Hansard

I will start by saying a few words about the intention behind the Labour amendment. It replaces the word “welcomes” in the motion with the word “acknowledges”, so that the motion would read that the Parliament

“acknowledges the inaugural meeting of the Equally Safe Joint Strategic Board.”

We are of course very pleased that the board has met at last, but we are disappointed that it took 16 months from the strategy being launched for the inaugural meeting to take place—indeed it took place eight months after the original deadline for the interim report. We want to make sure that in future we make progress faster than we have done so far.

We also included in our amendment reference to

“the need for continued strategic funding for projects and organisations and for further legislation to tackle all forms of gender-based violence in Scotland.”

I hope that everyone in the chamber will agree that we must continue to financially support the implementation of the strategy and the organisations involved in it and that further legislation aimed at preventing gender-based violence is needed, although I suspect that there might not be universal agreement on exactly what that legislation should be.

The colour orange has been used for some time by the UNiTE to end violence against women campaign as a symbol of a brighter future in a world free from gender-based violence. I apologise for not wearing orange today, but I did not have a sufficiently warm piece of orange clothing to wear on a day like this.

The campaign considers this year to be critical. The United Nations sustainable development goals came into force in September, and ending violence against women and girls must be embedded in their implementation. Although violence against women was one of the 12 critical areas of concern highlighted in the Beijing declaration 20 years ago, progress on tackling it across the world has been slow and uneven. Gender discrimination, inequality and stereotyping prevent women and girls from achieving their full potential, and the disrespect shown to females through those practices may lead to physical and psychological violence and is indeed a form of violence in itself.

One of the campaign’s asks of all Governments this year is to organise a public discussion to mark the occasion of the 16 days of activism, and I guess that this debate is the Scottish Government’s response to that request. However, campaigners are asking us to do a lot more than just talk to each other; we are being asked to take new actions and allocate resources—which is another of the intentions behind our amendment.

We have taken some actions over the past year. The Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2014, which was initiated by my colleague Jenny Marra and adopted by the Scottish Government, recognises that trafficking, including the trafficking of women and children for the sex trade, is a vile and serious offence that will rightly receive a long sentence on conviction. However, although that very welcome act addresses the supply side of that part of the sex trade, we still have to address the demand side, which “Equally Safe” recognises to be a form of gender-based violence.

The Air Weapons and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2015 introduced a licensing system that enables local authorities to control the number of so-called sex entertainment premises in their area. That is welcome, because certain urban areas have suffered a proliferation of lap-dancing and similar establishments, and many of us hope that councils will set the number of licensed premises of that type at zero. However, the act does not address the reason behind the existence of that type of establishment, which is that our society accepts the premise that it is permissible and appropriate for women and girls to be objectified and for their sexuality to be sold principally for the gratification of men.

During the stage 1 debate on the Air Weapons and Licensing (Scotland) Bill on 23 April, my colleague Cara Hilton—who wished to take part in today’s debate but unfortunately had to drop out at the last minute—made an important contribution about an issue not covered in the bill, which was the display of harmful sexualised material in places where it can be viewed by children, such as on supermarket shelves. In her speech, she referred to the Girlguiding campaign that was run in advance of this year’s general election, which revealed that 75 per cent of girls and young women aged 11 to 21 and 48 per cent of seven to 10-year-olds—primary school children—believe that there are too many sexual images of women in the media. Those statistics are important, because they reveal how young women feel that women are often judged. Young women are not content to be objectified and have their worth classified according to the way they look and whether they conform to what is perceived to be sexually desirable.

The Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Bill, which has recently started its stage 1 process in the Justice Committee, is also welcome as it proposes to make crimes of violence, whether physical or psychological, aggravated offences when domestic abuse is implicated, which we hope will result in almost every crime committed against a partner or ex-partner becoming an aggravated offence. That has been welcomed, but many domestic abuse campaigners feel that, in itself, it does not go far enough and that, in addition to the aggravation, there should be a specific coercive control domestic abuse offence. That was contained in the pre-legislative consultation, and I understand that there will be further consultation on those proposals.

The bill also seeks to tackle the scourge of so-called revenge porn, although, like the term “legal highs”, that term is now considered to be undesirable. The evidence on that has been revealing in an unpleasant sense. Not only are images of people sent to partners—sometimes under duress—and revealed to others without their consent, there are other very unsavoury practices of which I was completely unaware. For example, upskirting and downblousing are when intimate photos of women and girls are taken without their knowledge and published on websites.