Deepfakes and pornography: the plan to tackle toxic masculinity – The Latest

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:11The government itself has called this an epidemic of violence and a national emergency. Today this government says no more. We are calling violence against women and girls the national emergency that it is. We will be backing this strategy with over£1 billion in victims funding. But it's not enough. You can't promise to halve violence against women and girls and not actually put up the money that needs to be there to do that. As the government announces long-awaited plans to reduce violence against women and girls, why is it looking in particular at misogyny in schools? From The Guardian's Today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hoth.

0:52I'm joined by Alexandra Topping, senior reporter at The Guardian. Thanks so much for coming out to see us again, Lexi. It's really nice to see you. Thank you for having me. So these are long-awaited plans, aren't they? They've been much delayed. The government, as a manifesto pledge, said it wanted to halve rates of violence against women and girls. Jess Phillips has just been speaking in the Commons with this shocking statistic that one in eight women is a victim of sexual assault, domestic abuse or stalking. You've been reporting into this for a long time. Talk to me about the scale of the problem and why the government has prioritised this so much.

1:25Well, it's a huge problem in the UK and throughout the world. In fact, you know, you've mentioned that shocking statistic. Another one is that there are 200 rapes reported to the police in this country every single day. And that's just the ones that are reported. The government itself has called this an epidemic of violence and they've called it a national emergency. So there is a real sense that, you know, they understand the scale of the problem. And this strategy is meant to start to really tackle that. It's not something that's new. We had it under the last government. There were steps made, particularly around rape and how we prosecute rape.

2:05But this has really been a flagship strategy for this government. And it's something I think really that the Prime Minister himself really cares about. So the strategy that's been announced today focuses on three things. It focuses on supporting victims, stopping abusers and also preventing young men from being pulled into harmful behaviours in schools. So there's a real look at preventative work in schools. David Lammy, the deputy prime minister, has written in The Guardian today about a culture of casual misogyny that's being amplified online. He's concerned about things like easily accessible porn, the popularity of people like Andrew Tate.

2:41And this is something that teachers have been sounding the alarm about for some time, isn't it? There is, you know, teachers are extremely worried about this. It's with children and students increasingly living their lives online and the kind of harms that they are exposed to on there. So things like sharing intimate images and pornography and the vast availability of pornography, but not just, you know, the pornography that children who were, that young men who were exposed to. perhaps when I was growing up this is violent horrific degrading pornography which really does warp the minds of young boys who watch it so I think there is a real fear amongst parents and among teachers that this is something that we really have to tackle I would think in the sector there's there's a kind of counter argument which is this has always been there it's actually this the misogyny isn't new it's just the expression of it that's new and also the fact that we've got young boys sitting in their rooms on their phones on their computers and parents can't properly monitor.

3:42There's just no escape from it. Well, exactly. So what is the government looking to particularly do on that in terms of this strategy? Because it's about bringing in more specialist training for teachers who've said that they feel under-equipped to cope with when they identify a young boy who might be showing signs of misogyny or harmful behaviours. I think what's really important on this is when I was looking back at a piece that I'd written a year ago, that was what does it mean to halve violence against women and girls And how would you actually go about doing that? And one of the key things was education.

4:13You know, it's crucially important that not just boys, but young people across the board learn about consent, learn about the dangers of sharing intimate images and that they learn about what a healthy relationship looks like. Simple things, really. And I think that's that's a real push in this strategy now is to try and focus on those things. what was said previously was that well it's all well and good to say this to teachers but if you don't give them the tools with which to to do this really important learning then then they're not going to have the confidence and it actually could go wrong yeah so I think what this strategy is really trying to say is that there's going to be focused and dedicated training by experts and there's also going to be this idea that teachers particularly but I think parents will I'll be able to do it as well.

5:02If they identify kind of problematic behaviour amongst young people that they're in contact with, they can actually refer those young people onto courses where they learn, you know, more specifically about more healthy behaviours and how to keep themselves safe. Yeah, so this is about deep fakes, image based abuse, online harassment, these sorts of things, and stuff that's really been in the public consciousness after adolescence, which came out this year and has brought these issues so much to light um but it's not just about looking at schools is it it's also about improving support for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault there's about half a billion in investment which feels like a significant amount of money the government's saying that there's about a billion worth of of investment overall in the strategy and about half of that is going to victim support services we don't know the detail yet and that that's you know the proof will be in the pudding where that money is actually going to what's it what it's being invested in.

5:58Some money has already been earmarked for perpetrator programs, which, you know, tackling the most persistent of offenders. And others will go into providing safe housing for people who are victims of domestic abuse. So it is a sizable sum. What people in the sector are saying to me is that what this strategy also does is improve referrals. So it teaches teachers how to make referrals so that they flag potentially problematic behaviour, but also victims. It also will provide training for GPs and make sure that their referral pathways are more clear so that they can also refer victims. And what they're saying is that's great, but that will mean loads more victims coming into a really overstretched sector that doesn't have the money to cope as it is.

6:47So this money is welcome, but it's not enough. Yeah, you've been speaking to the domestic abuse commissioner on this. Yeah, she was really strong, actually. Basically saying like this takes into account the scale of the problem, but there is just not enough funding in order to do this. She was very clear this, you know, if unless there is very clear funding that is dedicated to these really struggling services, then this will fail. Because you can't promise the world, you can't promise to have violence against women and girls and not actually put up the money that needs to be there to do that.

7:21Yeah. And the last time we spoke, we were talking about plans to slash the number of jury trials. And we spoke, you gave this very stark statistic about how long a woman can wait in the instance of a rape or a sexual assault that she can be looking at a trial in 2030 if that were to happen today. Obviously, the move to scrap jury chance has proved really controversial, but it's all about getting justice done quicker for victims of these torches of offences. How does that build into that wider picture in terms of what the government's doing? I mean, I haven't dug into the strategy enough yet. You know, it will be interesting to get into the detail of it.

7:59I think that the work that has been done around rape seems to be much more top end. So they're having these dedicated rape trained officers and rape units, basically. So if you went to the police and said that a sexual assault or a rape had happened to you, you'd get a specialised officer. Yeah, you will get a specialist in a specialised unit. And that idea is to kind of, these used to exist before we went through austerity and, you know, tens of thousands of police officers were caught from our forces. And so they've been disbanded once and now they're being rebuilt again. And some people argue that actually it's not a great idea.

8:36Actually, you need to have specialism throughout a force with all officers trained in this, particularly in smaller forces that may not have the space for a unit. But regardless, that seems to be where the majority of the investment is. There doesn't seem to be that much focus on courts. But I do think we'll probably see more of that as we go into the new year. You know, this is just such an intractable problem. It's not just about rape cases, but we do see vast numbers of rape complainants dropping out of the system because they just can't face the huge weights that are there. So, yeah, I will be really looking for the detail to see how they're going to tackle that.

9:15Yeah, well, I know you've got to go downstairs and have a proper look through the strategy paper. So we'll check back with you soon. And thank you so much. Thanks so much for having me. That's it for today. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest, the new evening edition of Today in Focus. We'll be with you every weekday evening on what you need to know about the story everyone's talking about in around 10 minutes. Today in Focus will be back with you tomorrow. It'll be a cultural look ahead to 2026 with tips on what you should be listening to, streaming and watching. this episode was presented by me Lucy Hough the producers were Bryony Moore and James Tyndale

9:53this is The Guardian