Too often victims feel intimidated and forgotten, treated as an afterthought by a 'system' that makes their already horrific experience worse. As Victims' Minister my role is to champion the needs of victims and ensure that their voices are heard. One of the ways I am tackling this is by revising the Victims' Code.

Human trafficking is a scourge. It does not discriminate and permeates across age, race, sex and gender; it crushes self confidence and destroys lives. Its victims are often some of the most vulnerable members of society, separated from family and friends and with no access to financial help or support, they can become forgotten victims. As victims' minister my role is to ensure that they are not forgotten, but it is a job I can't do alone.

In England and Wales one in four women will be the victim of domestic abuse over the course of their lifetime, and in the last year around 400,000 women were sexually assaulted and 60,000 raped. Behind each of those horrifying statistics is a woman or child whose life has been ruined.

Stalking is a real problem in the UK - in the last year, 4% of women and 3% of men reported having experienced stalking (Crime Survey for England and Wales 2011/12). For those affected it can have serious and long term impact.

Adoption is widely regarded as a perfect arrangement for all parties and whilst it does generally benefit everyone involved, it is naive, one-dimensional and even dangerous to assume that it is a purely positive event without repercussions.

That people in Syria are dying is obvious: a casual eye cast over the newstands confirm what we all suspect. The society there is being torn apart thr...

The truth of the matter is that if you are a victim of crime you may have a lot to thank the EU for, and a lot to lose if Britain pulls out of measures it has just recently signed up to.

Former children's minister Tim Loughton has said the real issue of child abuse is being detracted from by a "witch hunt around celebrities and high pr...

Even the strongest defenders of Julian Assange should have been shaking their heads in despair as the artist formally known as Gorgeous George described the idea of a man having sex with a woman who is sleeping as merely being "bad sexual etiquette" that was "not rape as anyone with any sense can possibly recognise it.

A matter of form, part of the procedure, a formality - the European Parliament's scrutiny of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) wasn't expected to bring any surprises. After all, it had already been negotiated by major industrialised countries around the world, including the US and had received the European Commission's blessing and the backing of EU member states.

How could a 10 or 11-year-old girl be expected to tell the police that she went shoplifting as a cry for help or act of desperation to get food because she is living rough and last night she was raped by eight men? When we are dealing with child sexual abuse it is never, never up to the child to deal with it and quite wrong that they could face punishment if they fail to reveal.

Getting it right for victims and witnesses should be about putting their needs at the heart of changes, not making proposals which have the potential to abandon them when they are at their most vulnerable.

I believe passionately that a civilised society looks after people who've been preyed on by criminals. That means supporting victims and witnesses, wherever they are, to help them find the strength to move on with their lives after crime.