Imkaan Statement on Government Funding for Perpetrator Programmes 

“Imkaan recognises the urgent need to address the root causes of violence against women and girls (VAWG), and we support the principle that perpetrators must be held accountable for their actions through evidence-based, whole-system interventions. 

However, we are deeply concerned by the government’s decision to channel significant funding into perpetrator programmes without a parallel and sustained investment in specialist services led by and for Black and minoritised women and girls' services. 

This approach represents a profound imbalance in the current VAWG response. Perpetrator interventions cannot and must not be seen as a substitute for survivor support. Services run by Black and minoritised women are already under extreme pressure, with little to no core funding, and limited access to national and local programmes. These services are often the only trusted spaces for Black and minoritised women who face multiple forms of discrimination and marginalisation. 

Expanding a single intervention model at pace, particularly one that has been evaluated on a narrow subset of domestic abuse perpetrators, risks destabilising the wider VAWG sector. It also contradicts the government’s stated aim to halve VAWG over a decade, a goal that cannot be met without properly resourcing holistic, frontline, community-based, survivor-led Black and minoritised specialist organisations. 

We welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement today of a civil society covenant to shift power to communities and the resetting of the relationship between government and civil society. These are positive and necessary steps. The shift in power is most urgently needed when it comes to recognising and resourcing the communities that face the greatest marginalisation. These are often the very groups that have developed trusted, specialist services that understand the specific needs, contexts, and barriers their communities face. Without their inclusion, there is a risk of overlooking the ‘by and for’ VAWG services that many Black and minoritised women already turn to, and trust, for their safety and protection. 

Prime Minister Keir Starmer rightly recognised  that some organisations have “the power to reach into places the government can’t” - yet many of the services with this unique reach, including ‘by and for’ organisations are excluded from mainstream systems of funding and decision-making. Their limited visibility in today’s announcements risks repeating old patterns, where organisations delivering essential frontline work remain underfunded. 

For this to truly be a whole system approach, it must meaningfully involve the organisations best equipped to lead change. That includes ‘by and for', community-rooted, and survivor-led organisations - not as an afterthought, but as central partners in shaping the way forward.  

We urge the government to take a whole-system approach to ending violence, one that centres the needs, safety, and leadership of survivors, particularly those most often excluded from state responses. Without equitable investment across the sector, especially in holistic long-term preventative and crisis-based support, led by and for Black and minoritised women, this funding decision risks reinforcing systemic inequalities and delivering short-term results at the expense of long-term change. 

Imkaan stands ready to engage with government and partners to develop an integrated, survivor-centred strategy that does not leave the most marginalised behind.”

ENDS