rape courts throughout England and Wales to fast-track circumstances as a part of wide-ranging plans to sort out violence in opposition to ladies and women. Final month, official police figures revealed the variety of recorded offences – together with stalking, harassment, sexual assault and home violence – had grown by 37% previously 5 years, main police chiefs to label it a “nationwide emergency”.
In a debate final month, Yvette Cooper, the house secretary, stated: “For a lot too lengthy, violence in opposition to ladies and women has been handled as an inevitability, slightly than the nationwide emergency that it’s. Our mission is for the entire nation to halve violence in opposition to ladies and women inside a decade. That has to begin with drastically bettering the policing and legal justice response.”
Birley expressed her confidence in Jess Phillips, the minister for safeguarding and violence in opposition to ladies and women. The Labour MP has lengthy criticised the previous Conservative authorities’s inaction in opposition to the rising difficulty, together with studying a listing earlier than parliament of girls killed by males or the place a person is the principal suspect within the UK, over the previous 9 years.
“I really feel assured that the options aren’t new ones they don’t want reinventing,” stated Birley, including that the issue was that regardless of a rise in reviews into violence in opposition to ladies and women over latest years “they sit on a shelf and nothing occurs”.
“What I’m hoping for is seeing actual motion, actual funding, and seeing that the federal government put in place the measures everyone knows are wanted,” she stated.
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