Hansard

I welcome the debate and believe that it has been a very good one. There is general agreement that violence against women is caused by gender inequality—an imbalance of power leading to an abuse of power.

Violence against women takes many forms. In individuals it can include psychological, coercive control, financial control, isolation leading to control of movement, and physical violence. However it is societal as well, through the commodification, exploitation and portrayal of women. Graeme Pearson mentioned “The X Factor”, which is a family programme but it influences the attitudes of young men towards women.

Gendered attitudes are ingrained early on. Fiona McLeod talked about dummies for baby boys and girls. I think that we have all had difficulties when we look for things to buy for young girls and boys—we find that they are gendered at a very early age. That does not help gender inequality. The statistics are horrifying, and more so when you take into account that physical violence is often the very tip of the iceberg. Emotional control and the like are much more prevalent and they are more difficult to quantify and to prosecute.

If we want to eliminate violence against women, we need true equality: equality in pay, in the home and in every walk of life. If there is no power imbalance then power cannot be abused. Stewart Stevenson and Graeme Pearson talked about men being the perpetrators of violence against women. That is right and we need to tackle the attitudes that men have towards women.

Many speakers talked about how relationship education in schools is inadequate, and about young people getting their sex education from pornography. As Elaine Murray said, young people are not learning about respect and consent in sex education. I recommend the Thames Valley Police video that compares consent to a cup of tea. It is really powerful and brings home a lot of those views. I think that it is available on Facebook—it is probably popping up on a Facebook close to everybody. Watch it, and recommend it to schools and young people to whom you are speaking.

Alison McInnes talked about the rules for girls, and the societal attitudes that blame women for violence against them. They blame them for their behaviour and for their alcohol intake, and try to teach them how to avoid being attacked rather than dealing with the attackers.

Our society talks about women’s dress all the time. There is talk about women who wear miniskirts; there is also talk about women who wear the hijab. Every form of women’s dress seems to be open to criticism and debate, but the same thing does not apply to what men wear. What a woman is wearing is not an excuse for abusing her.

Nanette Milne and Fiona McLeod talked about the Girlguiding Scotland attitudes survey. It is frightening to hear the attitudes that are expressed not only by some young men but by some young women. It strikes me that this is a new phenomenon and that every generation and culture finds a new and imaginative way to control women, especially their sexuality. That is something that we must be careful about. Year on year we debate violence against women, but we must be aware that year on year there are new ways of being violent towards women. We need to attack the new forms of abuse as well as the historical causes.

As many members said, violence against women is not a women’s problem but a problem with men. We need to tackle that, with men. We need to teach them how to behave, and we need to teach them about respect, consent and equality. That is really important.

Scottish Labour supports the Scottish Government and COSLA’s equally safe strategy. It is right that we debate it, and we want to re-emphasise our unity in that regard. However, it would be remiss of us not to express concerns that we have about the strategy’s implementation.

We have concerns about the delay in implementing funding for the strategy. Voluntary organisations—indeed, some statutory organisations, too—need to know where their funding is coming from. They need to know about the leadership and funding of the strategy. They need security and to know that they will continue to be supported. Last year, Scottish Women’s Aid groups were given their funding allocations only a couple of weeks before the end of the financial year. That is not right. People who are fighting violence against women should be able to focus on the work that they are doing rather than having to focus on their jobs.

Malcolm Chisholm mentioned tendering. It is not appropriate that support services for women who suffer violence are put out to tender, because the issue is not only the service but the ethos of the organisation that provides it and the organisation’s knowledge and understanding of the issues.

Elaine Murray talked about the delay in setting up the equally safe joint strategic board, which was set up a whole 17 months after the publication of “Equally Safe”. Why was there such a delay? What is the new date for an interim report? If the board is to decide where funding priorities lie, we need the report sooner rather than later.

An issue that has not been mentioned is contact, which is often used by an abusive partner to continue the abuse. An abusive partner will grill the children for information about where they live and then use the information to continue to pester and abuse their former partner. An abusive partner will cancel or change arrangements, to continue to exercise control over their ex-partner. Other countries recognise the damage that such behaviour does to children. Can we address the matter and ensure that the courts do not give access until they are convinced that it will not be used to continue the abuse?

We also need a quick and easy means of suspending access when abuse occurs, to give time for the abuse to be investigated before access is revoked. Too often, I hear from mothers who have to send their children to stay with fathers who continue to abuse them—and, in some cases, the children—and who are powerless to prevent access, because they would be in contempt of court if they tried to do so. That is a horrendous situation to be in, and we must address the issue quickly.

We would like comprehensive implementation of the equally safe strategy and new laws to tackle all forms of violence against women. The Scottish Government has introduced a lot of legislation, which we have talked about in this debate, on matters such as FGM, forced marriage and lap dancing. There was the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Bill, which built on a proposal from Jenny Marra. It is unfortunate that the bill did not deal with demand in relation to sexual exploitation, which is something that the Government needs to address.

In the context of equally safe, we have the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Bill. The bill has been watered down and is very much limited to revenge porn. Its aims in that regard are worthy, but it is not the comprehensive bill that we were promised. The Government has talked about going out to consultation again on coercive control. We need to know when that consultation will take place and when a bill will be introduced, because that is really important in dealing with domestic abuse.

I believe that the Parliament can unite around "Equally Safe", but we think that it is only right that we point out our disappointment about the delays in its implementation—the delay in setting up the joint strategic board to implement the funding and the delay in meaningful legislation being introduced. The many voluntary organisations that work in the area need to know where their funding is coming from and indeed the direction of travel. The Scottish Government has our full support in implementing “Equally Safe”; we simply ask that it be given priority.