This weekend, 8 new venues from Newcastle joined Shout-Up! as Ambassador venues. Shout-Up! asks everyone to adopt a zero-tolerance approach to sexual harassment, making our bars, pubs and clubs safer places for women and men. Shout-Up! was conceived by Newcastle City Council's Safe Newcastle, Crystlsd and Rape Crisis Tyneside and Northumberland and launched in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 2017.Teams from all venues have received training, participated in workshops and are committed to creating sexual harassment-free zones in our city.

A leading Coalition of women’s organisations has written to Education Secretary Damian Hinds MP saying that the Government’s ‘Relationships and Sex Education’ proposals are poor and will fail girls unless significantly amended and joined up to other school policies. Women’s groups fear that if implemented the proposed ‘Relationships and Sex Education’ statutory guidance will be a missed opportunity to ensure schools are part of efforts to end and prevent abuse of women and girls. Read more on the End Violence Against Women Coalition website. 

Listen to the latest SafeLives Spotlight podcast, Survivors and mental health services, where Jessica Southgate from Agenda talks about how mental health services are treating women. 

The Home Office has published the second progress report on the UK's ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul convention), which describes actions taken since the publication of the first report in 2017. The progress report provides a breakdown of progress by the four nations relating to the prosecution, protection and prevention of violence against women and girls.