Plans to tackle misogyny in schools could take up to 20 years to have an impact on society, the safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, has said as she outlined measures to protect women and girls.
Phillips spoke the day after the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) estimated that 2 million women were victims of violence perpetrated by men each year in an epidemic so serious it amounts to a “national emergency”.
One of Labour’s five missions is to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, by targeting perpetrators and addressing the root causes of abuse and violence.
The minister for violence against women and girls said “Raneem’s law” was already in the works, and would ensure police forces provide protection to victims of domestic abuse. But evidence that some of the government’s policies are working – such as addressing misogyny among schoolchildren – could take years to emerge.
She said: “This is a societal problem. The data in the NPCC report speaks for itself. We have been declaring this a national emergency for as long as I can remember, really. This is going to take a long time.
“[Look at] prevention education and evidence-based models that cut this type of crime from being learnt – I probably won’t be elected at the point when we can say that metric has worked. Because this about making something that will see benefits in 10 or 20 years’ time.”
Raneem’s law will require police to respond faster to reports of domestic violence and to consider immediate use of orders to protect women. Named after Raneem Oudeh who was killed along with her mother, Khaola Saleem, by Oudeh’s ex-partner in 2018, the legislation would also require every police force to appoint specialist officers in 999 call centres.
Oudeh, 22, and Saleem, 49, were stabbed to death by Oudeh’s estranged husband, Janbaz Tarin, in Solihull after he had subjected her to stalking, domestic violence and coercive control for more than a year.
In 2022 an inquest found that failings by West Midlands police “materially contributed” to the deaths. It heard that Oudeh had made at least seven calls to the emergency services in the run-up to her death. On the night she and her mother were killed they called 999 four times, but despite a non-molestation order against her former partner, no officers were sent to respond.
Phillips said parts of Labour’s plans would be hampered by the backlog in the criminal justice system. “The plan to get more domestic abusers, sexual offenders and traffickers into prison is of course a massive issue when you look at what we have inherited over prisons, she said.
“Another is the court backlog. Part of the manifesto was around fast-tracking cases of sexual violence. I have personally handled cases of women who were children when they came forward about their rape or sexual abuse, and they are not getting into a courtroom until they are in their 20s.”
But, she added, the Home Office could still make real progress.
She said: “There are policies in the Labour manifesto that we can immediately get on and do such as ensuring there are specialists in police call centres. It is called Raneem’s law after two women who were murdered in the East Midlands. The calls they made to the police were a harrowing listen.
“We are already looking over the different options of how that will work.”
