A dedicated ‘Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy’ is being drafted to protect females across Guernsey and Alderney.
Bringing together work from across a number of different sectors and organisations, it will be coordinated by Home Affairs.
The Committee said the dedicated VAWG Strategy is needed to “prevent violence before it occurs”.
It will also improve support for victims and survivors, and ensure that services, legislation, and the criminal and family justice responses continue to evolve in line with emerging risks and best practice.
The new Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy will focus on:
- improving data collection and analysis to better understand the experiences of victims and the effectiveness of services;
- strengthening prevention and early intervention through education; and
- awareness raising and work with schools and the wider community.
Home Affairs said “the VAWG strategy will continue to modernise legislation and justice processes to ensure that they are victim-centred and fit for purpose”.
Deputy Munazza Malik said “tackling sexual violence, domestic abuse, and all other forms of abuse remains a priority for the Committee”.
As the Violence Against Women and Girls Lead for the Committee for Home Affairs, Deputy Malik wanted to “assure victims of these offences and the wider community that funding and operational focus will remain on this issue”.
The new VAWG strategy follows recent work to build a Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Strategy, which helped strengthen the islands’ response to domestic abuse and sexual violence and wider forms of harm.
A new Domestic Abuse Law was introduced in 2026 confirming that things like strangulation, stalking, spiking, and female genital mutilation are now criminal offences in the Bailiwick.
Deputy Malik said this has all helped Home Affairs “make significant headway with legislative reform, enhancing policing powers and victim protections, and making system wide improvements”, but she warned, “there is still much more to do”.
She also defended the focus on women and girls, acknowledging that there are also male victims of domestic and sexual violence.
“Anyone who is the victim of any offence should be heard and treated the same – with fairness and empathy – but in this case the statistics do not lie,” she said.
“Nationally and locally, women and girls are disproportionately victim to these forms of violence, and our key objective with this work is to make as much change as possible, where it will make the biggest difference, and as such we want to be looking where the problem is largest – with women and girls being victim to unacceptable, horrendous behaviours. That isn’t to say men won’t be listened to and won’t experience positive change from this work. My hope is that the entire community will benefit.”
“The development of a general VAWG strategy allows us to refresh our thinking and review what has already been achieved and clearly identify what our efforts should be focused on next to have the largest impact.”
Developing the dedicated VAWG strategy will include talking to different organisations that support victims of crimes.
Home Affairs is also looking at European strategies and examples of good practice elsewhere.
If you have ideas about what the Bailiwick’s VAWG strategy should address, you can email fiona.richmond@gov.gg with your thoughts.
Deputy Malik said this will bring together “a coordinated framework” that will make the islands an even safer place for women and girls.
“In the coming months we will be conducting a period of consultation with key stakeholders about what has already been achieved, and what we should be doing next,” she said.
“VAWG, sexual abuse, and domestic abuse are all issues which affect many parts of Government business and affect many islanders’ lives in different ways. As such we want to ensure the voices of as many parts of the States and the community are heard when developing our plan for the coming years.”
