UK Policing HeForShe Event – ‘Working Together’

Police forces across the UK came together in South Wales on Wednesday 1st May 2024 for a national HeForShe event. The event focused on the theme of ‘Working Together’ and how policing can work together towards gender equality. Speakers highlighted progress and shared good practice of how HeForShe is embedded within police forces and its impact is being spread wider. 

Seven individual police forces spoke about how they have embedded HeForShe principles and shared good practice as to how they have furthered the reach of the movement. This included Northants Police who held a Challenging Misogyny event with their local fire and rescue service, City of London Police who worked with local partners to keep women in their communities safer and Police Scotland who worked hard to raise the profile of their women’s rugby games and engaged with their male players to become HeForShe Allies.

The event was held at South Wales Police HQ in Bridgend, in their new, purpose-built, Police Learning Centre. Chief Constable Jeremy Vaughan is the UK Policing Lead for HeForShe, he said

“It has been great to come together as a network and look at how we can further the HeForShe movement and how we can work together towards gender equality.

“Now, more than ever, it is important that we engage men in our organisations about the importance of gender equality activity and tackle the sexism and misogyny that we know exists”.

Representatives from the Movember movement attended the event and provided powerful insights on their work around men’s health. Movember has worked closely with HeForShe around dismantling harmful male stereotypes and were part of the ‘Disrupting the Narrative on Men and Boys’ panel at the 2023 HeForShe Summit. Their session concluded with a panel where officers and staff from South Wales Police spoke about how they support Movember every year and challenge their male friends and colleagues to be more aware of their physical and mental health, and seek support as required.

The day also had a section for structured networking where forces had to go and speak to three other forces to share information, questions and good practice in terms of their journey towards meeting their HeForShe commitments.

UK policing reports on its progress in an annual report. Their fifth annual report was launched in December 2023.