What is it with the Conservatives and history? Maria Miller, the woman and equalities minister, and London's mayor, Boris Johnson, both chose to mark International Women's Day with events celebrating the contribution and role of women in the first world war. All very laudable, but there is a battle waging right now that affects us all and every single politician should be focusing on what can be done about it.

The extent of violence against women and girls is so widespread across Europe that the author of an alarming report this week called it an "extensive human rights abuse". Morten Kjaerum, director of FRA, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, wasn't talking about the Republic of Congo, or Afghanistan - or any of the other countries that have become bywords for gender inequality - but countries otherwise lauded for their human rights records. Places like Denmark, Finland, Sweden and the UK, where between 44% and 52% of the female population reported having suffered physical or sexual violence since the age of 15.

Violence of any kind is abhorrent of course - a hideous and painful way to assert power - and women are by no means the only victims. But all those who greet every study of this kind - and there have been several - with the fact that men suffer violence too seem to me to be presenting an argument akin to suggesting that we shouldn't worry about child abuse because kids smack pets too. According to the report, one in three of the 42,000 women in 28 countries in the European Union surveyed reported being the victim of some kind of abuse. Imagine if that statistic dealt with a disease, or any other life-threatening complaint? There would be an outcry the like of which would have every policy maker working together on a solution.

To be fair to Miller and Johnson, others in government are largely responsible for trying to tackle the issue of violence against women: the Home Office with crime, the Department for Education on how we teach young men and women about the issue, and the Department for Health on the long-term consequences of abuse, which often starts in childhood. But this is a subject that cuts across all departments and needs a coordinated approach.

Some parts of the government seem to get it, particularly the fact that attitudes towards sex and violence start early. More than half of the 1,100 calls made to the Rape Crisis helpline in the three months to the end of January reported violence committed before the victim turned 18. The "This is Abuse" campaign, led by the Home Office and which is due to launch an online drive in the next few weeks, aims to teach boys about the issue of consent.

The double standards that condemn young girls as "sluts" for engaging in sex, while boys are "studs", does the latter no favours either. Working on the coal face, Fiona Elvines, coordinator at Rape Crisis South London and researcher for the Children's Commissioner on the issue, says: "Young men are using sex with women as a battleground to prove that they are masculine and heterosexual."

This is not all young men by any means, yet evidence suggests that violence against women, once started, is habit-forming.

The two changes announced by the Home Office on Friday - the national rollout of Clare's Law and domestic violence protection orders - offer some protection to victims of violence against women. But there is so much more to be done. Increased awareness, largely a result of the Jimmy Savile scandal, led to a 20% increase in calls to Rape Crisis in the year after the story broke. Yet those calls are going largely unheeded if the number of complaints considered for prosecution by the police is anything to go by.

And there are signs of a backlash. After each celebrity acquittal, the calls in the media and indeed down the pub to call off the search and let these old men go back to their happy memories of the way we lived seem to escalate.

There is much to celebrate this International Women's Day - including the unsung and vital role of women in the first world war - but if we are to pick one issue to focus on for the denizens of the whole world (not even just half of them) violence against women should be it.