[This article is written with reference to the Harrow Council website’s information titled Harrow speaks up about Violence Against Women and Girls]
Harrow Council’s recent work on violence against women and girls shows good intentions, but the substance remains thin and the impact hard to see. Its most concrete achievement is commissioning Cranstoun to deliver specialist domestic abuse support, giving survivors access to advocacy, refuge and practical help.
The council has also engaged residents through its Safer Spaces Survey, inviting women and girls to pinpoint unsafe areas, and claims to act on this through targeted “Days and Nights of Action.” Annual campaigns such as White Ribbon Day, the Walk for Women and messaging on online misogyny further signal a willingness to speak publicly and promote awareness.
Yet the limits of Harrow’s approach are stark. The Safer Spaces Survey has reached only a tiny portion of residents, producing too little data to drive real change. More seriously, there is no clear evidence that unsafe locations are being systematically improved. Those who report dark walkways or intimidating hotspots have no way of knowing whether anything beyond occasional patrols is happening. This raises the question whether community input is genuinely acted on or simply collected for show.
A deeper flaw is Harrow’s reliance on reactive responses. Supporting survivors is vital, but the borough offers almost nothing that targets perpetrators – no behaviour-change programmes, no community interventions, no serious prevention strategy. While neighbouring boroughs address the roots of male violence, Harrow leans heavily on symbolic actions: walks, awareness campaigns and online messaging. Useful for visibility, they are not structural responses and do little to shift the conditions that allow violence and harassment to continue.
Transparency is also missing. The council publishes crime statistics, but not outcomes. Residents cannot see whether survivors are safer long-term, whether reoffending is falling, or whether public-space initiatives make a measurable difference. Without this, the strategy is impossible to judge. Underreporting further clouds the picture; Harrow’s low figures may reflect silence rather than safety, especially without proactive outreach to build trust among marginalised or migrant communities.
The result is a strategy that looks active but lacks depth. Harrow talks about “speaking up,” yet its practical measures fall short of what is needed to reduce violence in any enduring way. Compared with boroughs that run multi-agency strategies, perpetrator programmes and long-term prevention work, Harrow’s approach feels piecemeal and under-ambitious.
If the borough is serious about protecting women and girls, it must move beyond symbolic gestures and invest in structural change: long-term prevention funding, targeted perpetrator interventions, safer public-space design and full transparency about what works. Until then, Harrow risks mistaking activity for progress.
The council has also engaged residents through its Safer Spaces Survey, inviting women and girls to pinpoint unsafe areas, and claims to act on this through targeted “Days and Nights of Action.” Annual campaigns such as White Ribbon Day, the Walk for Women and messaging on online misogyny further signal a willingness to speak publicly and promote awareness.
Yet the limits of Harrow’s approach are stark. The Safer Spaces Survey has reached only a tiny portion of residents, producing too little data to drive real change. More seriously, there is no clear evidence that unsafe locations are being systematically improved. Those who report dark walkways or intimidating hotspots have no way of knowing whether anything beyond occasional patrols is happening. This raises the question whether community input is genuinely acted on or simply collected for show.
A deeper flaw is Harrow’s reliance on reactive responses. Supporting survivors is vital, but the borough offers almost nothing that targets perpetrators – no behaviour-change programmes, no community interventions, no serious prevention strategy. While neighbouring boroughs address the roots of male violence, Harrow leans heavily on symbolic actions: walks, awareness campaigns and online messaging. Useful for visibility, they are not structural responses and do little to shift the conditions that allow violence and harassment to continue.
Transparency is also missing. The council publishes crime statistics, but not outcomes. Residents cannot see whether survivors are safer long-term, whether reoffending is falling, or whether public-space initiatives make a measurable difference. Without this, the strategy is impossible to judge. Underreporting further clouds the picture; Harrow’s low figures may reflect silence rather than safety, especially without proactive outreach to build trust among marginalised or migrant communities.
The result is a strategy that looks active but lacks depth. Harrow talks about “speaking up,” yet its practical measures fall short of what is needed to reduce violence in any enduring way. Compared with boroughs that run multi-agency strategies, perpetrator programmes and long-term prevention work, Harrow’s approach feels piecemeal and under-ambitious.
If the borough is serious about protecting women and girls, it must move beyond symbolic gestures and invest in structural change: long-term prevention funding, targeted perpetrator interventions, safer public-space design and full transparency about what works. Until then, Harrow risks mistaking activity for progress.
Harrow Monitoring Group 