Centre for Protecting Women Online at The Open University responds to Government’s VAWG Strategy

Posted on 19 December 2025 • University news

The Centre for Protecting Women Online at The Open University has welcomed the Government’s recognition that online abuse and tech-facilitated violence are central to women and girls’ lived experiences, but warned that the new Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy risks treating digital abuse as a peripheral issue.

While the Strategy sets out an ambition to halve VAWG over the next nine years, the Centre cautions that it places too much reliance on technology companies to self-regulate online harms, echoing the limitations of the Online Safety Act. Without stronger, independent accountability and enforcement, women and girls will remain exposed to abuse online.

The Centre also raised concerns that the Strategy focuses heavily on young people, with insufficient attention to adult women, particularly racialised and minoritised communities who face compounded online harms and barriers to support.

Leyla Buran, Research Fellow in Policy and Practice at the Centre for Protecting Women Online at The Open University, said:

“Digital spaces are not an add-on to violence against women and girls: they are where abuse often begins, escalates, and is sustained. While the Strategy includes important commitments, there are significant gaps, especially around adult women’s experiences, and those of racialised and minoritised communities. Tackling tech-facilitated abuse must be embedded across all forms of VAWG if the Government’s ambition is to be realised.”

The Centre will continue to assess whether the Strategy’s measures on prevention, perpetrator accountability and victim support meet the UK’s obligations under the Istanbul Convention and CEDAW, and whether they are sufficient to deliver meaningful change for women and girls online.

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