Netsai Mushonga is one of a courageous band of women in Zimbabwe who are outspoken fighters for women's rights. In London for a House of Commons event to mark the start of a week of events in the UN's End Violence Against Women campaign, she made the telling observation that she finds the more politicians beat up their opponents, the more men feel OK about beating up their wives. It is not a scholarly proof, but another speaker, Selay Ghaffar from Afghanistan, reported the same experience among women in Kabul. One way to tackle violence, these women said, was to end the culture of impunity, where both the state and the judicial system either discriminates against, or worse, ignores women's claims. In neither Zimbabwe nor Afghanistan, they argued, was British influence being used energetically enough to defend women. That's true in Britain too. Cultural norms matter everywhere.
So it was good news when the Home Office's gangs study earlier this month highlighted the way young women as well as men are exposed to violence: campaigning groups have found the coalition impressively open to their arguments. But, as we report today, they also find that for every step forward, there are at least two back. So in March the home secretary's action plan to end violence against women was well received. But now – as the Women's Institute (nemesis of another prime minister) is arguing – the justice secretary Ken Clarke is heading in the opposite direction, trying to restrict legal aid to women who are victims of domestic violence.
It is true that there is no one formula that can deal with every aspect of the problem, but it cannot make women safer if it is harder for them to bring an attacker to justice, any more than reducing street lighting will. Where violence occurs which appears culturally sanctioned, it is even harder to fight. So-called honour killings, forced marriage, or identifying those at risk of female genital mutilation (still no prosecutions, eight years after it was banned) do not respond to conventional approaches through community or religious leaders.
Part of the answer is to make sure there are support workers available where victims are most likely to feel safe, at school, say, or in an antenatal clinic. And it has to be incontrovertible there is no cultural excuse for what is entirely a matter of child protection. This is just as true in the wider culture. Somehow, after 40 years of feminism, intelligent young women claim that pole dancing is a reasonable way of keeping fit, while rape pages linger undisturbed by Facebook's zero-tolerance policy. Politicians resorting to violence. A society comfortable with sexual exploitation. Global trouble for women.