This is an important book. It should be read by all teachers, youth workers, social workers and, indeed, anyone who comes into contact with children and young people. All politicians and the general public should read it, too, in order to gain a better understanding of the world in which young people these days are seeking to thrive or at least to survive. Without an appreciation of the pressures upon them and the dangers they face, how can we hope to offer the younger generation our protection, support or help with recovery if the worst does happen to them?

During my academic career, when I was actively researching violence against women and children, I was often asked how I could bear to work in such a painful area. Certainly, there were times when I wept over my computer, so harrowing were the accounts that were shared with our teams in research interviews. Yet two factors outweighed this. First was the privilege of encountering the enormous strength and resilience of survivors. One young man, for example, insisted on carrying on with his interview, through tears, in a fervent wish to enable others to benefit from his experiences. He trusted us to listen, learn and do all we could to bring about change. Consequently, the second factor that motivated us was the crucial challenge of attempting to find out what we could do about violence and abuse: what would help those on the receiving end; what would make the abusers stop; and, the Holy Grail, what would stop abuse from happening in the first place. This book focuses on the last of these goals – primary prevention – and demonstrates that there are indeed many inspiring projects already in place over a wide geographical area, tackling a range of forms of violence and abuse against women and girls. Critically, all the projects outlined in the chapters that follow place gender at the heart of their work and give us reason to hope that, with our help, both young men and young women may learn a new way of relating in the future.

This is certainly needed. In our research, colleagues and I discovered that one in three secondary-age boys we questioned believed that some women deserve to be hit while, even among girls, one in five agreed with this chilling statement.