Thank you for your time this morning. Anyone who has seen the stories in the media, particularly over the past few weeks, regarding Islamophobia and challenges towards Muslims, not just here in Scotland and across the United Kingdom but across the world, will recognise that there is a growing challenge with Islamophobia and how it impacts on communities, and especially its direct impact on women—on which I will say more in a moment.
First, we are trying to get some recognition that Islamophobia exists. Secondly, we are bringing together all the people who are working in individual silos across Scotland round a table in one place, namely the Parliament. That also provides an opportunity to educate parliamentarians about what more we can do to challenge Islamophobia head on.
We intend to examine certain areas. First, as I have mentioned, there is a clear gendered nature to Islamophobia. Women are almost twice as likely as men to be victims of Islamophobic or racist hate crimes. More often than not, the perpetrator of the incident is a man. There is clearly a gendered nature to Islamophobia and racism, and that is one element that we want to examine directly.
Secondly, there is the legal framework. Are there gaps in the law? Is there more that we can do in this place to challenge Islamophobia? We will consider that in much more detail, in partnership with the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
What role does Police Scotland have to play around reporting and recording, the barriers to reporting and the way in which cases are dealt with? What role does the Crown Office play subsequently regarding successful prosecutions and the sentences that are handed down for people who perpetrate Islamophobic hate crimes?
It is worth emphasising the key point that the vast majority of Islamophobia and racism is not criminal in nature. It is not something that someone can report to the police or that can lead to a successful prosecution. However, it still impacts on life chances, life opportunities and life outcomes. It is that aspect in particular that the CPG wants to explore, including the issues of employability, the education system and access to public services. We will be examining all those issues in more detail.
Turning to the final stream that we want to consider, when we ask young Muslims what they think the reason is for the rise in Islamophobia, the first answer is always the media, and the second answer is politicians. We want to do some work, first, on media monitoring, the responsibility of the media for the language that they use and how they interact with individual communities; and, secondly, on how we better educate our politicians—myself included—about the language that we use and how we can recognise that the actions that we take can have an impact on communities.
Those are all areas that we want to explore in more detail. I am happy to take any questions.