Government, police and music industry unite to tackle VAWG

In a drive to tackle violence against women and girls, festivalgoers at Reading and Leeds Festival saw powerful messaging raising awareness of abusive behaviours displayed over the weekend.

Reaching hundreds of thousands of festivalgoers, the campaign highlighted examples of abusive behaviours that often go unrecognised, while encouraging those whose actions may cause harm to reflect on their own behaviour. This follows a summer of campaigning at concerts and live music events to say "enough" to violence against women and girls, including Latitude Festival earlier this summer.

Taking the ENOUGH campaign to some of the UK's biggest festivals means reaching hundreds of thousands of young people at scale with messages that are proven to shift attitudes and spark reflection, ensuring more people understand their role in preventing violence against women and girls (VAWG).

As well as partnering with Festival Republic, the government is working alongside Thames Valley Police and West Yorkshire Police to ensure abuse is challenged and everyone plays a role in making women and girls safe.

The government's mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade has never been more important. Recent figures estimate that around 1 million adults aged 16 and over experienced sexual victimisation in the year ending March 2026.

The news comes as a series of measures were unveiled to restore hope to communities by making women and girls safer. All part of sweeping reforms to ensure policing responds to the needs of people.

Minister for Safeguarding and Violence against Women and Girls, Satvir Kaur said:

Violence against women and girls devastates lives and we are determined to halve this issue in a decade.

To succeed in this mission, we must drive change in every arena of our society. By speaking directly to young men and women at Reading and Leeds, highlighting examples of abusive behaviours that too often go unrecognised, we can help drive that change.

This is just one step as we continue the vital work of making this country safe for women and girls.

Minister for Women and Equalities, Bridget Phillipson, said:

Challenging violence against women and girls and misogynistic views is everyone's business.

We all have a part to play in calling it out, and the ENOUGH campaign as part of festival season is an important step in stamping out behaviour that is too often normalised.

Halving violence against women and girls is one of this government's key commitments, and from calling out misogyny to using the full force of the law, we will use every lever available to keep women and girls safe.

Managing Director Festival Republic, Melvin Benn said:

We are proud to partner with the UK government on the ENOUGH campaign. Creating safe, inclusive, and welcoming environments is at the heart of what we do across all of our events. By supporting the ENOUGH initiative at Reading and Leeds, we are empowering our community to recognise and safely intervene against harmful behaviours in their daily lives, whilst ensuring they know that support is always visible and accessible on-site.

Detective Chief Inspector Thames Valley Police Laura Corscadden, said:

Our Consent Conversations campaign has been really successful at Reading Festival in previous years. We've been able to get young people talking openly about the topic, which is fantastic to see as education and prevention is so crucial. Consent is rarely black and white, and we want to discuss the grey areas.

We're looking forward to returning this year with our colleagues from West Yorkshire Police at Leeds Festival and hope to inspire important conversations about consent throughout the country.

Consent Conversations was developed by Thames Valley Police and production company Breaking Barriers in 2024 and has been delivered in collaboration with agencies across the Thames Valley and campaigner Georgia Harrison MBE, to spark meaningful and ongoing conversations around consent in all its forms. Consent is something that needs to be discussed, and we urge people everywhere to start the conversation and check that your friends understand.

Alongside the festival partnership, the government is delivering the largest crackdown on violence against women and girls in British history. This includes directing all police forces to introduced specialist rape and sexual offence investigation teams to hunt down perpetrators, rolling out domestic abuse protection orders nationally and embedding domestic abuse specialist in 999 control rooms.