Southall Black Sisters lead call for Labour government to act on VAWG

Southall Black Sisters (SBS) will lead a coalition of organisations at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool this weekend, urging the government to deliver on its promise to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) within a decade.

The coalition brings together groups including Women’s Aid, Refuge, Rape Crisis England & Wales, the Latin American Women’s Rights Service and Women for Refugee Women. They will use the conference to press for a whole-system approach to tackling abuse, long-term funding for frontline services, and urgent immigration reforms to protect migrant and asylum-seeking women.

According to campaigners, nearly seven in ten women report direct or indirect experience of VAWG. In London, Black women accounted for more than 60% of femicide victims in 2023, up from 43% the year before.

Their demands include multi-year funding for victim-survivor services, with ringfenced support for “by and for” organisations, recognition of children as victims in their own right, and key immigration reforms. These include a firewall between police and immigration enforcement, scrapping No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) for migrant women, and including asylum-seeking women in the government’s VAWG strategy.

Selma Taha, Executive Director of Southall Black Sisters, said: “While we welcome the government’s commitment to halving violence against women and girls within a decade, we are extremely concerned that the current approach risks leaving Black, minoritised, and migrant women and girls behind.”

Ms Taha added: “We must have a seat at the table to share the lived experiences and needs of some of the most marginalised women and girls, and to contribute meaningfully to shaping legal and policy reforms, particularly in an increasingly racist and hostile immigration environment. We hope that the VAWG takeover at the Labour Party Conference will be a first step toward that change.”