Safeguarding will keep failing while reputation matters more than women’s safety

Rolling coverage dissects personalities, networks and salacious details. Yet amid the noise, something essential is being obscured.

This is not a circus.

It is violence against women and girls, it is exploitation, it is abuse. It is wrong.

But when the focus is on the girls, they are spoken about as commodities within a scandal narrative. Their exploitation becomes a plotline. Their suffering is a vehicle for outrage.

For those of us who have worked for decades to end violence against women and girls (VAWG), there is a familiar pattern. A shocking case emerges. Public condemnation follows. Institutional actors express surprise. Commitments are made. Then attention shifts, while the underlying conditions remain largely intact.

What is being presented as an extraordinary criminal enterprise is, in reality, indicative of a wider ecosystem.

These cases do not exist in isolation.

They are enabled by cultures in which power protects power, where reputation management is prioritised over safeguarding, and where informal networks operate with little ethical or moral scrutiny.

We speak of “cover-ups” as though they are dramatic conspiracies. More often, they are incremental acts of omission. Decisions not to pursue concerns.

Rationalisations that an individual’s influence outweighs their risk. Quiet calculations that proximity to power is too valuable to jeopardise.

How often do leaders in politics, business or media make a conscious decision to hire, platform or defend individuals whose histories raise legitimate safeguarding questions? How often is the calculus made that the reputational cost is manageable, or that allegations can be contained?

If those at the apex of political life demonstrate a willingness to overlook troubling histories in the pursuit of strategic advantage, even those who pride themselves – nay define themselves in terms of their integrity - we should not be surprised when corporate leaders adopt the same reasoning.

Norms are set from the top.

When ethical compromise is normalised among the powerful, it cascades through institutions.

This is why such cases must be understood not merely as criminal matters but as failures of governance and personal responsibility.

Every professional network contains degrees of self-interest. Networks, after all, are how influence circulates, and opportunities are distributed. But without robust ethical guardrails, without transparent processes and meaningful accountability, networks become vehicles for exclusion and harm.

The informal principle of “give to get”, the theme of International Women’s Day this year, can easily mutate into a transactional relationship which benefits some and does active harm to others, creating a culture of silence around those who are pawns in these relationships of the powerful.

The question, therefore, is not whether this particular case is shocking. It is whether we are prepared to confront the structural conditions that make such abuse possible.

Safeguarding cannot remain a performative exercise activated only in moments of crisis. It must be embedded in day-to-day decision-making: in recruitment, appointments, funding decisions, and media coverage.

Is there transparency in selection processes for public office?

Are concerns escalated without fear or favour?

Are allegations taken seriously irrespective of status?

Are whistleblowers protected?

Are women, girls, and those with less entitlement believed?

I have learned that meaningful change is rarely dramatic. It is procedural. It is cultural. It is sustained. It requires institutions to value integrity over access and accountability over convenience.

Until power ceases to shield itself at the expense of the vulnerable, these stories will continue to surface, not as anomalies but as symptoms.

The true test is not how loudly we condemn when headlines break. It is whether we alter the systems that made those headlines inevitable.

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Helen Pankhurst CBE is the great-granddaughter of Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, and Convenor of Centenary - a cross-party feminist organisation of politicians and activists.

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