London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Thursday urged legislators to make misogyny a hate crime.

       Appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain programme, Khan described violence targeting women and girls as an “epidemic”.

       “Between last year’s International Women’s Day and this year’s International Women’s Day, 180 women were killed at the hands of men across the country,” Khan said.

       “We do have an epidemic when it comes to violence against women and girls,” he said.

       Khan said: “Girls at a young age are changing the way they dress on the way to school because of the way they are treated by boys.

       “I think we need to make misogyny a hate crime. I think harassment in the public space against women should be a criminal offence,” he added.

       Khan’s intervention came following the murder of a primary school teacher last weekend.

       Sabina Ness, 28, was attacked as she was taking a five-minute walk from home to meet her friends on Friday night.

       Her body was found near the OneSpace community centre at Kidbrooke Park Road in Greenwich on Saturday, nearly 24 hours after the murder, according to the Metropolitan Police.

       In July, the British government released a strategy to fight violence against women and girls, pledging better support services for minority communities and a public health campaign to focus on perpetrator behaviour.