We owe it to every victim of Jeffrey Epstein to better protect British women and girls. And we will | Jess Phillips

"It always takes a calamity a dreadful murder that reaches every front page, a mass paedophile ring being uncovered, or a political scandal unfolding to make institutions sit up and act on violence against women and children. These windows of potential energy are never wasted by women's rights activists. Historically, they have used them to build the #MeToo movement, to fight for legislation change and to push for greater resources for victims. I've done it, many times never waste a crisis is my mantra."

"In the past few weeks, while the nation's attention has been on the political fallout from the Epstein files, I have seen the opportunity to push for more, for better. To move beyond the throwaway line about the victims being the most important thing and to actually make them just that. Deeds not words are what matter. If repentance and sorrow is all we achieve out of the courage of the Epstein victims, we will have failed; change is all that will suffice."

"When we were writing Labour's violence against women and girls strategy, this was always at the forefront of my mind. The fact that we couldn't once again just have some nice prepackaged policy that we could pull off a shelf when the going got tough. It had to be long-term, systemic change in our police, in our courts, in our health services, our armed forces, our housing, our schools."

High-profile calamities—dreadful murders, mass paedophile ring revelations, and political scandals—trigger institutional responses to violence against women and children. Women's rights activists leverage these moments to build movements, push for legislative change, and secure greater resources for victims. Repentance and sorrow alone are insufficient; measurable, lasting change is necessary. Current systems often act reactively, creating frustration that progress depends on crises. Long-term, systemic reforms are required across police, courts, health services, armed forces, housing, and schools, with a focus on prevention and shared responsibility across government departments rather than siloed ownership.

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