Meeting of the Parliament 07 June 2018
In an ideal world, there should be no need for hate crime legislation, but we all know that this is not an ideal world, and Lord Bracadale’s “Independent Review of Hate Crime Legislation in Scotland” is much needed and timely.
Why do we need legislation? We need it because hate crimes cause depression, anger, anxiety and trauma. They may well cause social isolation and fear of public spaces. They wreck lives. They undermine society’s moral values, democracy and the right to live in a civilised country. When I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, certain words and attitudes prevailed that would not be tolerated now, and rightly so. Hate crimes are born out of ignorance and prejudice and there is no place for them in a modern Scotland.
Lord Bracadale was tasked with quite a challenge in his remit, to consider whether the current law deals well with hate crime behaviour, whether new statutory aggravations should be created in relation to age and gender or religious statutory aggravation, and whether hate crime laws could be made simpler by amalgamating them, and to identify gaps in the framework to ensure that the law protects human rights and equality.
Gathering evidence from people who had experienced hate crime was crucial, so a huge listening and learning exercise was launched. The recommendations in the report span a variety of hugely important issues, but I will focus today on hate crimes towards women. Lord Bracadale found that there was widespread support for legislation to deal with online and physical hate crimes towards women and he recommended a statutory aggravator in that regard. His report quotes from a consultation response:
“Crimes motivated by hatred of women are well documented and including this as an offence would be a progressive step in tackling misogyny.”
Misogynistic hate towards women and girls in the workplace, at school, in the street and online has reached epidemic levels. The past year has blown the cover on that with the #MeToo and time’s up campaigns. As a member of the sexual harassment working group in the Parliament, I have been working on a zero tolerance approach as the first step in making our workplace abuse free and a place where women can work without being harassed or intimidated. It is incredible that we have to address that in 2018, and our generation must eradicate it for our daughters and granddaughters.
I ask members to listen to these statistics, which were helpfully supplied by Engender Scotland, a fantastic organisation that promotes equality for both men and women. In the UK, 52 per cent of women have experienced sexual harassment, with one quarter experiencing unwanted touching, and one fifth experiencing unwanted sexual advances. Twenty-nine per cent of girls aged 16 to 18 have experienced unwanted sexual touching at school. More than one in 10 girls have experienced street harassment before the age of 10. Those figures are shocking and unacceptable at every level.
Engender has called for standalone misogynistic hate crime legislation in Scotland as a way of halting that epidemic. It believes that to respond to the epidemic levels of misogynistic hate in Scotland the gender dimension must be captured. Given that Scotland has rightly been lauded for the boldness and ambition of its violence against women strategy, equally safe, and that it has received international commendation for the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, Engender argues that it wants the same innovation to be applied to tackling misogynistic hate crime.
I understand the benefit of consolidating hate crime and the well-made points that Liam McArthur has just articulated, but I believe that, unless we experience a sea change reversal of misogynistic attitudes towards women, and quickly, we should consider going down the road that is recommended by Engender.
There is much more in the review that I could focus on, but time does not allow me to. In conclusion, I welcome the report and the direction that it takes us in—towards a Scotland that is free from prejudice, bigotry, intolerance and hate.
15:39