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order for the state to uphold its positive obligations toward
prevention of VAW, the scope of those obligations has to be
specified in a way “that does not impose an impossible or
disproportionate burden on the authorities and that it does not
apply to every alleged risk of life” (Manjoo, 2015: 13). How fitting
these injunctions are, and how neatly fitted within them, it appears,
is the policing approach.
VI. Conclusion
The policing approach presented here spells out the legal
measures and strategic police practices with the greatest potential to
make a genuine difference in bringing about the prevention of
VAW. It does not blindly follow the consensus on multi-pronged
approaches, large-scale interventions, or both. It does serve as a
reminder, though, that seemingly intractable global problems,
including VAW, can easily divert our attention from the less grand
but no less important nuts-and-bolts dynamics by which they might
begin to be dealt with.
Naturally, certain caveats apply. As with all solutions, the
pre-requisite political will to take seriously the phenomenon of
gender violence that includes VAW must obtain.
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That involves,
for example, not playing politics with legislations that mandate and
provide funding for preventative instruments such as special task
forces to preempt violence against women. Outside the political
sphere and the legal enforcement of political will, at the level of
society-at-large, civic associations and advocacy groups of liberal
democracies have the moral duty to promote and help establish the
equal respect and the equal consideration of women and
girl-children as society-wide norms. Notably, a constitutional equal
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Efforts by the newly created political party “Women’s Equality,” which has
recruited more than 30,000 supporters since March 2015, should inspire some
optimism about the British civil society’s capacities to promote equality,
especially gender equality (Cocozza, 2015; Smith, 2015).
