September 2023
Hello and thank you all for coming to join us this evening. We meet here on the first Monday of every month to remember the UK women who have been killed by men. And we stand in front of this banner that talks about Ending Violence Against Women and Girls. And we honour the women who have experienced the most extreme version of that violence and have been killed by a man. And we will do that in a moment, but I want to talk for a moment about ending VAWG as a wider subject. By Government definition VAWG covers – and this is a quote- a range of unacceptable and deeply distressing crimes, including rape and other sexual offences, stalking, domestic abuse, ‘honour’-based abuse (including female genital mutilation, forced marriage and ‘honour’ killings), ‘revenge porn’ and ‘upskirting’, as well as many others. These crimes disproportionately affect women and girls, however, it is acknowledged that men and boys can also be victims of violence and abuse. That’s the definit