Liverpool Mayor launches city's first strategy to tackle violence against women
Violence against women is ‘a growing issue in Liverpool’ with a 50% increase in police callouts over 7 years
Last updated 6th Jan 2023
Liverpool Mayor, Joanne Anderson, has launched a new approach to tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG) as the number of incidents continues to rise.
The council says it’s ‘a growing issue in Liverpool’ and estimate that 75,000 women and girls across the city will experience violence in their lifetime.
Statistics show that in 2015/16 31% police callouts resulted in a domestic crime being recorded; in 2021/22, it increased to 81% of callouts.
The new VAWG strategy hopes to make the city safer and lower the number of incidents.
Mayor Joanne Anderson said: “I remember an instance when I was young in a workplace where a conversation was a 'bit of banter' and all of a sudden it started talking about my body.
"I remember the boss coming in and saying ‘you need to stop that, its sexual harassment.’
"That was a man that called that out and that was really important, it set the tone that actually when that banter turns to my body being talked about, that’s unacceptable.”
Between October 2021 and September 2022, Merseyside Police were called out to 14,935 domestic abuse incidents, an average of 1,245 per month.
The hope is that the new VAWG strategy will help bring these figures down.
Among the aims of the three-year strategy are:
- Ensuring that demand for services is better met
- For women and girls to feel confident in calling out and challenging inappropriate behaviour
- A robust and consistent approach to raising awareness and taking action in schools.
In addition to this, Liverpool City Council, together with Police Commissioner Emily Spurrell, has secured £846k from the Home Office for the Safer Streets Liverpool project. So far this has seen an increased uniformed police presence around transport hubs and on key bus routes including more CCTV.
Though the funding is a help Mayor Anderson said more needs to be done.
She said: “I think we all need to lobby in the sense of central government for the right recourses to help eradicate violence against women and girls.
"We can all play our part in our sphere of life by calling it out and being aware of how we can support each other but actually the recourses will make all the difference.”