Last year, just 6.8% of domestic abuse reports led to criminal charges. These aren’t just statistics, these are more and more perpetrators being let off and victims being let down. This must change and fast.

Labour has a comprehensive plan to grip the situation and tackle violence against women and girls. A Labour Government will halve the level of violence against women and girls within a decade. As a first step we will:

• Create a new domestic abuse register to track those convicted of domestic abuse.
• Develop a scheme of independent legal advocates for rape survivors to support them, protect their rights and drive up standards in the criminal justice system.
• Add 13,000 more neighbourhood police on our streets.
• Roll out specialist rape courts to fast-track cases through the system.
• Modernise the police by putting specialist domestic abuse workers in the control rooms of every police force responding to 999 calls and introduce a specialist rape unit in every police force.

Read more here.