Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)10 March 2021
I will speak to the amendments in Johann Lamont’s name in group 1, and I thank Johann Lamont for lodging them so that we can debate what I and many women regard as a very serious omission from the bill.
Sex is a characteristic that matters when it comes to understanding levels of violence, which is why hundreds of women have written to me and pleaded for the inclusion of sex as an aggravator in law. Many women constituents are not prepared to wait three years for a working group, and I wonder why the Scottish Government is so convinced of that route in the midst of daily reports of male violence against women.
According to the World Health Organization, one in three women have faced physical or sexual violence in their life. That is why we have 16 days of action for women and girls who face human trafficking, female genital mutilation, rape, murder, forced prostitution, sexual violence and intimate partner violence. The Parliament has involvement in 16 days of action to amplify the voices of women.
I wonder why Scotland is not leading on the issue. Women are regularly the target of offending behaviour based on hostility towards their sex, and it is now well established that women in public life face much higher levels of online abuse than men, which has consequences for their participation. The proposal to add age to the hate crime protected characteristics leaves sex as the main characteristic that would not be protected but is included in the 2010 act. It is a glaring omission and I do not understand why the Scottish Government is asking women to wait for three years. The longer the law is unchanged, the more the message is reinforced that this is not something that is a priority for the Parliament, and it perhaps reinforces fears that women have.
If it was the committee’s view and Lord Bracadale’s view—and, as I have said, the view of hundreds of women—that sex as an aggravator should be included in the hate crime bill, why is that not good enough? I do not understand that, either. Why is Lord Bracadale not good enough but Helena Kennedy and the working group are? It does not make any sense to me to that one legal opinion is rejected as the one that is not wanted. That concerns me deeply.
I have two questions for the cabinet secretary. It would be helpful to know what kind of new law he thinks would include a standalone crime of misogynistic harassment. What would that look like and how would it differ from domestic violence and all the violent crimes that I have outlined? I am genuinely struggling to see what such a crime would look like, since women are already the victims of a range of crimes.
Why can the Scottish Government not put sex as an aggravator in the bill, but still have a working group three years later? If the argument is that if the working group thinks that it should go in the legislation, the Government will include it at that point, surely it could put it in now. If Helena Kennedy takes a different view, we could then change the law. I urge the Parliament to think seriously about omitting sex as an aggravator in a bill about hate crime.
The bill is one of the last pieces of legislation to be dealt with in this parliamentary session, and I urge members to seriously consider voting in favour of the amendments in this group.
16:15