Experts call for stronger, joined-up response to strangulation as national conference brings together Government, criminal justice, health, education and VAWG leaders

Leading experts from Government, healthcare, criminal justice, research, education and the Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) sector will come together in Birmingham on Tuesday 8 September for the Institute for Addressing Strangulation (IFAS) Conference 2026.

The conference comes at a significant moment in the national response to strangulation, as growing understanding of its risks is accompanied by developments in legislation, research and professional practice – alongside increasing concern about the normalisation of strangulation during sex and the messages young people encounter through pornography, social media and peer conversations.

The Crime and Policing Act 2026 introduces new offences relating to the possession and publication of pornographic images depicting strangulation or suffocation, following recommendations from Baroness Bertin’s Independent Pornography Review.

Against this backdrop, IFAS Conference 2026: Addressing Strangulation in the Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy – Building a Safer Society for All will ask what needs to happen next: from improving criminal justice and safeguarding responses to strengthening education, clinical practice and the evidence base.

The conference will open with an address from Bernie Ryan OBE, Chief Executive of IFAS, followed by contributions from Satvir Kaur MP, Home Office Minister for Safeguarding and VAWG, and Dame Nicole Jacobs, Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales. Jess Asato MP, VAWG Adviser to the Department of Health and Social Care, will also address the conference. The programme brings together perspectives that are too often considered separately.

Sessions will examine recent research into non-fatal strangulation laws and their effects on intimate partner homicides; evidence concerning strangulation in stranger sexual violence; criminal justice processes; strangulation as cultural coercion within honour-based abuse; safeguarding; forensic medical evidence; conversations with young people; storytelling and prevention; and the importance of including men and boys in the conversation.

The criminal justice programme will include Andrea Griffiths, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor, and Jo Lazzari, District Crown Prosecutor at CPS North West, alongside expertise from across policing, research and forensic medicine. The National Crime Agency (NCA) will also contribute to the conference programme.

Bernie Ryan OBE, Chief Executive of the Institute for Addressing Strangulation, said:

“We have made significant progress in recognising strangulation for the serious and potentially life-threatening act that it is, but recognition alone is not enough.

“Strangulation reaches across health, criminal justice, safeguarding, education and violence against women and girls. We cannot address it effectively if those systems work in isolation.

“At the same time, we are seeing increasingly urgent conversations about strangulation during sex and what young people are encountering through pornography, social media and their peers. We need to respond with evidence, not judgement – giving young people, professionals and the wider public accurate information about what strangulation does to the body and why there is no safe way to strangle.

“This conference is about bringing evidence, expertise and lived experience together and asking what we need to do next. Ultimately, our ambition is not simply greater awareness of strangulation, but better responses and the prevention of harm.”

Survivor experience will also be central to the conference’s focus on strengthening professional responses. Julie, a survivor who has shared her experience with IFAS, said:

“Understanding how life-threatening strangulation is and the lasting physical and emotional impact of it on those who survive is important knowledge for professionals. Such knowledge can influence how they support and respond to survivors.”

The conference will also focus on how evidence can be translated into practical change.

Workshops will bring together expertise from the National Crime Agency, forensic medicine and IFAS to consider how the best strangulation forensic medical evidence can be brought into the courtroom. Other workshops will explore how professionals can have better conversations about strangulation with young people, and how safeguarding responses can be strengthened, with contributions from SafeLives and members of the IFAS Survivor Group.

The afternoon programme will examine the power of storytelling to engage young people, led by Tender and IFAS, followed by Including Men and Boys in the Conversation, with Beyond Equality and the End Violence Against Women Coalition.

The conference reflects IFAS’s wider work to improve understanding of strangulation and strengthen responses to those affected, bringing together clinical expertise, research, professional training and survivor-informed practice.

ENDS

Notes to editors

IFAS Conference 2026 takes place on Tuesday 8 September 2026 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Birmingham.

The conference theme is Addressing Strangulation in the Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy: Building a Safer Society for All.

The programme brings together speakers and contributors from Government, healthcare, criminal justice, academia, education and the VAWG sector, including IFAS, the Home Office, Crown Prosecution Service, National Crime Agency, SafeLives, End Violence Against Women Coalition, Beyond Equality, Tender, University of Exeter, University of Bedfordshire and Recultured, alongside members of the IFAS Survivor Group.

The Crime and Policing Act 2026 introduces new offences relating to the possession and publication of pornographic images depicting strangulation or suffocation.

The Institute for Addressing Strangulation (IFAS) works to improve understanding of strangulation and the response to those affected through research, clinical expertise, professional training, resources and survivor-informed practice.