Sadiq Khan Tells The Debrief Why He’s Serious About Tackling Sexual Violence

How do you solve a problem like sexual harassment and violence against women and girls? Both are already unlawful and yet, one in five women in the UK report having been sexual assaulted.

On man who has, or thinks he has, an answer is the Mayor of London. On Friday, *The Debrief *joined Sadiq Khan as he launched a new strategy to tackle violence against women and girls in London.

Launching the strategy alongside students at the Central School of Speech and Drama in North West London, Khan told The Debrief that ‘the culture of victim-blaming needs to end’ as he announced a record £44 million investment to tackle the problem of violence against women and girls.

As Khan gave interviews to the press, students from the school participated in workshops facilitated by women’s organisation IMKAAN.

The Mayor’s strategy aims to build on the momentum of global campaigns like #TimesUp and #MeToo and includes measures to tackle rape, sexual assault, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), trafficking, controlling behaviour, forced marriages, stalking, harassment, and misogyny. It has been announced after a long and length consultation with women’s support groups as well as the survivors of sexual harassment and assault.

The strategy comprises of both talk and action. Measures include: £4 million for programmes to tackle stalking, £3 million to expand the rehabilitative Drive project which works with perpetrators, calling on the Government to create a register for perpetrators of domestic abuse and violence, calling for tougher sentencing for offences like upskirting and revenge porn, £200,000 to support London Councils Harmful Practices programme – training nurses, midwives and social workers to recognise abuses such as FGM and intervene and significant investment in significant investment in general and specialist services for victims including £13m for sexual violence services, £5m for Domestic Violence services, and over £9m for services in London’s boroughs.

Speaking to The Debrief, Khan acknowledged that until now too many survivors of sexual violence or harassment have been reluctant to come forward for fear of not being taken seriously. ‘If you speak to the victims of inappropriate behavior, criminal offences, violence – often police officers, public transport staff, people in positions of power and influence haven’t taken them seriously and that’s got to stop’ he said.

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As for how he intends to change this going forward, Khan explained ‘that’s why we’ve published this strategy today – it is comprehensive [and comes] after months of talking to and listening to victims and hearing these sorts of things. That’s why I can give you this reassurance: the police will take it seriously; Transport for London will take it seriously - we’ve got a campaign to raise awareness on public transport. If you’re at the receiving end of unwanted sexual behavior, criminal offences, unwanted sexual advances, abuse, harassment – report it. Staff have been trained to take action- we’ve got CCTV across the network. The police are now far more receptive – they’ve been trained as well – they understand the importance of having a zero-tolerance attitude towards this and taking action – because it can’t be right that women and girls are on the receiving end of this sort of behaviour’.

*The Debrief *asked Khan how we can change attitudes as well as invest in support services to help people who have experienced sexual harassment and assault. ‘We’ve got to get away from this problem of victim blaming’ he said, it’s the ‘idea that you’re somehow to blame when you’re on the receiving end of bad behavior’. He went on to say that there are three key parts to dealing with the problem: ‘one is prevention - preventing violence against women and girls that means clubs, licensed premises – they know now that they’ve got to sign up to our charter so if someone complains of bad behavior they have to take action. We also need to teach young people about attitudes – healthy attitudes – boys in particular need to understand that it’s not on to behave in a certain way. The second part is tackling perpetrators and the third part is supporting and protecting victims and survivors – that means investing in domestic violence centres, sexual violence centres and training up our staff.’

Khan was also clear that it’s not enough to focus on survivors and perpetrators, this is a problem that we need to tackle as a society. ‘One of the big things we’ve got to do is understand that there’s a duty on all of us as citizens to be good citizens’ he said. *The Debrief *asked him to explain what being a ‘good citizen’ might look like – ‘whether you’re a bystander or trying to be a better ally’ he said ‘if you see something it’s about asking can you help the person on the receiving end of it report it? If you’re on the underground and you see somebody behaving inappropriately or you see someone who is on the receiving end it’s about being an ally to that person – reporting it to members of staff nearby.’

‘It’s about professional staff understanding that part of their job is to provide a safe environment – whether that’s on transport, a steward at a concert, a police officer – whatever job you do you have a responsibility on this’ Khan continued. He then added ‘and by the way, ‘us men who very rarely are victims of this stuff have a responsibility to be allies to women and girls – it’s so important’.

Young women students who were present at the event told The Debrief that they mayor’s announcement and participation in their workshops was of monumental significance. ‘I think it’s really important and exciting’ one said ‘for a long time issues like this – like domestic abuse – have been overlooked. The fact that Sadiq has announced all of these changes is huge – it’s not going to happen overnight but something it happening and that is great’.

Another student said ‘we were talking in our group about how important it is for leadership to be clear about where they stand on these issues and this strategy does exactly that’. The consensus was that it was incredibly significance to have a man in a position of power leading by example in this way.

Khan left the event to travel to SXSW to give a keynote speech about the role of policy makers in tech innovation and regulation. Speaking to The Debrief as he left, he was clear that he would ‘consider intervention’ if tech companies didn’t take action on abuse. ‘Let me give you an example of where I think a government has taken action’ he said ‘look at Germany – in Germany there if there is hateful language on an outlet and the company doesn’t take it down they will fine the company - all I will say is this – London is an attractive place to be a tech company, to have disruptive innovation but you’ve got to play by the rules and that means recongising that it’s not on for you to amplify revenge porn or photographs that are clearly inappropriate like upskiritng – its really important that we put pressure on the social media companies we use to be more responsible’.

As for whether or not the Mayor’s strategy really is the real deal, Marai Larasai, the Executive Director of IMKAAN, told *The Debrief *said ‘one of the amazing things about this strategy is that it really is rooted in the consultation with survivors. We know that we can’t have good or effective strategies if you don’t include the voices of survivors. So, we’re really pleased that issues such as FGM and false marriage have been included alongside sexual harassment. We’re also really pleased that sexual harassment has taken such a forefront here, in the context of #MeToo and #TimesUp, it makes sense for the Mayor to say “what are we dealing with at the moment?”. This doesn’t just include the voices of the survivors we worked with in the consultation but that broader constituency of survivors who are speaking up’. ‘And that’ she said ‘is incredibly important’.

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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.