Sexual Abuse
The final item of business today is a members' business debate on motion S1M-1564, in the name of Marilyn Livingstone, on a strategy to tackle sexual abuse. The debate will be concluded without any question being put. I invite members who would like to speak in this debate to indicate that now. I am glad to see that there are more than I had notice of, and I shall take that into account.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament recognises the complex, devastating and long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse; acknowledges the requirement for adequately funded services and clear care pathways for survivors, and invites the Scottish Executive to set out its plans to develop and implement a national strategy to address the social, health and legal implications of sexual abuse and its impact on our society as a whole.
In view of the number of members who want to speak in the debate, I shall try to keep my speech as brief as possible.
I thank the Parliament for allowing us the opportunity to debate the complex issues surrounding the long-term effects and impacts on survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The Scottish Parliament will allow us to debate this issue this evening and in future, and our cross-party group will work in partnership with the Executive to provide appropriate care pathways for yesterday's, today's and tomorrow's children. I also thank all those who have worked hard to make today's debate, and the launch of our cross-party group later this evening, a reality.
I must, however, give special thanks to Anne MacDonald from the Kingdom Abuse Survivors Project, who is in the gallery this evening. Anne first wrote to me in September last year, outlining her concerns and vision for a national strategy for Scotland that would encompass equality, parity and cohesion. Following on from the initial meetings, we felt that the next logical step would be to set up a cross-party working group to allow us to realise our vision. The cross-party working group on survivors of childhood sexual abuse was established in late September 2000 and we have been working together—MSPs and experts alike—since that time to establish a forum for debate. That debate has an agreed specific programme of targets and action on the issue of childhood sexual abuse and its long-term effects and links with mental health problems, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence and homelessness.
The group will ascertain the level of current service provision nationally, identify gaps in services and ascertain the funding issues. The group will consider the requirement for care pathways for survivors as well as the need for joined-up, cohesive policies. We will seek to create greater public awareness and understanding of the issues and combat the many myths that surround sexual abuse and its impact on our society. The group will examine issues such as links with mental health. For example, 60 to 80 per cent of acute psychiatric admissions are of people who have a history of sexual abuse. Admissions are repeated and often frequent. Patients in crisis are admitted with various causes, usually associated psychologically with components of sexual abuse experience. Self-harm is prominent. The mainstream psychiatric service, working alone, is insufficient to the task. If we are to create a climate in which we can work positively and collaboratively across the disciplines, we must take a cohesive and strategic approach.
There are further crucial links with drug and alcohol abuse issues. Many have gone on to that form of self-harm after being sexually abused. Links with domestic abuse will have to be explored by the working group, as will links with male and female prostitution. We are only just beginning to understand the dreadful links between sexual abuse and the suicide of young males.
Many of my colleagues will highlight individual aspects in greater depth, but we must not underestimate the task that we have before us and the importance of working together to create greater public awareness and understanding of the issues. We must break down the barriers and allow those who need help to be able to receive that help.
We will ask those who attend this evening's launch for their support, knowledge and expertise to allow us to unpack and highlight the issues surrounding this complex subject and to develop real solutions to real problems. It is important that we make a difference to the lives of those who need our help.
We must not forget that there are many examples of good practice and good work, not least in my constituency. The commitment of the staff and the experts involved is second to none. We will ask the Executive to work with us to develop a national strategy to address the social, health and legal implications of childhood sexual abuse. Such a strategy must encompass a commitment to adequate and secure funding of existing support services and the establishment of new services to fill the gaps in Scottish service provision.
Why do we need a dedicated strategy for this issue? Because we feel that the strategies that exist, although good, allow some of the complex issues around the subject to fall through the gap. We need the Executive to work across the departments to develop a strategy and to break down barriers between departments. We know that funding has been made available and we ask the Executive to examine the issue in the round. The issue is at the heart of the Scottish Executive's commitment to social justice and needs co-ordinated action across the board.
This is our opportunity to show that we have heard the voices of the survivors of childhood sexual abuse, that we have listened to their concerns and that we are committed to helping them to rebuild their lives. All of us who are involved in the project feel that this is the right time and the right place to address this complex issue. Let us grasp this opportunity.
A large number of members want to take part in this evening's debate, so I ask members to restrict their speeches to the four-minute limit. If they do, I will be able to call everyone who wants to speak.
As a vice-convener of the cross-party group on survivors of childhood sexual abuse, I am pleased to be able to contribute to this debate and to be the first to congratulate Marilyn Livingstone on securing it. I add my thanks to Anne MacDonald of the Kingdom Abuse Survivors Project and to Sandra Brown of the Moira Anderson Foundation, which has done phenomenal work in this area over a number of years.
We are talking about the theft of someone's childhood. That someone is not allowed to grow as other children have grown up; perhaps because of the loss of innocence, perhaps because of the personal violation that they have suffered, perhaps because of the breach of trust that many of them have endured at the hands of people whom they may know only too well. Such children, when growing up, have no voice and, as adults, often have no voice still. They are people who might grow up feeling unable to talk to people about what they have suffered over many years.
Different people react in different ways and suffer different types of abuse. Some suffer long-term abuse, others suffer short-term abuse. They suffer differing degrees of violence. Perhaps it is severe; perhaps there is no overt violence other than the actual violation. There may be the overhanging threat of blackmail. Someone in their own family might go to prison if they come forward.
Obviously, many who suffer sexual abuse suffer ruined lives. As Marilyn Livingstone mentioned, suicide is often a side-effect of childhood sexual abuse. Self-harm is common and people can suffer a loss of self-esteem. Children and young people might run away from home to get away from sexual abuse. Mental health and relationship problems may follow. Promiscuity and prostitution are other possible side-effects.
We should understand that many people who have suffered childhood sexual abuse will go on to have happy and productive lives, but undoubtedly not as happy as they would have been if they had not suffered the abuse.
The group that has been established will be a forum for debate. It will work positively and collaboratively across party and geographical divides. The issue affects people from all social and geographical backgrounds. The individual human costs are monumental, the social and economic impact colossal.
The agencies that help people who have suffered trauma lead a fragile, hand-to-mouth existence and may have to apply or reapply for grants on a tri-annual or annual basis, never knowing whether they will be able to provide a service from one year to the next. The cross-party group believes that that must not continue.
We must secure the establishment of a comprehensive, fully funded, all-Scotland strategy to tackle the issue. From the north of Scotland to the south; from the east to the west; in urban Scotland and in rural Scotland—people who have suffered appalling abuse in childhood must have someone to whom they can turn, when they are children, but also once they are adults. We have been told of people coming forward 20 or 30 years after first suffering abuse. People should be able to do that, but they can do so only if there are agencies nearby to which they can turn.
This is an area in which the Executive must truly ensure joined-up government, with the involvement of councils, health boards, educational services, the justice system and so on. Training for those who work with survivors is vital. We must fight against taboo and explode myths such as that of the perpetrators usually being strangers, that of victims almost always being girls or that of victims themselves going on to become predators.
This is a vital issue on which Scotland can and should lead the rest of the United Kingdom. There is much more to be said, but given that I am now over my time, I leave it to colleagues to make the salient points. I look forward to the response of the Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care.
I welcome the opportunity to take part in this evening's debate and congratulate Marilyn Livingstone on securing it. I wish the new cross-party group on survivors of childhood sexual abuse well in trying to do what we would all want: pulling together—with the Executive and with members of all parties—a national strategy to address many of the issues that Marilyn Livingstone and Kenny Gibson have referred to.
I will outline the main point that came through from the papers that I read on this issue. I obtained some material from the Canadian equivalent of the Health Education Board for Scotland, which included suggestions on
"WHAT TO DO IF SOMEONE TELLS YOU THAT HE/SHE WAS SEXUALLY ABUSED
- Do not judge, condemn or criticize.
- Believe the person.
- Respond in a caring manner and ask them how you can help.
- Encourage the survivor to get support."
I am sure that that is good advice for one individual dealing with another. It is also good advice for dealing with all the people of Scotland who have suffered sexual abuse as children, whether they are still children or are now adults. People in the chamber must listen and respond in a caring manner. We must ensure that the resources are available to support the people who have the courage to come forward and are suffering dreadfully from the experiences of their childhood.
As Kenny Gibson said, the abuse may be happening to them right now or it may have happened to them 20 or 30 years ago. The consequences of what has happened to such people in their childhood live with them. Those consequences include mental health problems, depression leading to suicide, eating disorders, abuse of alcohol or drugs, domestic violence, cyclical problems with abuse, homelessness and entry into the sex trade. There are all sorts of different ways in which childhood abuse manifests itself in the adult victim or survivor of childhood sexual abuse.
What we require in a national strategy is joined-up government that pulls together health professionals, social work professionals and people in the prison and legal services. Also, whether we like to say so or not, we require not only resources and services for the victims but a more comprehensive approach to the perpetrators of abuse. We must ensure that services are available to ensure that people who have a history of abuse do not abuse.
I hope that there is now greater public awareness that sexual abuse is not limited by class, gender or economic background. Unfortunately, it is going on in homes across Scotland. It is most usually perpetrated not by strangers leaping out at children in parks but by fathers, stepfathers and peers. It is mainly though not exclusively perpetrated by men. It is going on in our communities.
Care pathways are required throughout all organisations in health, social work, legal and professional fields. Also, information and counselling must be given to people.
Some of the points that were made in the debate on the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Bill, such as the need for a children's commissioner, will play a part in improving the situation. I associate the Liberal Democrats with the call for a national strategy. That will dovetail well with the Executive's work on victim support. I commend such a strategy to the minister and thank Marilyn Livingstone and the cross-party group on survivors of childhood sexual abuse for the opportunity that I have had to speak in the debate.
I, too, add my tribute to Marilyn Livingstone for bringing her motion to the chamber. I also pay tribute to Anne MacDonald, who has helped the cross-party group on survivors of childhood sexual abuse enormously.
Some members have asked what one can do when a child comes forward to say that they have been sexually abused. I recall my experiences as a lay inspector of schools in the not too distant past. Such a situation was always a possibility for anyone visiting a school who had a friendly face and was someone in whom children thought they could confide. We were advised that there were certain steps that we had to take. We were never to make a child feel guilty.
It was not in our remit as lay inspectors to take charge of a case; we were told to refer it to the senior inspector for him or her to pursue with the headmaster. Fortunately, that never happened to me. I do not know whether my sense of shock would have enabled me to stick to the rules. I never had to deal with it but, watching a lonely child in a school, it was always at the back of my mind.
We need greater public awareness. I am not sure whether members managed to catch sight of the Michael Parkinson programme at the weekend. Esther Rantzen was one of his guests, along with Amanda Donohoe—she of Mrs Robinson fame and with a body like a sylph.
Esther Rantzen spoke about some of her experiences when she started ChildLine. One of the things she said that struck me was about the difficulty that some young people experienced. When they eventually got through, the ChildLine operators could not understand the young people who were phoning from Scotland. We have to have a service in our own country in which the operators are not put off by accents, do not make children feel less able to put their case and in which young people do not have somebody on the line who is less than sympathetic. It was interesting to note that although both women on the programme had experience of sexual abuse in their childhood, they were able to go on to have full lives and good relationships with men. Unfortunately, that is not the case for everyone.
We need to develop a strategy that envelops all agencies, as the survivors of childhood sexual abuse who do not get help may be the perpetrators of tomorrow's abuse.
Will the member take an intervention?
Of course.
ChildLine Scotland does have Scottish operators. The main problem with ChildLine throughout Britain is that only one child in 10 gets through on the first call, as ChildLine does not have enough telephone lines. Research conducted at the University of Glasgow has shown that it is a bit of a myth that abused children go on to abuse. In fact, the opposite was found to be the case: many were too overprotective of children.
I thank Dorothy-Grace Elder for her intervention. One thing that was said about ChildLine on the programme was that it has call centres up and down the country. Most children are able to get through, if not at their first attempt, then very swiftly thereafter.
We could also consider measures such as help for the families. They may have suspected and shut out the idea that such a thing could be happening in their family. When the child goes to confess to a parent that they have been abused, they may be shunned and the parent's back may be turned on them. Kenny Gibson mentioned that we want such children to lead happy and productive lives. If we can secure dependable, continuing funding, that will help enormously.
I have kept my comments brief because I know that others want to get in. We look forward to the minister's comments.
I, too, congratulate Marilyn Livingstone and those who were involved in setting up the cross-party group. That group will be of tremendous benefit.
I know that time is short, so I will limit my comments to just a few points. I was glad that—in addition to mentioning that childhood sexual abuse can cause suicide, self-harm and mental health problems—members also acknowledged that it can create survival skills, a strong personality and a commitment to trying to change the world. Those are the qualities that I remember in many of the survivors of abuse whom I have met in my work at the sharp end. I am sure that those qualities will see many of the survivors through, as they enable us to understand the problems better.
I will talk a wee bit about some of the problems of adults who have perhaps come late to telling people about childhood abuse. That issue has been brought to me by a number of constituents and by people that I worked with in my former work in social work and on the Edinburgh child abuse inquiry.
Now, we all understand that childhood sexual abuse happens and that people will report it. However, for many who report abuse that happened 20 or 30 years ago, the legal system makes it difficult for the courts to gather enough evidence to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that abuse took place. That has a knock-on effect on whether those adults feel that they have been believed. Many of those who have spoken to me have said that, contrary to what folk might think about them wanting compensation or litigation, they want acknowledgement that something happened and they want an apology.
I wrote recently to the Minister for Justice on the issues that we must address, such as the time-bar problems with criminal injury compensation—after the time bar expires, one cannot apply for compensation. While I was dealing with a constituent's case, I was disappointed to receive a letter from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Appeal Panel, which indicated that, because of the length of time that had elapsed since the alleged incident occurred, it would be difficult to establish what had taken place. That raises a fundamental problem; while the legal system might find it difficult to establish what happened in such cases, somebody who has been abused lives day in and day out with the memory of that abuse—probably for the rest of his or her life—even if that person is able to devise coping mechanisms. Work must be done on how survivors of abuse can get some justice. Most survivors make it perfectly clear, as they go through the compensation process, that the relatively small amounts of financial compensation that are available are not the reason why they pursue compensation—they want the abuse to be acknowledged.
I know that there are a number of other issues that the cross-party group will wish to pursue. I hope that that group will be able to consider giving advice on the barriers that can be put in the way of preventing childhood sexual abuse. I do not have time to talk about that today, but I hope that the group will have the opportunity to consider new technology. We have all seen on television the potential dangers for young people who are drawn into networks of abuse through the internet.
My final plea is for members to get involved with the cross-party group and for the Executive to listen to the experiences not just of children—although their experiences are vital—but of those who have kept silent for many years and who have come forward with information. Many lessons can be learned from them. Adults have different needs, and we must address their needs separately from the needs of children and young people. I am sure that the Executive will take that suggestion on board.
I, too, thank Marilyn Livingstone for lodging her motion.
I will be brief. I have experience of teaching and of the children's panel, and I was glad to hear Dorothy-Grace Elder's intervention, which made it clear that there is a positive side to the matter. Many young people survive sexual abuse and it is not necessarily the case that a child who was abused will continue to abuse others.
However, abuse is endemic in many families in Scotland—it goes back through generation after generation and spreads throughout the extended family. Part of the strategy should investigate those extreme cases and identify the point at which we should intervene to break the cycle of abuse. The strategy should engage in and address that important area of research.
The quality of training that I received as a guidance teacher was good, but improvements could be made to teacher training for primary and secondary teachers. I would like to add to Margaret Smith's comments by saying that guidance teachers are taught that referral to the nearest appropriate trained expert must be made as quickly as possible in cases of both sexual and physical abuse.
I thank Marilyn Livingstone again for bringing this motion before the chamber and I look forward to hearing the minister's response
I also congratulate Marilyn Livingstone on securing the debate and on setting up the cross-party group, which will be launched this evening.
A year ago, I was pleased to be asked to address the launch of the Moira Anderson Foundation as a keynote speaker. The idea for forming the foundation came from a very brave and determined woman, Sandra Brown, who used the proceeds of her book, "Where There Is Evil", to start it up. Moira Anderson, a young girl from Coatbridge, disappeared in 1957. The fact that she was never seen again and the mystery never solved has hung like a shadow over my home town ever since.
The foundation was set up in Moira's memory. Its main aim is to tackle child abuse and to promote Moira's legacy—to break the silence, demolish the myths and, in doing so, to create a safer climate in which children can reveal the truth. Other aims of the foundation are to protect children from abuse, to prevent children from vanishing from our communities without trace, to support victims of abuse, and to assist families through the legal process. Sandra Brown tells me that, in its short existence, the foundation has helped almost 40 families. I think that that indicates that there is a clear need.
Until relatively recently, child abuse—in particular, sexual abuse—was not a subject that society was comfortable about admitting to, never mind addressing. As Kenny Gibson said, many myths surround the abuse of children. One of the most common is that abusers are psychopathic strangers who carry out unplanned attacks. In reality, very few sex offenders are diagnosed as having a mental disorder; most sexual offences are committed by people who are known to their victims and random attacks by strangers are rare. Most of those who offend against children are in positions of responsibility, authority and trust in relation to their victims. Many are family members.
When cases are reported and acted on, victims and their families must face the harrowing criminal justice system—a system that has become increasingly bureaucratised and professionalised. The result of that is a two-way information deficit. Victims and their families are often not told what, if anything, is happening in their cases. They are not asked what they would like to happen and they are not asked for full information about the crime and its effects on them. Support services are vital for those who are negotiating the legal process—especially for young children and their families. Many people feel lost in the system and can become further traumatised. Many cases never reach court.
Cases of child abuse have implications for child welfare, criminal justice and for many other agencies. We must ensure that all those who are involved work together, use their arrangements for responding to and sharing information about allegations of abuse, and access specialist advice or expertise.
All children have the right to expect society to protect them from abuse. That right is enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Children (Scotland) Act 1995 enshrined key rights in statute. The need to safeguard our children from harm and abuse is of the utmost importance. Dealing with child abuse is not the preserve of any one public or voluntary service. If we are to protect our children effectively, all agencies must collaborate closely and wider society must take ownership of the issue. Mindsets need to be changed and the mainstreaming of children's issues must become second nature. There is no room for complacency.
Like others—especially Cathy Jamieson—I have been promoting the establishment of the post of children's commissioner. Like Margaret Smith, I feel that that would help the process.
I am sure that the Moira Anderson Foundation will play a major part in breaking down the myths and barriers that surround child abuse. I also commend the Kingdom Abuse Survivors Project for the work that it does. I am confident that the cross-party group will work with both those organisations and others to ensure that the issues that surround childhood sexual abuse are firmly on the agenda in the Parliament.
I thank Marilyn Livingstone and, indeed, Sandra Brown, who is a remarkable woman. If only every family in which abuse was suspected had a brave person such as Sandra Brown to stand up, to accuse and to keep accusing.
I attended one of Marilyn's preliminary meetings. Can I take it that the group will deal with adult survivors of sexual abuse? The distinction is important. Adult survivors are a huge and important category.
Paedophiles are among the most long-lasting and vile categories of criminals. It is sometimes through their past victims, now adult, that we can capture the men—they are mostly men—who continue to abuse.
I am a member of ACHE—Action on Child Exploitation—and have been involved in various other groups over 20 years. Sometimes, I have had personally to track down paedophiles, which is a horrific job. Let us not forget that the police must do that every day. I had to do it over three years, which was harrowing enough.
Even a terrorist criminal gets too old to continue to plant bombs and cause horrendous damage, but a paedophile hardly ever gets too old. I have known paedophiles and got one jailed—a grandfather who had been abusing for more than 40 years.
Paedophiles abuse generations of one family or other children who they can lure. In the main, they are not caught because they have terrorised their victims so much that those victims will never tell. They have made the children feel that they are the creatures who should feel shame, rather than the abuser. Such men have the most respectable outward front that is possible.
I have worked with Esther Rantzen on programmes about such abuse. She keeps saying, "For goodness' sake. Children aren't daft. They don't go off with the funny old stranger in the long coat. The people who do this are people the children know—the enemy within the family, the neighbour or the leader of a local group." There is a grooming process, sometimes of many months or years, to lure children in. The abusers become trusted and respectable people. Sometimes innocent parents even send the kids out with those people.
If we can get adult survivors to talk—sometimes, after counselling and help, they do—and to name such men, it is a good bet that we will find that the same men are abusing little children today. That is what I found in one of the most harrowing cases of all—the Eric Cullen case. It was all too easy to believe that a famous actor was the guilty person, but because of his stunted growth, he had not only been preyed upon as a child, but he had told his parents about it because he was terrorised. Paedophiles tell children things such as that their parents will be killed if they tell. They are grotesque exaggerations, but that is the kind of thing that they say. Eric Cullen died young—his heart just gave out—as so many of those poor people do, but he named the men who had perpetrated such vile things upon him in about 60 hours of taped evidence to the police, which he gave shortly before he died. That is how we managed to round up a whole gang.
If we can gain the confidence of abuse victims, we can capture the perpetrators of today. The oldest victim that I met was a woman who was aged just over 80, who could only then bring herself to tell of what had haunted her since the age of four.
I congratulate everybody who is involved in the cross-party group. I push for a children's commissioner and for special helplines for adult abuse survivors.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I have a point of clarification.
I can take a point of order, but I cannot take a point of clarification.
It is an important point. The cross-party group is on survivors of childhood sexual abuse rather than adult survivors.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I did not want to intervene on Dorothy-Grace Elder's speech when she asked for clarification, but it is the case that the group is on all survivors, regardless of age or sex.
I, too, congratulate Marilyn Livingstone. I attend a lot of members' debates, because a lot of them are on health issues. It never ceases to impress me how many of my colleagues have experience, knowledge and understanding of what are often very complex issues. This is one of the most complex. My experience and background comes from the women's prison and from running a sexual problems clinic for a significant number of years, where I became increasingly aware of sexual abuse survivors having problems in adult life.
As Cathy Jamieson said, there is a range: there are people who are intensely damaged and have severe personality problems as a result of the massive damage inflicted on them as children; others have survived, having managed to bury it deep in themselves and to carry on with a normal life, but the damage and the scars are nevertheless there.
I want to pay tribute to the survivors whom I have known over the years. They are some of the bravest people I have met. I want to describe what can happen, because this is the reality. If you are a survivor who has not raised the issue of abuse previously, and you do so within your family, the almost inevitable consequence is the disruption of that family. That is true for children—it is the threat that the abuser uses to control the child—but it is also true for adults. I have seen many families that have been completely disrupted as a result of that action. Dorothy-Grace Elder is correct that people are brave in coming out. It is important that our society is one that allows them to feel that they will be supported if they come out. That is why I support the concept of a strategy to tackle sexual abuse. We need it.
We are at the stage of development in this area where it is a topic that is now discussed. It has reached the point where it is debated in our Parliament. It is supported by many voluntary organisations of the sort mentioned in the motion. Open Secret in my area does a fantastic job. There are many groups working in this area, but we need to support them. We need to allow them to collaborate. We need to provide a national framework to allow them to continue to develop.
Help for abused individuals comes in many different forms. Abused individuals will choose the point of access, but they should be made aware of the many possible points of access. Once they are into a process it may be difficult for them, and they have to take it at a speed at which they feel comfortable in themselves. It is not for everybody to take a public stance on this issue; for some it remains a very private matter. A book that I used to recommend, called "Cry Hard and Swim", by an adult survivor, talks in moving terms about the difficult process of coming to terms with abuse.
We are moving towards a situation in which we can develop an effective strategy. I will finish by paying a compliment to the Executive on one issue. I welcome the fact that the unit at HM Prison Peterhead that treats sexual offenders will be retained, and that the prison will be rebuilt. I welcome that, because it has taken some time to get that team together. The people who are treated there are among the most difficult people to treat and manage. Indeed, it is questionable whether many of them can be treated successfully, but they can be contained. The team there is doing good work, and that has been proven. I congratulate the Executive on that, but I hope that it will look at developing a national strategy.
I join in congratulating Marilyn Livingstone on bringing this most serious, and tragically hidden, topic before us. I also commend the persuasive way in which she put the case for a national strategy.
Many of the issues that arise are not within my departmental brief, but I shall try to cover as many of them as I can. There are health issues, but clearly there are housing issues, social work issues, justice issues and education issues. The importance of this debate is that, as Elaine Smith said, we must break the silence on this issue, and tear the veil from the shocking fact that so much abuse takes place in families, as Robin Harper reminded us.
Girls and boys have been affected, although as Kenny Gibson pointed out, rather more females than males have been affected. I do not want to dwell on that point, but we ought to acknowledge that notwithstanding the fact that the victims are of both sexes, the perpetrators are almost always male. We ought to pay tribute to the work of the Zero Tolerance campaign, which pointed out that this is an issue of male power in general, and male abuse of power in particular.
There are several justice issues. Cathy Jamieson raised the matter of criminal injuries compensation. That is reserved to Westminster, but I know that a piece of legislation is going through Westminster—and I hope that it will be passed before any general election is called, if such should happen—which will allow for an increase of almost 50 per cent in the minimum award for rape, and the maximum payable for sexual assault and child abuse will more than double. I am sure that we all welcome that, although I accept that there are continuing problems, as Cathy Jamieson said.
I also want to mention briefly the work that is being done within the Scottish Executive on victims. That work includes the proposed sexual offences evidence bill and the broader strategy for victims of crime, which is designed to ensure that victims are treated with compassion and respect and are given the emotional and practical support that they need to help them to recover.
I also want to mention the money that is being given to Victim Support Scotland this year. That includes not just the normal increase but a specific sum of £260,000 to raise public awareness about the impact of crime on victims and to help to provide more training for volunteers who work with victims. That should help those volunteers to be more responsive to the needs of victims of sexual abuse.
That leads on to the more general and crucial question of training to which Kenny Gibson referred. Robin Harper mentioned training teachers in particular. I hope that such training will take place within teacher education.
Marilyn Livingstone and others have referred to the relationship between sexual abuse and mental health. Marilyn referred to acute psychiatric admissions and other people mentioned suicide, drugs and self-harm. Cathy Jamieson reminded us that many survivors have come through all of the terrible things that they have suffered.
The Executive acknowledged the issue in the health plan by referring to the mental and other health needs that arise from the experience of sexual abuse. It said in the mental health section that dealing with such needs should be a priority. I am pleased that in a couple of months I will be launching some important research on the whole issue of people who have survived sexual abuse and how they are dealt with in the psychiatric system. While we should pay tribute to all the good work that goes on, we have to acknowledge that, as that research will acknowledge, the situation is not always ideal.
There have been good developments. The mental and well-being development fund has funded a local Fife project to provide services to survivors of childhood sexual abuse. We are also developing psychological therapies that ought to be helpful because they include post-traumatic therapies for a wide range of emotional, psychological and psychiatric problems including, for example, those arising as a result of trauma, assault and childhood sexual abuse.
Work is being done on developing those areas. One of the key lessons that we must learn from children who have been abused in the past is, clearly, that it needs to be made easier for children's voices to be heard when they have been abused or have witnessed the abuse of others. That is partly why the Executive has promoted the development of a comprehensive network of children's rights officers, part of whose function will be to provide an advocacy service for young people.
Dorothy-Grace Elder and others reminded us of the issue of a children's commissioner. The Executive has clearly been sympathetic and has asked the Education, Culture and Sport Committee to examine the case for that. Schools, too, are taking positive steps to help children to protect themselves through programmes of education in health and personal safety. Such programmes should be included in nursery and primary schools, which will ensure that the content is appropriate for their pupils' age and stage of development. That reminds me of a project in Dundee, which some members may know about, called the very important person project, whose launch I attended. The VIP project has done excellent work in that area. Am I down to one minute, Presiding Officer?
You are.
Obviously, I cannot cover all the issues that I wanted to cover. Our previous debate today was the stage 1 debate on the process of setting up the Scottish commission for the regulation of care. Although I mentioned at the beginning of my speech that abuse can take place within families, it is clear that abuse also takes place in care homes and suchlike. The setting-up of that new body should also help to address the terrible problem of abuse taking place in care homes.
The index of persons unsuitable to work with children, on which we are currently consulting, will also help to address the problem of abuse.
Since my time is up, I once again congratulate Marilyn Livingstone on bringing this important topic before us today. I have shown that some action is being taken, but I am far from complacent. I acknowledge that a great deal more needs to be done. I look forward to working with the cross-party group on survivors of childhood sexual abuse and to attending its launch straight after the debate.
Meeting closed at 17:50.