In a drive to tackle violence against women and girls,
festivalgoers at Reading and Leeds Festival saw powerful
messaging raising awareness of abusive behaviours displayed over
the weekend.
Reaching hundreds of thousands of festivalgoers, the campaign
highlighted examples of abusive behaviours that often go
unrecognised, while encouraging those whose actions may cause
harm to reflect on their own behaviour. This follows a summer of
campaigning at concerts and live music events to say enough to
violence against women and girls, including Latitude Festival
earlier this summer.
Taking the ENOUGH campaign to some of the UK's biggest festivals
means reaching hundreds of thousands of young people at scale
with messages that are proven to shift attitudes and spark
reflection, ensuring more people understand their role in
preventing violence against women and girls (VAWG).
As well as partnering with Festival Republic, the government is
working alongside Thames Valley Police and West Yorkshire Police
to ensure abuse is challenged and everyone plays a role in making
women and girls safe.
The government's mission to halve violence against women and
girls in a decade has never been more important. Recent figures
estimate that around 1 million adults aged 16 and over
experienced sexual victimisation in the year ending March 2026.
The news comes as a series of measures were unveiled to restore
hope to communities by making women and girls safer. All part of
sweeping reforms to ensure policing responds to the needs of
people.
Minister for Safeguarding and Violence against Women and Girls,
said:
Violence against women and girls devastates lives and we are
determined to halve this issue in a decade.
To succeed in this mission, we must drive change in every arena
of our society. By speaking directly to young men and women at
Reading and Leeds, highlighting examples of abusive behaviours
that too often go unrecognised, we can help drive that change.
This is just one step as we continue the vital work of making
this country safe for women and girls.
Minister for Women and Equalities, , said:
Challenging violence against women and girls and misogynistic
views is everyone's business.
We all have a part to play in calling it out, and the ENOUGH
campaign as part of festival season is an important step in
stamping out behaviour that is too often normalised.
Halving violence against women and girls is one of this
government's key commitments, and from calling out misogyny to
using the full force of the law, we will use every lever
available to keep women and girls safe.
Managing Director Festival Republic, Melvin Benn said:
We are proud to partner with the UK government on the ENOUGH
campaign. Creating safe, inclusive, and welcoming environments is
at the heart of what we do across all of our events. By
supporting the ENOUGH initiative at Reading and Leeds, we are
empowering our community to recognise and safely intervene
against harmful behaviours in their daily lives, whilst ensuring
they know that support is always visible and accessible on-site.
Detective Chief Inspector Thames Valley Police Laura Corscadden,
said:
Our Consent Conversations campaign has been really successful at
Reading Festival in previous years. We've been able to get young
people talking openly about the topic, which is fantastic to see
as education and prevention is so crucial. Consent is rarely
black and white, and we want to discuss the grey areas.
We're looking forward to returning this year with our colleagues
from West Yorkshire Police at Leeds Festival and hope to inspire
important conversations about consent throughout the country.
Consent Conversations was developed by Thames Valley Police and
production company Breaking Barriers in 2024 and has been
delivered in collaboration with agencies across the Thames Valley
and campaigner Georgia Harrison MBE, to spark meaningful and
ongoing conversations around consent in all its
forms. Consent is something that needs to be discussed, and
we urge people everywhere to start the conversation and check
that your friends understand.
Alongside the festival partnership, the government is delivering
the largest crackdown on violence against women and girls in
British history. This includes directing all police forces to
introduced specialist rape and sexual offence investigation teams
to hunt down perpetrators, rolling out domestic abuse protection
orders nationally and embedding domestic abuse specialist in 999
control rooms.
