The UK government has just released its draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which outlines an overhaul in its planning strategy. However, these proposals, which cover urban planning from transport to housing, entirely ignore Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) in its strategy.   This omission has come as a shock to MPs and those in urban planning who emphasise the intricate relationship between urban environments and misogyny-driven violence against women and

In recent months, the AI chatbot, Grok, has been increasingly used by users to generate sexualised images of women and children, which are then posted on the social media platform X. Grok, created by Elon Musk’s company xAI, was launched in 2023. It can generate text, images and videos and is integrated into X. The platform has previously faced criticism from rights groups, including Amnesty international, for exacerbating online hate, misinformation and misogyny. Recently, t

Katie Fox was fatally stabbed in the neck whilst waiting for her bus home from the centre of Birmingham, in what is the third stabbing in the area within a month. The 34-year-old was attacked at around 9pm on 7 th November as she waited along Smallbrook Queensway outside the Bullring shopping centre – a busy part of the city often crowded with commuters and people having Friday night drinks. Katie was rushed to the Queen Elizabeth hospital but she died three days later from

Last Friday saw hundreds of women gather in cities across South Africa, wearing black, to protest gender-based violence ahead of the G20 summit at the weekend. South Africa has seen a 33.8% increase in the number of women killed from gender-based violence since last year. On average, 15 lives are lost every day to femicide- five times the global femicide rate and the highest outside of a war zone. The NGO Women For Change, one of South Africa’s leading voices in the fight aga

A year after the harrowing Pélicot affair hit headlines and shocked the world, Gisèle Pélicot returned to court in Nimes, France. Accompanied by her youngest son, Florian, Gisèle chose to waive her right to anonymity for a second time in this four-day trial. One of the worst sex-offenders of our times, Dominique Pélicot was sentenced to 20 years in prison last year when police discovered footage, recorded over a 10-year period, showing him and dozens of other men raping his t

A new pilot launched in the West Midlands now   gives individuals that have been subjected to rape or ‘serious sexual abuse’ the right to request a second opinion from an alternative prosecutor. Previously, when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided not to proceed with charges in a case, individuals had very little choice but to accept this decision. This outcome often occurred when the CPS concluded that the likelihood of winning the case is too slim. The six-month pil

In June 2025, the Government’s Department of Justice announced that the depiction of strangulation in pornography will be officially...

Almost three years ago, I wrote an article on the role that social media played in the defamation case Johnny Depp brought against his...

Sir Gareth Southgate, the previous England men’s football team manager, delivered the annual Richard Dimbleby lecture last week. In this...

It has recently come to light that several high-profile television presenters have been accused of inappropriate behaviour in the...

The current landscape As Parliament returns after the summer recess and party conference season, we now await bills and laws to be...

Every year from September to December, the United Nations General Assembly meets at the UN headquarters in New York to discuss and decide...

CW: sexual violence   Just two weeks preceding Russia’s 2022 invasion, Vladimir Putin branded Ukraine ‘mine’. (1) He then suggested that...

CW: sexual violence   The horrific case of Dominique Pelicot sent shockwaves across France and the rest of the globe at the beginning of...

CW: sexual violence   Gisèle Pelicot, a 71-year-old French woman living in the small town of Mazan in the South of France, discovered in...

On the 29th of July, Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, were murdered by 17-year-old Axel...

Music festivals are a key piece of British summer events, but their unique characteristics, such as crowded stage areas, have made them...

Amidst the excitement of supporting England in the football European Championship, there is an underlying problem which is exacerbated...

"Baby Reindeer," a powerful autobiographical Netflix show by Richard Gadd, offers a raw and unflinching look into the complexities of...

Miraculously, when the Online Safety Act  was first produced as a Bill, it had not a single mention of women and girls. The reaction  led...