Jess Phillips read aloud the names of 110 women killed, or suspected to have been killed, by men over the past year during a House of Commons debate marking International Women’s Day, as ministers announced further measures aimed at tackling violence against women and girls.
Phillips, the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, carried out the parliamentary reading for the 11th consecutive year on Friday. The Home Office said the final total rose from 107 to 110 before the debate closed, after additional names were added to the list.
The women named ranged in age from 17 to 93. Some had not yet been publicly identified and were listed as unnamed.
“Today, as I do every year, I carry out the heavy task of reading out the names of every woman suspected of being killed by a man over the last year,” Phillips told MPs. “This is a day that never gets easier.”
She added: “We will deploy the full power of the state to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.”
The annual Commons reading has become a focal point for campaigners who say it ensures the women behind the statistics are named and remembered in the place where laws are made. Ministers have described violence against women and girls as a national emergency and said the latest list underlined the need for faster action.
Alongside the reading, Phillips announced plans to create and fund a new system to ensure recommendations from Domestic Homicide Reviews are acted on. Those reviews are conducted after deaths linked to domestic abuse to identify failings and lessons for agencies including police, councils and health services, but campaigners have long argued that recommendations are too often left unimplemented.
The government also said Project Vigilant would be strengthened in nine police forces with an additional £1 million in funding. The scheme uses plain-clothes officers in night-time hotspots to identify and disrupt predatory behaviour, including persistent following, harassment and spiking. Officials said the extra money would fund hundreds of additional deployments.
The latest parliamentary tribute came as new data from the Femicide Census drew attention to the number of women allegedly killed by their own sons. Karen Ingala Smith, co-founder of the Femicide Census, said 19 of the 110 women on this year’s list were killed by their sons or had sons identified as suspects, representing almost one in five cases.
“It is critical that our understanding of which women are at risk from which men reflects reality and that the police, health, social and specialist services for women are equipped and resourced to respond accordingly,” she said.
Ingala Smith said the annual reading in Parliament remained an important act of commemoration and accountability, adding that it helped ensure “the government cannot ignore femicide, the most extreme manifestation of men’s violence against women”.
This year’s total was higher than the 95 names read in Parliament last year. Campaigners, however, have cautioned against drawing firm conclusions from year-to-year changes alone, while saying the figures point to a persistent and deadly pattern of abuse.
The government’s Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy, published in December, pledged more than £1 billion over the next three years to support victims through measures including safe accommodation, counselling and specialist therapeutic services. It also included plans for the national rollout of Domestic Abuse Protection Orders and the expansion of specialist rape and sexual offence teams in every police force.
Some organisations working in the sector welcomed the strategy but warned that frontline services remained under pressure and that long-term delivery would be critical if ministers are to meet their target of halving violence against women and girls within a decade.
In the Commons, Phillips said the moment was not about ministers but about the women who had lost their lives and the families left behind. “This moment belongs to the women who have paid with their lives because of our collective failure to protect them from harm,” she said.
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