The Welsh Assembly Government has published its six year integrated strategy for tackling all forms of violence against women and domestic abuse.

The integrated strategy and implementation plan will address all forms of violence against women in Wales that extend beyond domestic abuse to tackle issues such as honour based violence, female genital mutilation and forced marriage.

The Strategy includes a number of initiatives and additional funding of £1 million is being made available to deliver these, taking the total budget to £4.7 million for 2010. Key priorities include:

• Expanding the services offered by the Wales Domestic Abuse helpline to also support victims of sexual violence
• A new project to tackle prostitution and trafficking in North Wales
• Increasing funding so that all One-Stop Shops in Wales receive support
• Developing a national training strategy to ensure that professionals in all sectors recognise and know how to deal with violence against women and the potential impact on children
• Continuing to fund on going publicity campaigns focused on challenging attitudes
• Consulting on the inclusion of issues relating to violence against women in the Personal and Social Education Framework
• A stronger focus on forced marriage, honour based violence and female genital mutilation issues including training, expanding existing education programmes, and publicity
• Providing financial training for key staff working in refuges and independent domestic abuse advisors to enable them to offer well informed financial advice to victims
• Working with NUS Cymru to develop a multi-media campaign on personal safety for students on campus settings
• Working with British Transport Police to improve the protection available to women on rail transport and railway stations.

The strategy is available to download from the Welsh Assembly Government website.