Violence Against Women and Girls Cannot Be Treated in Isolation
Violence against women and girls does not happen in a vacuum. That was the central message of a recent Big Issue opinion piece, which argued that tackling VAWG means looking beyond individual incidents and confronting the wider systems that allow harm to continue.
What happened?
The article, written by the co-CEOs of ActionAid UK, highlighted how gender-based violence is connected to wider social, political and economic structures.
This includes poverty, cuts topublic services, weakened support systems and inequalities that can make it harder for women and girls to access safety.
Why it matters
It is an important reminder that safety cannot be separated from the environments people live, work, study and travel through.
For many women and girls, feeling unsafe is not limited to moments that become headlines:
It can be the route changed after dark
The decision not to sit upstairs on a bus
The hand gripped around keys
The message sent to a friend just to say “I’m nearly home”
The workplace culture that goes unchallenged
The public space that feels designed without their safety in mind
This is why prevention matters.
imabi’s View
Our work across imabi platformis grounded: people should be able to access the right information, support and reporting routes before, during and after moments of concern.
That means:
Helping local authorities communicate clearly with communities
Giving organisations tools to signpost support
Helping students and staff understand where to go if something does not feel right
Listening to lived experience, not just recorded incidents
Through our Safety Is A Right campaign, we are sharing anonymised real-life stories from people who have felt unsafe in everyday public spaces. These stories may not always involve a crime report and they may never make the news…but they still matter, because they show how safety is experienced, adapted around and too often compromised.
Source: Big Issue, May 2026