The government must enable early intervention to prevent misogynistic attitudes developing among schoolboys by September 2026, a report has recommended.
The second report of the Angiolini Inquiry was published earlier this month, commissioned following the murder of Sarah Everard.
The South West Londoner was the first publication to report on the search for Everard, who went missing while walking home near Clapham Common in March 2021.
It was later revealed that Everard had been kidnapped, raped, and murdered by serving Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens.
Couzens was reported to have indecently exposed himself on eight occasions before Everard’s murder, which the inquiry ruled formed part of ‘a trajectory of sexually motivated behaviour and offending’ spanning more than 20 years.
The report calls for the Home Office to enhance resourcing and funding for school and community programmes to develop a culture of positive masculinity in order to prevent sexually motivated crimes.
Leading the way on work in schools is charity Everyone’s Invited, which secured government funding to run its primary school prevention programme earlier this year.
Ellie Softley, head of education at the charity, said: “I think that sometimes we are scared to talk to young people about the realities of this issue, and actually that isn’t protecting them.
“When we invest in preventative primary-based education, we can make a change for the future.”
Everyone’s Invited has already reached 67,000 students through three years of work in schools, and is now teaching children aged as young as nine and ten about misogyny.
Its primary school prevention programme has been rolled out across 15 London schools, equipping children with emotional regulation skills and teaching them how to deal with rejection.
The report also echoed the recommendations of the Independent Pornography Review published earlier this year, including funding focused on community programmes to encourage discussions about healthy relationships to counter misogynistic culture.
Softley added: “We know that children as young as eight years old are viewing violent pornography.”
Softley raised concerns that young people have been increasingly exposed to a new dimension of sexually motivated crime online.
She said: “They have massive pressures around their gender, who they are meant to be, how they are meant to act.
“They really need a lot of consistent and sustainable support to navigate this world.”
New measures to protect women and girls from online abuse have been tabled for the government’s forthcoming Crime and Policing Bill.
Further recommendations of the report include creating an accessible online space that provides information to perpetrators and their families directly, modelled on the Enough website which is aimed at perpetrators of domestic abuse.
The report also calls for early intervention with individuals who have not committed such crimes but have concerns about their own thoughts or behaviours.
Andrea Simon, director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said: “We welcome the report’s focus on long-term, whole-society prevention and on addressing perpetrator’s behaviour.
“For too long, society has enabled this abuse, and placed the burden on women to keep themselves safe.
“It is essential we do not limit our thinking to the criminal justice system, that we treat online spaces as public spaces, and long term prevention efforts are prioritised and properly funded.”
The Metropolitan Police and the Department for Education have been contacted for comment.
Featured image credit: Moren Hsu via Unsplash
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