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Write to End Violence Against Women Awards 2024 Awards

The 12th annual Write to End Violence Against Women (WEVAW) Awards, jointly presented by End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) and Zero Tolerance celebrated responsible, accurate, and compassionate journalism that advances understanding and action on violence against women and girls  

Rachel Adamson, co-director of Zero Tolerance, and Andrea Simon, Director of EVAW, co-hosted the Awards. Opening the ceremony, Rachel highlighted the pressing reality of violence against women and girls, whilst Andrea showcased EVAW’s extensive network of 163 frontline services, activists, survivors, researchers, and NGOs working to end this violence. Together, they emphasised the media’s vital role in challenging the cultural attitudes that normalise violence against women. 

Sky News’ lead politics presenter Sophy Ridge delivered a powerful keynote speech highlighting the media’s important role in tackling violence against women and girls. She outlined three key responsibilities for journalists: holding the government to account for its commitments to reduce violence, supporting specific campaigns to improve the justice process, and helping reshape cultural attitudes. Sophy emphasised that media coverage must actively combat victim-blaming whilst fostering a culture where women are believed and all survivors’ stories are treated with equal respect. 

Best News Winner 

Shehnaz Khan, BBC News, Forced marriage cases will stay ‘underground’ after law change 

Judge Rosemary Douce, Head of Standards and Regulation at IPSO, awarded the best News Piece award to Shahnaz Khan to her article focussed on the harms of forced marriage despite changes in law. Rosemary highlighted the new perspective brought by the article, the prominence given to the voices of survivors, and the use of statistics to put the story in context.  

Shehnaz accepted the award, describing it as an ‘honour’ and thanking the women she spoke to for trusting her to tell their stories. “It means a lot to me to be able to share stories that I really care about from underrepresented communities that aren’t often heard.”  

Best Feature Winner 

Amandas Ong, Jacobin, Britain’s Asylum Process Endangers Sexual Violence Survivors 

Lexie Kirkconnell-Kawana, CEO of Impress, presented this award to Amandas for centring the women she spoke to with empathy and bringing solace to people with similar trauma of navigating hostile bureaucracy in Britain. She spoke of how the piece stood out against a media climate that’s largely hostile to immigrants and refugees. It was an educating and informing piece that provided context, held authorities and policies to account, and offered solutions. 

Amandas was ‘humbled’ to accept the award. She explained that she wished to highlight the culture of scepticism and lack of understanding that permeates healthcare and bureaucracy in the UK after one of the women shared how she’d stayed silent about her experiences of violence as she did not expect to be believed. Amandas expressed her gratitude to the women for sharing their story with her, “this story is really for them”. She finished with reflecting, “The way we work as journalists is so incredibly important, how do we work with care, how do we cast survivors of sexual violence as whole and complex human beings, and work with them rather than relying on tropes of victimhood to tell a story?” 

Best Opinion & Comment Winner 

Mireille Harper, Glamour UK, Why does Cassie’s trauma need to be seen to be believed?  

Awards judge Dr Natasha Hirst, President of the National Union of Journalists, said she had an uplifting experience judging the awards. She awarded Best Opinion and Comment to Mireille Harper for an excellent piece addressing an under explored area of men’s violence against women. The article brought in survivors experiences along with expert opinion and highlighted inequalities that disproportionately affect black women. 

Mireille thanked Glamour for platforming the piece and supporting her advocacy.  She dedicated the award to Sistah Space and Casandra Centre, two organisations doing brilliant work in the space of violence against black women, and her mother who spent years working in domestic abuse services. ‘It’s equally celebratory and heartbreaking to win this award, especially at a time where it feels like violence against women isn’t just rife but also lauded…I also fear the age we are in is one where the currency of violence reigns and where women of colour globally are paying the price. Unfortunately misogynoir remains on the rise.”  

Best Investigation Winner 

Hannah Summers, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Family Court Files Series 

Andrea Simon, of EVAW, presented the Best Investigation award to Hannah Price for exposing systemic failings in the family court systems handling of violence against women. She said the ‘meticulous’ reporting combined rigorous investigation with ethical journalism. The investigation achieved a landmark ruling allowing the naming of a perpetrator who is not a public figure in family court proceedings creating better transparency in the system. It prompted an internal review of the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service regarding their assessment procedures, prompted discussions at the Ministry of Justice about legislative change on parental rights, and it provided a template of how family court cases involving sexual violence can report responsibly.  

Hannah accepted the award and spoke of her initial hesitance to apply to name Kristoffer White but the mother’s support drove her forward. Hannah recognised the mother’s resilience going through the court process, appeal, and her rapist being named in the press. Hannah said, “I was really pleased to be able to interview the mother in this case and to give her a voice.”  

Expert’s Pick: Best Broadcast Winner 

Anna Hall, Candour TV, The Push 

Rachel Adamson, Co-Director of Zero Tolerances, presented the Best Broadcast award to Anna Halll for The Push, for challenging assumptions around who is affected by domestic abuse and tells a story with cultural understanding and care.  

Anna Hall could not attend the event but shared the following message recognising the award. “The Push has now been recognised all over the world and we are so grateful to the bravery of the Javed family in their determination to tell the story of what happened to Fawziyah. Fawziyah was a remarkable woman who documented her abuse during her marriage and her evidence led to her husband’s conviction at her own murder trial. Fawziyah’s story shows us that domestic abuse can happen to anyone – a privately educated lawyer from Leeds. And her family wanted Fawziyah’s story to be told to give others the courage to leave their abusive relationships. Thank you so much to the Judges for the recognition of this work – we are extremely grateful.” 

Natasha Rattu, from Karma Nirvana, a specialist charity for victims and survivors of honour-based abuse in the UK which supported the making of the documentary, spoke of how The Push has increased recognition and understanding of domestic and honour-based abuse. Natasha highlighted that every time we tell these stories with respect, we honour the lives of the women who’ve been lost.  

Wooden Spoon 

Invisible perpetrators 

Our annual ‘Wooden Spoon’ anti-award, which exposes harmful media practices in reporting violence against women and girls, has named “the invisibilisation of perpetrators” as the most concerning trend of 2024.  

In her keynote address, Juliana da Penha, founding editor of Migrant Women Press, described how mainstream media routinely employs passive language that removes perpetrator accountability. She demonstrated how this practice normalises male violence as inevitable, shifts responsibility from perpetrators to victims, and critically, prevents us from addressing the root causes of this violence.  

Congratulations to all the award winners and shortlisted journalists. The media has the power to shape people’s attitudes and understanding of men’s violence against women, support survivors, and hold perpetrators to account. Thank you to everyone who contributed to The Write Violence Against Women Awards 2024, including our steering group. And thank you to all the journalists who write about men’s violence against women with care and compassion.  

 

 

 

This international men’s day let’s talk about how the manosphere harms boys 

As Scotland’s experts on preventing men’s violence against women and girls, Zero Tolerance is highlighting the harm the manosphere is having on boys, and the solution. 

This International Men’s Day new research gives insight into young men’s understandings and interactions with extreme misogynistic online content. 

Theatre company Civic Digits led a participatory project with young people exploring their experiences of incel culture, the misogynistic online community of men who hate women for making them ‘involuntarily celibate’.  

During the project young people attended workshops to explore gender, gender-based violence, critique online content, and create characters vulnerable to radicalisation and grooming. This work ultimately informed the creation of an interactive play, ‘Many Good Men’ which was performed by professional actors. 

We commissioned research alongside this project which highlights the harm such content has on boys’ mental health and relationships.  

The findings echo other research which shows that online misogynistic content creators target young men, and reinforce harmful gender stereotypes that pressure them to conform to a restrictive definition of masculinity which emphasises money, muscles, and sexual attraction. 

Young men who are worried about rejection might innocently search online for advice about how to get a girlfriend. This quickly evolves into a stream of content that gets more and more extreme, morphing boys into young men with low self-esteem, poor relationships, and a hatred of women. 

We may feel a desire to directly contradict and criticise this misogynistic content, but the project found this to be ineffective. Instead, the solution lies in creating a non-judgemental environment for young men to discuss and reflect on masculinity, relationships, and sex. These topics then can be more effectively explored through creative activities.  

“Most of us agree that equality between boys and girls is a good thing and want all children to live freely and feel safe. But girls are experiencing violence in schools and boys’ attitudes are becoming more misogynistic as they’re targeted by manosphere content online. This content harms young men’s relationships and mental health, as well as encouraging them to engage in violence against women and girls.  

The Many Good Men project shows how important it is for boys to have a safe and supportive space to critically engage and challenge such content, as well as expectations of gender, romantic relationships, and masculinity. ” – Rachel Adamson, Zero Tolerance Co-director 

“We were delighted to work with Zero Tolerance on this report. It added a huge value to our Many Good Men project as it allowed us to reflect and share the many discoveries we made in this forum theatre approach to addressing the radicalisation of masculinity online. We hope that those important discoveries will now be shared widely and that this will impact the implementation of polices around violence against women and children. Many Good Men demonstrated how impactful a forum theatre approach is for addressing online misogynistic content, particularly as it creates a safe and brave space for communities to come together, to listen to and support young people who experience the consequences of violent and hate filled online content.” – Clare Duffy, Civic Digits Director

To curb the threat of online radical misogyny, we must tackle the root cause: gender inequality. Zero Tolerance is calling on the Scottish Government to: 

1.Make it compulsory and statutory to provide comprehensive, gender-equal, culturally sensitive informationin relationships, sexual health and parenthood education (RSHP), so that young people do not have to resort to searching for information online.  

2.Strengthen ties between the youth work and education sectors, so that every young person in Scotland has a youth worker they can talk to and ask for information. Youth workers’ skills in relationship building and creating safe, non-judgemental relationships are vital.  

3.Collaborate with UK and international partners to regulate online platforms, reducing the amount of harmful content and preventing algorithms from promoting it. 

To learn more about the impact of extreme misogyny on young people read the new Many Good Men report. Over the course of 16 Days of Activism to End Gender Based Violence we will be releasing a series of podcasts discussing the key implications of this research.  

You can learn more about the Many Good Men project on Civic Digits website and watch the short film (3 mins) for the Many Good Men play. 

Read the Many Good Men full report,

Just want the highlights? Read the summary,

Super short on time? Get the headlines from our briefing!

New research on violence against disabled women: It's all about control!

We envision a Scotland where all women and girls are safe and equal citizens. Disabled women are our friends, colleagues, and family members, yet efforts to end men's violence against women often overlook their experiences.  

Men’s violence disproportionately affects disabled women, yet we have a limited understanding of the societal barriers that contribute to this violence and its specific forms. Prevention work rarely addresses disabled women’s unique needs or the intersection of gender inequality and discrimination against disabled people.

To create a Scotland where all women and girls can thrive, we must include disabled people in our planning and prevention efforts. This requires increasing our knowledge of disabled women’s experiences of this violence, actively involving them in developing solutions, and funding prevention work to be fully accessible.

That's why we partnered with Inclusion Scotland to conduct participatory research with disabled women on their experience of men's violence. Read the report, It's all about control!

By advancing both gender and disabled people’s equality, we can build a future where every woman lives with the dignity, respect, and the safety she deserves.

Girls have the right to be safe!

Girls have the right to be safe from violence under Article 19 of the UNCRC and General Recommendations 19 and 35 of CEDAW. 

We want Scotland to be one of the best places to grow up – a country of happy and healthy children.

But evidence shows that girls in Scotland face significant threats to their safety. Safety is a top concern for young girls, especially girls of colour (Girlguiding UK, 2022). Our Girls’ Rights Are Human Rights! report, highlights girls’ anxieties and experience of men’s violence. Girls can't access their rights to education, play, health and participation because they are not safe.

Effective human rights practice that considers girls’ experiences and needs can help end men’s violence against girls and make this Scotland a reality.

• New research shows that only 7% of girls feel completely safe in public spaces (Plan International UK, 2024).

 Harassment

• 1 in 5 girls aged 14-21 experienced public sexual harassment during the lockdown (Plan International UK, 2020).
• Girls feel increasingly unsafe as they get older: 20% of 7-10-year-olds, 31% of 11-16-year-olds, and 43% of 16-21-year-olds feel unsafe outside (Girlguiding Scotland, 2020).
• Women of colour face harassment involving both racial and gender slurs (Zero Tolerance, 2022).

Online Violence

• 71% of girls aged 7-21 experienced online harm in 2020 (Girlguiding UK, 2021).
• Half of girls aged 7-10, nearly 75% of 11-16-year-olds, and 90% of 17-21-year-olds face online violence (Girlguiding UK, 2021).
• Disabled girls, LGBT girls, and girls of colour are more likely to experience online harm (Girlguiding UK, 2022).

 Sexual Violence

• 1 in 3 girls aged 13-17 have experienced sexual violence (Scottish Government, 2018).
• Under-12s are most likely to experience sexual abuse, while 12-18-year-olds are most likely to experience rape (Police Scotland, 2023).
• 73% of girls do not report incidents due to fears of not being taken seriously or other concerns (LGBT Youth Scotland, 2020).

Recommendations

Evidence shows that girls in Scotland are not safe from harassment, online harm, sexual violence, or domestic abuse. To strengthen our Equally Safe Strategy to end men’s violence against women, we need policies that specifically address the unique challenges girls face to realise their right to safety fully.

 Alongside these policies we must:

• Consult with girls, especially marginalized groups, in policy development.
• Involve gender experts in policymaking.
• Ensure that the UNCRC and CEDAW are implemented together, focusing on girls' rights.
• Use gender-specific language to highlight girls' issues.
• Collect and analyse disaggregated data on girls' experiences.
• Fund and support organisations working with vulnerable girls.
• Educate policymakers and practitioners on gender-sensitive approaches to children’s rights.

We can create a Scotland free from men’s violence against women and girls!

Share our briefing on girls' right to safety!

 

References 

Girls’ Rights are Human Rights (2024) Zero Tolerance

Girlguiding Scotland (2020) Girls in Scotland 2020

Girlguiding UK (2021) Girls’ Attitudes Survey 2021

Girlguiding UK (2022) Girls’ Attitudes Survey 2022 

LGBT Youth Scotland (2020) LGBT Young Women & Girls in Scotland 2020 Consultation – Briefing

Plan International UK (2020) The State of Girls’ Rights in the UK: Early Insights into the Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Girls 

Police Scotland (2023) Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy 

Scottish Government (2018) Equally Safe: Scotland’s Strategy for Preventing and Eradicating Violence Against Women and Girls 

Zero Tolerance (2022) Future Tales Report