Hansard

I join Monica Lennon in welcoming Marion and George McMillan and Marion Scott to the gallery. The unimaginable cruelty of forced adoption is something that I do not think that any of us can fully comprehend. I have three girls and I cannot imagine what it would have been like for me to have been forced to give them up. On behalf of the Opposition, I welcome and echo the First Minister’s words and say sorry on behalf of the Parliament to all those who suffered. We can never make up for the trauma that you went through, but I hope that the apology from the nation is some small comfort.

Today is a good day to be a woman in Scotland and the United Kingdom. That is not to say that better times do not lie ahead. On that note, I wish Nicola Sturgeon all the best in whatever the rest of her political career brings. For a woman who is living and growing up here, today can be a day to celebrate, proud of all that women have achieved in this world and looking forward to a future that is unencumbered by misogynistic barriers of old.

I listened with interest to Beatrice Wishart, who spoke about women who have been prevented from fully participating in the workforce, and the inequalities faced by older women, who, as she quite rightly said, have much to offer. Gillian Martin spoke about the need to work to narrow the gender pay gap, and Pauline McNeill and Natalie Don spoke about the impact of the rising cost of living on women.

In contrast to the freedom that women and girls have here, it is important that we acknowledge women in other parts of the world who, by virtue of their biology, are denied so many of the rights that we take for granted.

Today in the chamber, we join millions across the world in celebrating international women’s day. My colleagues Meghan Gallacher and Clare Adamson spoke about violations of women’s rights across the globe. Foysol Choudhury highlighted the plight of displaced women in war, particularly in Ukraine. In Afghanistan, there will be no celebration. Instead, Afghan women face subjugation. In the UK, women are well ahead of men in university admissions, but this year, no women in Afghanistan will even have the opportunity to apply. Indeed, under the Taliban Government, education at any level has become all but inaccessible for women and girls.

ActionAid has welcomed the women and girls empowerment fund that the Scottish Government has launched, but it wants to see evidence of how the fund will work in practice, because the detail is yet to be published. It is important for the Scottish Government to monitor that.

In 1979, when the UK’s first female Prime Minister was elected, there ceased to be any limits on what a woman in Britain could achieve in politics, as my colleague Sue Webber mentioned. However, there are still countries where for women to participate in democracy is to put their lives on the line. I believe that that point is worth dwelling on for a minute.

Organisations such as Women2Win have championed the participation of women in politics, and people such as Theresa May and Anne Jenkin have been at the forefront of that work to ensure that hundreds of women are elected to public office. I am very proud to be part of that organisation, which does so much to further the role of women in politics.

However, while we enjoy that support and encouragement, women in patriarchal societies continue to have their suffrage—never mind their prospects of election to public office—suppressed through violence, intimidation and regressive national attitudes. Today, we must call out the countries that have those attitudes and suppress women’s suffrage, and I have no doubt that everyone in this chamber will join me in doing so.

Of course, internationally, suffrage is not the only issue that women must contend with. Time will, most certainly, not permit me to cover everything, but, since hosting a debate in 2021 on endometriosis, which blights the lives of so many women in Scotland and internationally, I have been keen to understand the global picture of women’s health.

During cervical cancer awareness month, in January, we heard from Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust that Malawi has the highest levels of mortality related to that dreadful disease. With our sights set on eliminating cervical cancer as a public health problem here, it is important to acknowledge the disparities in women’s health across the globe, particularly in relation to largely preventable diseases, such as cervical cancer. Resources for healthcare might be scarce where that disease is most prevalent, but the taboo nature of women’s health in some of those areas can also act as a barrier to treatment and prevention. Cervical cancer is not the only disease that has a higher prevalence where those attitudes persist. Rates of sexually transmitted diseases and blood-borne viruses are higher in many countries that are typically perceived as being patriarchal.

Closer to home, women’s health concerns still require more attention. I pay tribute to my colleague, Douglas Ross, who has persistently and passionately campaigned to reinstate consultant-led maternity services at Dr Gray’s hospital in Elgin.

Pam Duncan-Glancy also brought up a really important point when she spoke about the need for safe access to women’s healthcare, particularly in relation to Gillian Mackay’s recent abortion services summit, which we attended, on creating buffer zones to protect women when they access safe healthcare.

I go back to endometriosis. It is clear that we have a lot more work to do in Scotland to improve women’s healthcare services. I have recently spoken to women who poignantly talked about the impact that that debilitating condition has on their life. Women wait a long time for diagnosis, never mind treatment. During that time, the condition can leave them crippled with pain and sometimes unable to work.

I recently wrote to the newly appointed Scottish Government women’s health champion to highlight women’s concerns and call for the establishment of a specialist service covering each health board in Scotland. I very much look forward to receiving her response and to working with the Scottish Government and the cross-party group on women’s health to improve health services for women across the country. This morning’s news that a new treatment for endometriosis is being trialled across the country is also incredibly welcome.

Just as Jenni Minto spoke about Jodie and her motor sport ambitions, and her Argyll and Bute constituency, I want to finish my speech by talking about some of the incredible achievements of women from my constituency in the Borders over the past year. I congratulate Lana Skeldon and Chloe Rollie for doing Scotland proud at last year’s rugby world cup, Sammi Kinghorn for smashing record after record in wheelchair racing, Eryn Rae for being crowned Scotland’s young traditional musician of the year, and Rachel Gardiner, a community learning disability nurse in the Borders, who was awarded the prestigious Queen’s nurse title. Those are just some of the incredible women in the Borders I am proud to represent in the Parliament.

Having reflected on my colleague Roz McCall’s speech, which I thought was excellent and thought provoking on this international women’s day, I will close by saying that, despite women making up half the planet’s population, many have no voice. We are the lucky ones, so let us not waste our voice but use it to help others. The right to speak is a wealth that we take for granted, so let us not waste it but help to redistribute it.