Meeting of the Parliament 03 March 2020
I wish all women a happy international women’s day when it comes on Sunday. We are delighted to support the Government’s motion and what was an excellent speech from Christina McKelvie.
This year’s theme is each for equal, bringing together the next generation of women and girl leaders—and rightly so. However, before I address the specific theme of the debate, I cannot ignore the worrying fact that male violence against women is on the increase, despite a fall in violent crime in Scotland. The actual figures will be considerably higher than statistics suggest because of the low reporting of such crimes.
Women will never be equal if we are not safe from violence. In the UK, one in four women will experience domestic abuse and one in five will experience sexual assault—staggeringly, the global figure rises to one in three.
In Scotland, if a woman is murdered, it is most likely to be at the hands of their partner or former partner—that accounts for 60 per cent of total homicides of women last year. According to the UN, the “Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action”, which was signed in 1995, is recognised as the most progressive road map for the empowerment of women and girls everywhere.
This is a pivotal year for advancing gender equality worldwide, as the global community takes stock of the progress made on women’s rights since the platform for action was adopted. As members might expect, the emerging global consensus is that, despite some progress, real change has been agonisingly slow for the majority of women and girls in the world.
Today, not a single country can claim to have achieved gender equality. Multiple obstacles remain unchanged in law and in culture, as Rachael Hamilton nicely demonstrated today. Women and girls continue to be undervalued. They work far more, earn less and have fewer choices.
We will get nowhere near our goals until we tackle male violence and male control over women’s lives. I acknowledge the work that the Government has done on forced marriage and, internationally, on child marriage, on female genital mutilation, on domestic violence, on controlling and coercive behaviour and on the sex for rents scandal in the housing sector, which I hope to raise later this week.
Those issues prevent many women from living the best lives that they can live and from reaching their full potential. That is why, in addressing the theme, we should never forget that until we are safe, we will not be equal. As women parliamentarians, we must be clear that we have work to do—on many occasions, I hope, in solidarity with our sisters around the world—while recognising that this Parliament has made great strides.