Equal Opportunities Committee, 28 Mar 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 28, 2000

Official Report 216KB pdf

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Progress Reports

The first report, on disability issues, is from Irene McGugan.

The disability group has not met since the last full committee meeting. We are still working on the various tasks that we identified, one of which came to fruition today by having the Disability Rights Commission here to give evidence.

Johann Lamont's paper on gender issues has just been handed round by the clerk.

Most of the paper is self-explanatory. At our last meeting, we tried to reflect on the evidence that we had been given by SAY Women, the Scottish Rape Crisis Network and the Zero Tolerance Trust. Everybody felt that that evidence was very powerful. I have written to those witnesses enclosing a copy of the Official Report of that meeting, saying that we hope to continue a dialogue with them. I particularly wanted to thank Ms Y for her contribution, and said that we would welcome the opportunity to speak to her again, perhaps as a less formal group rather than as a full committee.

We are still in the process of fixing up a meeting with Jackie Baillie, but we are keen to raise with her the points that were made about the potential for cross-cutting work on sexual abuse and violence, whether in education or elsewhere. We want to stress the importance of setting domestic violence in the broader context of violence against women and children. We had already agreed that we wanted to talk about how the Equal Opportunities Committee and the equalities unit could work together.

I have contacted Angus MacKay and we are pursuing a meeting with him on "Towards a Just Conclusion". I understand that we will be taking evidence from Professor Sheila McLean on the other half of that equation, which concerns how women are treated in the justice system.

There is one thing that we must agree today. I did not do this myself, as I thought that it was for the committee to agree to it. We thought that we should write to Sam Galbraith, asking him to be aware, when he is drawing up sex education guidelines, of the work of the Zero Tolerance Trust and other groups that are concerned with violence against women and children. The sex education guidelines ought to be talking about mutual respect, young girls having respect for themselves and issues around violence, particularly given the evidence on attitudes among young men and women—the fact that they thought that there were circumstances in which violence against women or sexual abuse would be reasonable. I hope that we can agree to write to Sam Galbraith on that.

We welcome the offer of clerking support and we understand that Alison Taylor will come to our next meeting to discuss how that support can be used.

Are there any questions for Irene McGugan or Johann Lamont?

I should mention that I went to Kirkintilloch with Dorothy-Grace Elder and Des McNulty to meet a group that aims to make employers more aware of the benefits of employing disabled people. It was a very good evening. I told the group about the work of the committee and suggested that someone write to the clerk if the group wanted to give evidence.

Does the committee agree that I write to Sam Galbraith as set out in paragraph 1(d) of Johann Lamont's report?

Members indicated agreement.

My report is similar to Irene McGugan's. There has not been a meeting of the race reporters group since the previous meeting on which I reported. Looking ahead to the agenda for the next meeting, I see that we have received correspondence from gypsies and travellers groups and it might be appropriate for us to consider the issues that they raise. If I cannot put that on the agenda for the next meeting, I shall try to ensure that we discuss it as soon as possible.

That would be useful. It is still to be confirmed, but we expect the Gypsy Traveller Consortium to give evidence on 23 May.

It would be useful to make some initial contact with that group.

We might also want to explore the issues raised in the two pieces of correspondence.

I will try to get that on the agenda for the next meeting.

The sexual orientation issues group has not met since I last reported on it, so I have nothing to report.