Khan and Patel to clash over campaigns to protect women | Violence against women and girls

Tensions between the mayor of London and the Dwelling Workplace are more likely to intensify as each unveil what they’re claiming because the UK’s first main campaigns to focus on perpetrators of sexual harassment and violence.

Soccer stars, different sports activities figures, celebrities and influencers have been enrolled by Sadiq Khan to talk to males through billboards and video to deal with “pervasive misogynistic attitudes”, which specialists say if left unchecked can permit dangerous behaviours to escalate.

The house secretary, Priti Patel, promised a similar campaign targeting perpetrators greater than seven months in the past, prompting calls from campaigners for rapid motion after which frustration as it failed to materialise.

The primary strand of that marketing campaign is about to launch this week with adverts, billboards, social media and radio promoting highlighting “the straightforward acts that anybody can take to problem perpetrators of abuse”.

Patel will even announce that tackling violence in opposition to ladies and women can be made a strategic policing requirement. This implies the problem can be a nationwide precedence for forces alongside terrorism, critical and organised crime and youngster sexual abuse. Patel stated: “The security of girls and women is an absolute precedence and I don’t settle for that violence in opposition to them is inevitable.”

Her feedback arrive days earlier than the primary anniversary of the abduction of Sarah Everard by a serving Metropolitan police officer as she walked dwelling in south London.

Newest information reveals that greater than 20% of UK ladies say they’ve been a sufferer of sexual assault, with 14% aged 16 to 19 a sufferer of home abuse. In 2020, 99% of grownup offenders sentenced or cautioned for sexual offences in London have been males.

Khan stated: “This isn’t simply a problem with the minority of males who’re violent, however with males who’re sexist, who behave inappropriately round ladies, who perpetuate a poisonous type of masculinity or who simply stand by silently when ladies really feel threatened or are being threatened. Males should change.”

Relations between Khan and Patel have been taut following the recent resignation of Cressida Dick after the London mayor instructed the pinnacle of the Met Police he had misplaced religion in her, leaving the house secretary to say his intervention had “blindsided” her.

Final evening, ladies’s teams welcomed Khan’s determination to launch a separate marketing campaign concentrating on males.

Suzanne Jacob, the chief govt of SafeLives, stated: “For the longest time, boys and males have been left exterior the dialog about violence in opposition to women and girls. We’re so inspired and happy to see this altering.”

Andrea Simon, director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, stated: “We welcome this essential work to reframe narratives round violence in opposition to ladies and women, placing the main focus the place it belongs – on perpetrators.”