Violence Against Women
The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-5109, in the name of Malcolm Chisholm, on violence against women.
This is the 16th year of the United Nations campaign of activism to end violence against women, and I am proud that the Parliament is again discussing male violence against women. If this annual debate helps, even in small part, to reinforce the message that there is no excuse for men's violence towards women, however it manifests itself, it is right that we take that opportunity, and if our debate can demonstrate the support of the Parliament for the many women who have worked tirelessly over the years to keep male violence on the public agenda, and to support women and children who are affected, that is right too.
The theme of this year's UN campaign celebrates activists who have made the campaign a success and honours women human rights defenders who have suffered intimidation and violence. Earlier this year, I had the great privilege of meeting Thabitha Khumalo, from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. She has spoken at a number of events, including the Scottish Trades Union Congress conference, to appeal for the "Dignity. Period!" campaign, which has the simple aim of ensuring provision of sanitary products for Zimbabwean women. She has carried on her fight for human rights in spite of the consequences. She has been arrested frequently and has suffered torture, kidnap, gang rape and beatings. Sadly, she provides just one example of a woman being treated in such a way because she is not afraid to stand up for women's rights.
In Scotland, we have had our own struggles to pursue gender equality, whether fighting for an end to sex discrimination, proper maternity and other employment rights or an end to the gender pay gap. Those struggles have been taken forward within political parties, by trade unions and elsewhere, but it is women who have put them on the agenda and kept them there. It was the work of women activists and volunteers that led to the establishment of the first women's aid groups and rape crisis centres. In 1976, when Scottish Women's Aid was founded, there was a lack of public awareness and understanding of domestic abuse and an undoubted failure by statutory agencies to respond appropriately.
Much of the work done by Scottish Women's Aid was around awareness raising and getting domestic abuse on the political agenda. Over 30 years, the organisation's approach has been informed by the real experiences of the women who have been in contact with it. That has been vital in increasing understanding of what women need, whether that is information, refuge, rehousing, legal provision or other support. Women activists, often unpaid and survivors themselves, have developed hugely our understanding of domestic abuse; its relation to gender inequality, male abuse of power and control; the strength of women who survive such abuse; and our responsibility to protect.
Scottish Women's Aid listened to the many abused women who left for the sake of the children and to the families that stayed in its refuges in the early days. With that experience came a deeper understanding of how children, too, are affected by domestic abuse. It is a great tribute to Scottish Women's Aid activists that they now campaign for both women and children, emphasising the resilience and bravery of both and the fact that their protection and well-being are inextricably linked. I am pleased that we now fund Scottish Women's Aid to carry out its much-needed work and I congratulate it on its 30th anniversary.
It was also 30 years ago that the first rape crisis centre in Scotland opened in Glasgow. Today there is a network of centres across Scotland that work to provide much-needed support to those who experience rape and sexual assault and to raise awareness and challenge myths. Again, activists and volunteers have driven much of the agenda around sexual violence. All the local centres are now given a measure of funding stability through the Executive's rape crisis specific fund, and four years ago Rape Crisis Scotland was set up with Executive funding as the national office of the network to support the work of the affiliated centres and to help the rape crisis movement to develop. Later this month I will attend the 30th anniversary event at Glasgow rape crisis centre. I look forward to the opportunity to share in its celebration of a significant milestone.
I have a great deal of sympathy for Carolyn Leckie's amendment on rape, but it fails to mention some of the action that has been taken. For example, the Parliament passed the Sexual Offences (Procedure and Evidence) (Scotland) Act 2002, which addressed some of the concerns about the impact on victims of rape when there was an unfair and irrelevant focus on their sexual background or character by the accused or the accused's legal representatives when they gave evidence in court. The impact of the act is currently being evaluated; the final report is due early in the new year.
Moreover, the Crown Office's review of the prosecution of rape is a thorough examination of the best prosecution practice in the area. It contains 50 recommendations, which are aimed at delivering an improved quality of investigation and prosecution and at ensuring that victims are treated with courtesy, respect and sensitivity.
Finally, we have asked the Scottish Law Commission to examine the law in this area and await its report, which will be the most comprehensive review ever undertaken in Scotland of the law related to rape and other sex offences.
There have also been civil law developments in relation to violence against women under legislation passed by this Parliament. For example, the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006 created the domestic interdict—a remedy for cohabiting couples—and extends the available interdicts so that they can cover not only the home but the applicant's place of work and the school attended by any child in her care. Elsewhere in the 2006 act are provisions that explicitly require the court to consider abuse or the risk of abuse in family cases. For example, the section will apply when a father applies to the court for contact with his child.
The first act of the Scottish Parliament to begin life in a committee, the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001, allows the court to attach a power of arrest to any interdict granted to protect someone from abuse. We should remember Maureen Macmillan's key role in that.
Not all the progress has been about legal change. We are also keen to support new and innovative ways of working. The domestic abuse court pilot and the assist service came about because of real partnership focused on delivering tangible improvements to the way in which cases of domestic abuse are handled. After two years of the pilot in Glasgow, more perpetrators of domestic abuse are being brought to justice and are being dealt with swiftly and effectively within six weeks. Importantly, the initiative fully supports both victims and witnesses who come into contact with the domestic abuse court. I was pleased to announce continued support and funding for the court and the associated assist service when I spoke at its second-birthday conference in October.
The sexual assault referral centre is another project based on a partnership approach that considers improved, joined-up service delivery. Archway Glasgow will provide a co-ordinated multi-agency response to rape and sexual assault, which will provide women, men and adolescents with sensitive and responsive forensic health and support services every day for 24 hours a day in one central location. We have committed £1.6 million over three years to pilot the centre and I look forward to its launch in April.
Activists, not only the many paid and unpaid children's support workers in Women's Aid, have raised awareness of the effect of domestic abuse on children and young people. Through the powerful listen louder campaign, young activists raised their own issues with the Scottish Executive and Parliament. We have moved as a nation from ignoring children to recognising that they are affected by domestic abuse and need support in their own right. Young people have shown that they can eloquently state their needs.
The £6 million that we have invested ensures that every women's aid group has a minimum of three full-time workers supporting children when they are in and once they have left refuge, and that outreach support is offered to many thousands of children and young people in the wider community. We know that supporting those children is everyone's responsibility, which is why Johann Lamont and the Deputy Minister for Education and Young People jointly launched the new national domestic abuse delivery group for children and the getting it right for every child domestic abuse pathfinder pilot, ensuring a multi-agency, cross-Executive approach to secure better outcomes for children.
We have exciting plans for children to participate in a delivery plan for their future, and we make a commitment here for young people to have a voice. There are real changes in the law, and practical changes on the ground.
I would like to touch on a number of other areas of work. In her amendment, Christine Grahame refers to refuges. Since 2000, we have invested £12 million, through the domestic abuse refuge accommodation programme, to build new refuges or to adapt, extend and upgrade existing ones. That has resulted in more than 600 new, adapted, refurbished or upgraded spaces since 2000. We have also established a sub-group of the national group to address violence against women to implement a domestic abuse accommodation and support provision action plan. The sub-group is chaired by Scottish Women's Aid and has representation from the Executive's violence against women, homelessness and supporting people teams, as well as from Communities Scotland and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. I look forward to its work progressing.
The minister mentions 600 updated spaces since 2000. I want to get my figures right. From the website of Scottish Women's Aid, I have a figure of 234 refuge places. That is the only figure I could get. How many refuge places are there currently in Scotland?
I am giving the figure of 600 for new, adapted, refurbished or upgraded spaces since 2000. I do not know what the figure of 234 refers to.
We are pleased to continue our commitment to funding local projects that are working across the three Ps of prevention, protection and provision. The new violence against women fund of £3 million a year is supporting 87 projects over this year and next. We are also continuing to work with the advice of the national group to address violence against women and we are currently consulting local multi-agency partnerships and training consortia on a draft violence against women framework that provides a common language, understanding and context for progressing this agenda at national and local level. I will be interested to know the outcome of the consultation exercise and will use it to build a solid foundation for progressing our work in this area.
It is clear to me that to bring about real change we will need to consider how to challenge attitudes and demand so that it becomes unacceptable to abuse women and to view them as sexual commodities. Education will be a key part of that; children and young people are our chance to eradicate violence against women in future.
We acknowledge the work of Scottish Women's Aid, the Zero Tolerance Trust, multi-agency partnerships and others, all of which are finding exciting ways of working in schools and youth groups to change attitudes to domestic abuse, sexual bullying and violence against women more generally. We are reviewing a range of positive local and national developments and materials to widen the reach of that vital prevention work and to promote good practice across Scotland.
Men must take responsibility for ending violence against women. In March, we supported a successful conference, held by Amnesty International and the Men's Health Forum Scotland, aimed at involving men in tackling violence against women. Those organisations are now working to build support for the white ribbon campaign. Wearing a white ribbon is a symbol of men's opposition to men's violence against women. It signifies a commitment never to commit, condone or remain silent about such violence. I for one will be proud to wear one during the 16 days.
I move,
That the Parliament is pleased to reaffirm its commitment to the cause of ending violence against women; supports the 16th year of the United Nations' 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence campaign and its focus this year on activists; pays tribute to the many paid and unpaid women across Scotland, for example at the Scottish Domestic Abuse Helpline, local women's aid groups, rape crisis centres and other voluntary sector projects, who have given their time, energy and commitment over the years to raising the profile of domestic abuse, rape and sexual assault and other forms of male violence against women, as well as offering support to those who experience it; congratulates both Scottish Women's Aid and Glasgow Rape Crisis Centre on reaching their 30th anniversaries; welcomes the progress made over the last 30 years including recent developments which recognise the impacts that domestic abuse has on children, and supports the Scottish Executive in its efforts to tackle violence against women in all its forms.
I note the terms of the Government's motion and I note the minister's words. We on this side of the chamber will be supporting the motion. The minister did not refer to the Scottish National Party's amendment, but perhaps I can persuade him of its merits during the course of the debate. The debate should be largely non-party political and consensual, but issues will arise to do with funding and figures.
I, too, have a great deal of sympathy with the Scottish Socialist Party's amendment. I support some of the issues that it raises—especially the part about low conviction rates. However, I will wait to hear views on effective changes in the criminal justice system.
My feeling is that the issue is now more about funding and resources—other types of resources—than the processes themselves. The criminal justice system—whether the work of the police or of the prosecution service—has come a long way in our time in the Parliament. I note what the minister said about a further review of the law. That issue also needs to be addressed.
At the outset, I make it plain that when I speak of violence, I mean not only physical violence but violence that is psychological, emotional, threatening and controlling. Despite efforts by members across the Parliament, through ministerial offices and committees, to address the blight of violence against women—both expressed and silent—it remains part of far too many lives. As the minister said, violence against women also extends to the children in a family.
Many but not all incidents of violence against women are domestic abuse cases. I will put a few figures into the debate. The most recent figures, in "Domestic Abuse Recorded by the Police in Scotland, 2005–06", show a substantial increase from 43,631 incidents in 2004-05 to 45,795 in 2005-06. I accept that that may be due to the fact that women now feel that they can report cases—87 per cent of cases were reported by women, not men—but we cannot make that presumption. The figures do not enable us to determine how many cases involved violence against women and into what categories the incidents fell.
I have some points for the minister. First, given the figures, what detailed analysis does the Government undertake to inform policy, funding, education and—if necessary, although it should not always be the first resort—legislation? Secondly, I note that the figures are qualified by the phrase:
"For those incidents where information was available".
The information gap should be plugged.
Without relying on a deluge of statistics, I want to explore further the figure of 43,631 cases in 2004-05. Within that total, 8,691 sheriff court referrals for summary trial and 104 High Court referrals were made. Taken together, that leaves some 34,836 reported cases—or 80 per cent of all cases—off the prosecution radar. Again, bare statistics do not give the full answer, but the gap is so wide that it requires to be addressed. Even if we allow for the burden of proof in criminal prosecutions, the percentage of cases that did not come to court is unacceptable. I ask the minister to tell the chamber what research or evidence the Government has on that dramatic fall-off. We must not continue to debate statistics year after year.
Two other chilling statistics emerge from the document, which the Executive published this year. First, 55 per cent of cases in 2004-05 involved repeat victims. How can that still happen? Secondly, domestic abuse was a factor in one in four suicide attempts that were made by women. Those are serious issues and they must be addressed. We know that the violence is most likely to be inflicted by a partner or cohabitee. We also know that a substantial percentage of abuse occurs not only around but after separation. A certain kind of determined partner can make the situation post separation much worse.
What can be done to assist victims and reduce the incidence of such violence, in so far as the Government can do so, given that societal change is also required? Let us look at Scottish Women's Aid. When I intervened on the minister to check the only figures that I was able to obtain, he could not give me an answer. The only figure that I found was for 2004-05 and showed that there were only 234 refuge places throughout Scotland. From the figures that I have given, we can see that that is a drop in the ocean of what is required. Figures for the same period show that 5,368 requests were made for a refuge place and yet it seems that only 234 places were available. We may never know what on earth the women and children who did not get into a refuge did.
I will take a few figures at random from a table on refuge places: Angus, with one refuge, had 112 requests; East Lothian, with one refuge, had 91 requests; Glasgow, with four refuges for its half a million people, had 828 requests. The figures show that funding is an issue.
Funding for Scottish Women's Aid comes from central Government, local authorities, charities, legacies, donations and housing benefit, among other sources. Since 2003, a key source has been the supporting people fund. However, the budget lines show that the fund has been reduced from £408 million in 2003-04 to £399 million in 2006-07. I hope that the minister can tell me—not necessarily during the debate, but perhaps in writing—whether the drop in the fund is related to a reduction in need for the services that Scottish Women's Aid provides, or whether the provision of services is at a standstill.
Education is an issue in relation to the reporting and prevention of rape. Some advertising campaigns superficially appeared to be successful, such as the one that showed a cowed woman who looked as though she had been bullied and was anticipating physical violence. However, the budget for advertising campaigns on domestic violence was reduced from £482,000 in 2002-03 to £296,000 in 2005-06. Was that reduction in funding the result of a campaign's success or was it to do with budget cuts or research findings? We need an answer to that question.
It seems that the most recent research on the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001 was published in 2003. The researchers asked 32 victims whether they had heard of the 2001 act and 87 per cent had never heard of it. The 18 professionals, such as sheriffs, procurators fiscal, solicitors and police officers, who were asked about the 2001 act had heard of it, but some of them were unclear about the detail. The 2001 act was a crowning glory for the Justice 1 Committee, which had introduced the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Bill, but is the legislation operating? The minister should revisit the 2001 act and ascertain what it has achieved.
I move amendment S2M-5109.2, to insert at end:
"notes that in 2004-05 there were only 234 refuge places in Scotland and calls on the Executive to provide increased funding to support additional places which will also take into account rurality and remoteness, and further calls on the Executive to review the operation of the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001."
I welcome the debate and I will support the Executive motion—that is a rare occurrence. I congratulate the Minister for Communities and the Deputy Minister for Communities on the wording of the motion. Too often, we talk about violence against women as if it happens in the absence of anyone else and we do not mention the men. It is hugely important that the motion refers to "male violence against women", because if we are to challenge attitudes we must describe the problem as it is: men are the perpetrators of violence against women. I understand the significance of the Executive's welcome shift in language and I think that women's organisations throughout the country will appreciate that, too. The amendment in my name is intended to complement the motion and I hope that members receive it in that way.
According to the United Nations, women face increasing violence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, especially when they speak out to defend women's rights. In Liberia, 40 per cent of women and girls who were surveyed said that they had been victims of sexual violence. However, we need not travel far from the Parliament to find women who have been subjected to sexual violence and denied justice. Last year there were 900 reports of rape in Scotland but just 39 convictions—a conviction rate of 4.3 per cent. The number of reported attacks has doubled in the past 10 years, but the conviction rate has dropped, as Cathy Jamieson acknowledged on 6 March. In some areas the conviction rate is even lower. For example, none of the 20 reported rapes in Dumfries and Galloway in 2004-05 resulted in a conviction.
The Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 and the Sexual Offences (Procedure and Evidence) (Scotland) Act 2002 were intended to give greater protection to women who reported rape and to improve their chances of bringing a successful prosecution. When the Lord Advocate was Solicitor General for Scotland, she announced the findings of a review of the system, which made 50 recommendations. I hope that during the debate she can give us information about progress in that regard. Research that the Scottish Executive commissioned indicated that in the three years after it was passed, the 1995 act failed to protect women who reported rape.
I welcome Elish Angiolini's commitment to reforming the system, but much more needs to be done. I have tried to flag that up in my amendment. Christine Grahame talked about the need for change. We cannot say often enough that there will have been effective change only when conviction rates start to increase. I cannot claim to be able to be more specific about what is needed, but changes need to be made, so that we can bring to justice the men who perpetrate violence against women.
It is bad enough that women are made to relive their ordeal when they come forward and that their chances of succeeding are around one in 25; what is worse is that the courts are still failing to protect innocent victims of male sexual violence from humiliation and degradation in the witness box. The Executive's own research shows that defence lawyers made verbal applications to introduce evidence of the complainer's sexual history in 23 per cent of rape cases and that 95 per cent of those applications were made spontaneously, which means that they were sprung on the complainer while she was giving evidence.
What is worse is that researchers found that sexual history evidence of the type prohibited by the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 was introduced without application in half the rape cases heard in the High Court that the research investigated. The researchers said that the nature of the questioning and the inspection of the complainer's private life, including their medical and gynaecological histories, can be potentially humiliating and intimidating. Small wonder that the researchers also found that 62 per cent of complainers in the High Court were audibly distressed and were crying or sobbing while giving evidence. That is torture; it is cruel and inhumane treatment of women that would not be tolerated if the victims were men.
Where are the other crimes the victims of which are treated as criminals? Where are the muggers' victims who are treated as liars? Are they subjected to questioning by defence lawyers about whether they were asking for it by wearing expensive designer clothing?
On the basis of the Executive's research it is fair to conclude that about three out of four women who are brave enough to give evidence against rapists are being subjected to humiliating questions about their sex life with no protection from the courts.
Research from the United States suggests that introducing sexual history evidence lowers the chance of securing a conviction. That means that an awful lot of women's chances of securing a conviction have been compromised by the introduction of such evidence. As a result, thousands of rapists are wandering about free. As well as there being hundreds of rapists who escape justice because no prosecution is ever brought, despite a complaint being made, thousands of women never make a complaint because they know that, at best, all they face is humiliation in court with a tiny chance of conviction. Men know that they can do the crime and need never worry about doing the time.
We need to consider setting up specialist sexual violence courts of a type similar to Glasgow's domestic violence court, which I think has been effective—the signs are that it is certainly helping to address male violence. We need courts that are presided over by judges who will provide protection to women complainers; where prosecutors are determined to secure justice for rape victims; and where defence lawyers are prevented from humiliating victims. Until we have such courts, we will continue to let down women who are subjected to vile crimes against their person while letting rapists continue to believe that they can get off.
I ask members to support my amendment, which recognises that we still need effective change. I hope that there is consensus on that throughout the chamber.
I move amendment S2M-5109.1, to insert at end:
"and, in so doing, expresses continuing concern at the despairingly low conviction rates for rape and sexual offences and the continuing humiliation that the majority of women complainants face through the courts allowing examination of victims' sexual history and character, and believes that the efforts of the Executive to address male violence against women must be supported by effective change in the criminal justice system."
We will be supporting the motion. The fact that many women in Scotland are still facing the horror of domestic abuse is an incredible statistic with Dickensian parallels. Throughout my investigations into this matter, I was appalled by some of the facts and figures that I came across, such as the fact that one in every five women experiences domestic abuse at some point in her life, which is a horrifying statistic. Domestic abuse is an horrendous crime and when it is reported it needs to be tackled with all the severity of the law.
Although the number of reported instances of domestic abuse has continued to rise, Executive policy has tended to focus on the judicial penalties to be applied after an act has taken place. I remember the Labour Party promising not so long ago to be tough on crime and the causes of crime, but that seems to have been abandoned in a range of areas.
It is undeniable that we have an increasingly violent society. Violent crime is on the increase, as are violent images on television, in films and in computer games. A more violent society will lead to a rise in violent domestic abuse. Such a crime does not develop independently of society.
There is, regrettably, also a child protection aspect to this issue that needs to be taken into consideration, because 40 to 60 per cent of domestic abuse cases also involve a child.
I was pleased to see our party take the unprecedented step in 2002 of producing a domestic violence poster. Such steps go a long way towards dealing with the issue. Publicity is an invaluable tool, as it enables many to identify circumstances in which the victim is too scared to speak out. I am pleased that there have been similar initiatives by other organisations and government bodies. I hope that those in the teaching, medical and policing professions will also have the relevant training and awareness to identify an individual who is in need of help. How much better would it be, though, if that awareness extended to working environments such as the office, the shop and the factory?
Additionally, the publicising and promotion of existing legal protection are important. A report in 2003 on the awareness of the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001 revealed disappointing findings. Some 87 per cent of previous victims and a number of professionals had either no understanding or a limited understanding of the act and the protection that it offers.
Another aspect of improving the reporting of incidents is faith in the justice system. Unfortunately, that has been decreasing in recent years, mostly as a consequence of the widespread early release schemes. At stage 2 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill, Bill Aitken's attempt to introduce measures to reduce remission to one sixth of a sentence for short-term and long-term prisoners, rather than the current half or two thirds, was voted down by Labour, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats. This matter is all about trust. If we are to encourage highly vulnerable women—and we must remember that, on average, two women a week are killed by their partners or former partners—to report matters to the police and stick with the system, they have to feel that the system is on their side and will stay with them throughout the process. There are two things that urgently need to be done in that regard. The first is that we must end automatic early releases and the second is that we must establish a three-strikes-and-you're-out policy.
Finally, it is important that we consider why such cases are occurring. What is wrong with our society that means that many men are unable to cope and think that it is acceptable to take that out on their partners? Why have we become so violent? What are we going to do about it? Time is not on our side.
In 1999, the United Nations adopted November 25 as the international day for the elimination of violence against women. That violence includes domestic violence, forced marriage, crimes in the name of honour, rape and sexual assault, murder, trafficking and sexual exploitation, female genital mutilation, sexual harassment and stalking. The designated day and the 16 days of activism against gender violence campaign that runs on from it are intended to help individuals and groups around the world to work for the elimination of all forms of violence against women. This year, the focus is on activists—those individuals, groups and organisations that have campaigned not just for 16 days once a year but over many years. I want to take up that focus and look back over those years.
All violence is to be deplored, but the statistics justify giving special consideration to violence against women. It is not surprising that it is a feminist analysis of violence against women as a reflection of the power imbalance in society that has largely driven the agenda.
Campaigning by feminists in the past 30 years and more has helped to change dramatically societal attitudes towards rape and sexual abuse, raising public awareness about how widespread sexual violence is and contributing to policy changes and improvements to the way in which the health service and the criminal justice system respond to violently abused women.
Thirty years ago, women who were trying to leave an abusive partner had few options and it was virtually impossible for them to get help from statutory bodies. Women who reported incidents and tried to get help were dismissed as time wasters and the incidents were dismissed as trivial. The attitude was that the woman should go home and make up with her husband and that violence in the home was something that did not happen in that area.
In 1973, activists from the women's liberation movement in Scotland visited a safe house in Chiswick for those who were then termed "battered women". Following that, Women's Aid was established and the first refuges opened in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The refuge movement was determined not to replicate the dismissive attitudes that were prevalent and recognised that any woman can be at risk of domestic abuse, regardless of class, race, religious or ethnic group, sexuality, disability or lifestyle.
Rape is one of the most extreme forms of violence against women. Rape crisis centres opened in Glasgow in 1976 and in Edinburgh in 1978 at a time when, all too often, the official approach was characterised by attacking, blaming and disbelieving the women who complained of rape. The work of rape crisis centres, therefore, regularly involved challenging deeply sexist myths and beliefs about rape and rapists, including arguing that rape within marriage must be treated as a crime. Rape crisis centre workers—all of whom were unpaid in those early days—wrote letters, gave talks, lobbied MPs and spoke to groups of lawyers, police, doctors and others whose attitudes affected the ways in which women who had been assaulted were treated. A range of groups and organisations, including Rape Crisis Scotland, Women's Aid and abortion campaigners, worked together in demanding a complete change in attitudes to women.
In 1992 came the first crime prevention campaign in Britain to tackle the issue of male violence against women and children—the zero tolerance campaign. Launched by the City of Edinburgh District Council's women's committee, it centred round the three Ps: prevention, protection and provision. Zero tolerance makes the links between different forms of violence against women, recognising that the causes of violence against women are based on wider inequalities and power relations in society. It aims to prevent male violence before it happens and it stresses the importance of long-term public awareness raising in any strategy to prevent male violence against women and children. The respect initiative, which targets young people, is also aimed at changing attitudes to prevent violence before it happens.
In 30 years, a veritable army of women has worked to tackle violence against women and has supported women in escaping from and surviving violence that has been perpetrated against them by the men in their lives. Any long-term solution requires fundamental changes in the societal attitudes that ignore, excuse and even justify male violence against women. It is non-perpetrating men who are most able to move attitudes forward, yet those are the men who readily state that violence against women has nothing to do with them and do not choose to get involved.
In 2004, Amnesty International launched a global campaign that explicitly set out to involve the vast majority of men, who are not perpetrators of abuse, in seeking long-term solutions to address violence against women. More recently, Amnesty International co-hosted with Men's Health Forum Scotland the conference that Malcolm Chisholm mentioned. Part of the stop violence against women campaign, it was entitled "Involving Men" and focused specifically on the role of men and boys in addressing violence against women. It was a starting point to identify, create and promote strategies to enable non-perpetrating men to speak out against violence against women and become involved in bringing about cultural change. That is an exciting and necessary development in the history of initiatives to eradicate the root cause of violence against women.
Violence against women is not a women's issue. It is a community problem that must be tackled by men and women working together to find solutions. We have come a long way in 30 years and it is fitting that we recognise and thank all those who have contributed to the progress that has been made. I commend and wish well all those who will build on that progress and take us forward.
I welcome the motion, which comes in the run-up to the 16 days of activism against gender violence. The 16 days run from 25 November, which is the international day for the elimination of violence against women, to 10 December, which is international human rights day, taking in 6 December, which marks the anniversary of the Montreal massacre of 1989, in which a man shot and killed 14 women engineering students for being feminists. That event brought people together internationally to combat violence against women.
Of course, the problem was not new. Campaigners in Scotland set up organisations such as Women's Aid and Rape Crisis Scotland in the 1970s. The fact that, 30 years on, we are still struggling to end abuse and violence against women is not a cause for celebration, but it is right that today we mark the work that has been done. I applaud the stamina and commitment of the women who have campaigned for and supported victims of abuse over the past three decades.
Progress has been made, in some areas more than in others. A big plus has been the participation in the policy process with the Scottish Executive of people who are involved on the front line to frame the national strategy to address domestic abuse in Scotland. It is vital that folk who have front-line experience are actively involved in changing policy and improving the situation in Scotland. We should celebrate that.
The entrenched nature of the problem has been highlighted. Changing attitudes was never going to be easy, but attitudes have changed. We now recognise problems that were hidden or barely visible in the past. People now rarely speak about "battered women", as if what has happened to them is their fault.
Although many people still think that violence is the most disturbing aspect of abuse, many women say that they have been scarred more deeply by the emotional abuse and controlling behaviour of their former partners. Emotional abuse can accompany many other forms of abuse, or it may occur in isolation. It can take the form of insults, constant criticism, threats, degradation, humiliation or convincing a woman that she has a mental illness—the man might say, "Och, she's no right in the heid, it's all her fault." Money might be withheld, making it impossible for the woman to budget, for which she is punished. The woman can be isolated from her friends and family, or the man might fall out with her family, embarrass her in front of her friends, prevent her from socialising or imprison her. Those women who experience emotional abuse can find it extremely difficult to cope with daily life. Even though it destroys their self-esteem and self-worth, many women find such abuse difficult to report and to get help with.
Sexual abuse is common, although women are often reluctant to report or discuss it. Indeed, as a society, we are highly reluctant to discuss sexual abuse. It includes a wide range of sexual acts into which women are forced or coerced. It can involve the use of pornographic material or the woman being photographed or filmed, or subjected to anal sex, rape or sexual assault with an object. Having contraception withheld, being forced to have an abortion or to engage in prostitution or being subject to female genital mutilation are other forms of such abuse.
Although the severity of the abuse varies, there are common characteristics. The incidents are seldom isolated—they tend to be repeated over time and often extend to children who live in the same home. They often increase in severity and frequency and are particularly common during pregnancy or following the birth of a child.
In my area, there are several organisations that have an excellent track record of working with women and children, as well as male victims of abuse, over many years. They include Women's Aid, Open Secret and Central Scotland Rape Crisis. Falkirk is also the base for Sacro and the change programme, which work with perpetrators.
I welcome the minister's comment on the assist pilot in Glasgow, which brings together all the agencies that are involved in supporting victims through the domestic abuse court. The statistics clearly demonstrate the court's success, as do the testimonies of those who have used it. I look forward to the extension of domestic abuse courts, which I hope will be backed up by the spreading of the assist programme to other parts of Scotland. It is vital that such an important project is rolled out throughout Scotland.
Although rape reporting has risen, conviction rates have not, so I welcome the proposal to adopt reformed procedures for dealing with rape victims, which should make it easier to secure a conviction.
It is important that the Parliament reviews and discusses men's violence against women and children regularly, so I am sad that so few of my male colleagues are present for the debate. We are not talking about a women's issue; it is an issue for our whole community, on which we will not achieve change unless the men in the Parliament and elsewhere address it.
Does the member agree that we insult men by accusing them of such abuse? The people who commit such crimes—they are crimes—against women are less than men and should be portrayed as such.
I want John Swinburne and other men in the Parliament to say that to the men concerned. The perpetrators are men—in general, it is men who commit such violence against women and children.
I look forward to the day when people in the Parliament and throughout Scotland do not have to debate the dreadful issue of violence against women.
As the motion highlights, we have a great history of women's rights activism in Scotland. This week, I visited the Eighteen and Under centre in Dundee, which started as the Young Women's Project but which in the past couple of years has widened its remit. However, it still tackles explicitly gender-based violence and other forms of abuse. The centre offers one-to-one support for young people who have been abused, including counselling and support during criminal proceedings and trials.
That project is part of the violence is preventable—VIP—network. We surely all agree that prevention is better than cure. The network, which currently has participants ranging from three to 102 years, aims to increase people's awareness of personal safety, violence prevention, abuse, gender inequality in relationships and domestic abuse. Crucially, in a pilot project in Dundee that is supported by Dundee City Council, project leaders go into schools to deliver programmes that are designed for children from primary 1 through to sixth year in secondary school. The programmes encourage children to think about their feelings and about alternatives to violence in resolving conflict. Equally important, a VIP project in Dundee works with senior citizens, mostly women. Elderly people who move into care homes or who become less physically and mentally able members of the community need extra support and information to protect them. Violence against and abuse of older women are too often overlooked and unreported.
The VIP programme needs to be rolled out across Scotland. As in previous years, I ask the minister whether he is content with the roll-out of the complementary zero tolerance campaign. Are schools getting the opportunity to address the culture of violence that prevails in our society and which both those programmes address so well?
The Executive does good work in supporting the women's aid groups in my region in Dundee, Angus, Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire. However, it is a shame that the Executive's international development fund does not fund overseas projects to tackle violence against women. Amnesty International states:
"Violence against women in the family has been recognized as a leading cause of death and suffering around the world."
As others have said, it is important to see violence against women in an international context. As individuals, organisations and a nation, we have links and contacts with people throughout the world and therefore the opportunity to influence and be influenced by them. I bring to the Parliament's attention the work of RAWA—the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan—which was started way back in 1977 in Kabul. It is an independent organisation of Afghan women that fights for human rights and social justice in Afghanistan. RAWA, which is the oldest political and social organisation of Afghan women, struggles for peace, freedom, democracy and women's rights.
Amnesty International states that, in Afghanistan, the international community's interventions and the Afghan Government
"have proved unable to protect women."
Despite the 28 per cent representation of women in the Afghan Parliament, women and girls in Afghanistan are threatened with violence in every aspect of their lives, in public and in private, in the community and in the family. A survey conducted by the United Nations Development Fund for Women revealed that 65 per cent of the 50,000 widows in Kabul see suicide as the only option to get rid of their miseries and desolation. Forced and underage marriage, when women and girls are given in marriage, occurs as a means of dispute resolution in informal justice mechanisms. Prosecutions for violence against women and protection for women who are at an acute risk of violence are virtually absent. In certain regions of Afghanistan, women who are accused of adultery are routinely detained, as are those who attempt to assert their right, under Afghan law and international standards, to marry a spouse of their choice.
RAWA believes that
"freedom and democracy can't be donated; it is the duty of the people of a country to fight and achieve these values."
As we continue our work in Scotland, we must also use our international contacts to support and help activists in all countries to combat violence against women.
I refer members to my entry in the register of members' interests.
The motion is partly a tribute to the work done by local women's groups over the years to provide support for abused women and to raise awareness of this grievous cancer in society. Male violence against women is still ingrained in our culture. Women are still presenting at casualty, in surgeries, to the police and to Women's Aid and other support organisations because of male violence.
It has been more than 25 years since Ross-Shire Women's Aid was set up. I want to celebrate that band of stroppy women and to reiterate the reasons why women felt the need to set up women's aid groups. Women knew that male violence against them was widespread, that it was serious, that it was often fatal and that it was largely ignored by society. They knew that from their own experience, from that of their friends or from that of women whom they came across in the course of their work. Yet the police, the health service, local authorities and the churches would not admit that domestic violence was of any real significance. They persisted in the attitude that it happened only among the rougher elements of society, that it was caused by drink—which is wrong—that women asked for it anyway and that, if it was so bad, why did the women not just leave.
Can you imagine the challenge that a newly set up women's aid group faced in a small Highland town 25 years ago in trying to persuade the council and a horrified public that there was a need for a local women's refuge? Can you imagine the disbelief, the denial, the hostility and the accusations that we were besmirching the good name of the Highlands? "It doesn't happen here," people thought. Think of the insinuations, the names that we were called, the persistence with which the volunteers had to argue their case and the work that lay ahead of them once the refuge was finally set up.
Volunteers and paid women have picked up women from police stations in the middle of the night. They have taken women to casualty in the early hours of the morning. They have met them off trains, buses and boats. They have picked them up in their nightclothes from phone boxes and the roadside. They have sat and talked with them all night, either face to face or over the phone. They have wiped the blood from their faces. They have sat with them in the waiting rooms of courts and general practitioners. They have even been the birth partners to some women when their babies were born. We have also supported the women's children, although we did not know then the profound effect that domestic violence has on children. Volunteers have given presentations in schools. They have helped to train the police, social workers and health workers. They have been on local radio. They have given interviews to local papers. They have lobbied and they have challenged. We supported women because we saw that there was a need for that. We realised that if women did not do that for their sister women, nobody else would.
We have come a long way in the Highlands in 25 years, mostly in the past eight, thanks to the Executive and the Parliament. We now have purpose-built refuges, children's workers and outreach workers in the most distant parts of the west Highlands, and we have follow-on services for women who have left the refuge. Not all women wish to come into refuges nowadays. Often, they prefer to be supported in the community, and we provide that support.
We now have full commitment from the Highland Council, the police and NHS Highland. Only this week, I was talking with a long-time women's aid volunteer who works for NHS Highland about the training schemes that are now being put in place by the health board so that practitioners can recognise and deal with cases of domestic abuse. She has long campaigned for such schemes and it has given her immense satisfaction that they are now going ahead.
It is significant that an increasing number of men recognise that male violence against women must be dealt with at its source. What causes men to be violent towards women? Why do they feel that they have to exert power through rape or beatings? As has been said many times, it is important that men who are not violent challenge those who are, even down to the man who makes the passing remark in the pub that his wife could do with a good slap. Men's silence can be deafening. They must speak up and more are doing so. Only the other week in the Highlands, more men than ever before attended the Highland well-being alliance's annual conference on domestic violence. That was a good sign. As Amnesty International says, violence against women will not stop unless men are part of the campaign to stop it.
A relatively small number of women in Scotland made their voices heard, yet they effected great changes. Labour members did that particularly through the labour and trade union movement, but others had different routes. Those women and their successors, whether as volunteers or paid workers, still support women and children. The need is still out there and we continue to campaign for provision, prevention and protection.
I am proud of what we have done, but I recognise that some male attitudes towards women can be progressed only through societal change. That is not an easy task, but we must persevere with it. Until then, all power to volunteers and workers past and present and especially to those who were there at the beginning in Ross-shire—Rhona, Ann, Eileen, Marilyn, Karen and Kathleen—and the many others since.
The experience of this man—I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in the debate—as an MSP is probably, alas, not dissimilar to that of others. I think of one instance of a woman sitting across the desk from me at my constituency surgery, shaking from the stress of telling me of her experience: I face a woman to whom I cannot offer a physical hand to hold because, as a man, I may too closely represent the source of her legitimate fears. She shows me photographs of the bruises and cuts that cover her torso and limbs, but which do not cover her face, because the violent man in domestic circumstances is too clever to beat his partner where it will show.
As other members can justifiably be, I am proud to have been party to some of the legal changes that Parliament has made that go some way towards helping with what happens in public. I will quote another politician—my namesake Adlai Stevenson, the late US Secretary of State—who said:
"Laws are never as effective as habits".
The public policy that we are discussing intersects with private practice, because violence against women is largely a secret vice that is conducted behind a front door and is observed by no one other than the violent man, the beaten woman and perhaps by a wide-eyed and mystified child, whose immature mind may be imprinted with the idea that violence is normal as a model for their future behaviour in another generation as a dominant male or as a female who is expected to be submissive.
When children watch television or play video games on a computer, violence is increasingly a large part of the experience. The reason for that is encompassed in Alfred Hitchcock's comment that
"Drama is life with the dull bits cut out".
In a sense, that is the reason for the temptation for too much drama and too many video and computer games to be violent—the dull bits have been cut out. Too much drama passively absorbed with too little engagement, as a contrast to positive energy-consuming activity, reinforces the adverse experiences to which too many of our children are exposed.
Figures that I have used previously suggest that less than half of all the violent incidents that are reported to the police lead to an offence being recorded or a conviction. Private violence, which includes sexual violence, violent shouting and bullying in all its forms, is the least likely type of violence to be reported because people are much less confident that cases involving such violence will be successfully pursued. A public fight at a pub door, by contrast, may have been witnessed by people and people might know that witnesses exist; the injured party will then be confident that the matter can be dealt with.
Violence against women is a huge problem, and I say to Cathy Peattie that it should shame all men. Some 40 per cent of members who are present for this debate are men. If we take into account the total number of members who are men, perhaps pro rata not as many men are present as we might wish for, but we are not doing too badly. For the first time, I commend the Tories—their team today is all male.
I particularly welcome something that not everyone may have noticed. Recently, in considering a bill, we decided to criminalise men who use 16 or 17-year-old prostitutes. I hope that we will move the burden of illegality away from providers of sexual services to users of sexual services because sexual abuse is at the heart of much of what we are discussing.
The last time I participated in a debate on violence against women was on 25 November 2004. The title of that debate was exactly the same as the title of this debate and the same member moved the motion—even the source of one of the amendments was the same—but there has been a different emphasis in this debate. I hope that I will not participate in many more such debates as a result of the need for them diminishing as the scourge of violence against women is eliminated from the too many households in which it takes place. However, I am not overoptimistic about that and should not hold my breath until it happens.
I close by quoting Molière, who said:
"The greater the obstacle, the more the glory in overcoming it."
There is much glory to be earned by all of us in tackling violence against women, but earning that glory is, as yet, a distant prospect.
I, too, welcome the debate, and congratulate Scottish Women's Aid, and rape crisis centres and other voluntary sector projects on the excellent work that they do.
I also want to mention the Lindsay Armstrong Support Group. I am sure that most members know about Lindsay Armstrong, who came from New Cumnock, in my area. Lindsay was a victim of rape who was, sadly, so traumatised during the court case that she took her own life before the perpetrator was sentenced. Lindsay's mother set up the Lindsay Armstrong Support Group with the help of people in the community. Her mum says on the group's website:
"The day after Lindsay passed away, a reporter from the Daily Record came to our door. We invited her in and told her everything that had happened to Lindsay. I vowed then to let everyone know what horrors Lindsay went through in court. We never knew the scale of what was to begin."
The Lindsay Armstrong Support Group is still thriving in New Cumnock. I visited it recently: it has a charity shop in which it raises funds and, more important, it has a 24-hour helpline that is used by people throughout the country who have suffered in the same way that Lindsay suffered. Lindsay's mum has also said on the group's website:
"We have now volunteers to man the telephone lines, but still need more to keep a successful 24 hour helpline running. We know from experience that night times were the worst for Lindsay because this was when she needed someone outwith the family to talk to."
I raise the matter because we must never allow anyone to suffer as Lindsay did. I was happy to hear about the forthcoming review of the law and that we will soon have a report. Nevertheless, women who have been through similar experiences have visited my surgeries. One of those women ended up in the mental health ward of the local hospital and was sectioned after going through a traumatic experience in court.
I ask the minister to consider how the Executive might financially support the Lindsay Armstrong Support Group to keep the 24-hour helpline going. I know that Cathy Jamieson has visited the group and has made a great number of contacts there, but I would be grateful if the minister would write to me with suggestions about how we could help to keep the group running.
I congratulate Scottish Women's Aid on the excellent courses that it runs for teachers to raise awareness of the effects of domestic violence on children. When I was a teacher, I attended some of the courses and found them to be absolutely invaluable. As many members have said today, the impact of domestic violence on children and young people is hard to measure.
As Shiona Baird rightly pointed out, education in schools as well as for teachers is extremely important. We must educate our young people in conflict resolution and to work towards the peaceful resolution of situations in order to remove the impact of the violence that they see on television and in the computer games they play, as Stewart Stevenson said. Schools must act against such experiences because—as I said in yesterday's debate—many young people have no one to engage with properly: there is no running commentary and there is no one to endorse the positive things that they do or to discuss with them the negative things that happen. The role of the school is crucial.
The effects of domestic violence on children are immeasurable, as I said. Children witness domestic violence; they either hear it from another room in the house or it happens right in front of them. Such children often withdraw, but they sometimes display violent behaviour. One of the things that teachers must be aware of is that the child who comes to school in the morning half-slept, as we say, and who does not pay attention in class could well have been lying in bed the night before listening to what was going on in the background at home. Teachers must be aware that there are reasons why some children do not concentrate or are unable to pick up their lessons, so that they do not increase the burden on those children by giving them a row, marking them out or giving them detention for circumstances that are beyond their control.
As I also mentioned in yesterday's debate, it is crucial that teachers ensure that children get good counselling and support. Children do not often want to disclose what is happening, but the signs are there to be seen. It is up to skilled people to counsel such young people well. We must recognise that that takes expertise that most teachers do not have. I know that I am repeating what I said yesterday, but it is extremely important that we acknowledge the impact of domestic violence on young people.
Today's debate has been measured. All the speeches have been positive and the minister's motion and all the amendments are worthy of support.
"She dressed the wrong way." "She walked in the wrong place." "She said the wrong thing." "She was asking for it." Sadly, in certain sections of Scottish society, the view still prevails that a woman who has been attacked or raped by a partner or stranger has caused her own problems and pain.
Although we have made great strides in tackling this horror, members must not forget the brutal fact of male violence against women—indeed, of male violence against too many women—or ignore its continued existence in all sections of society or its effect on women and families. I welcome this opportunity to discuss what more can and should be done to eradicate this vile problem, whose very hopelessness is perpetrated by the myths that surround it.
The Executive, in partnership with many voluntary organisations in my constituency of Cumbernauld and Kilsyth and throughout Scotland, must be commended for its efforts in combating male violence against women. The message is clear: all forms of violence in Scotland are unacceptable and must be challenged and addressed wherever and whenever they occur. The Executive has made that message very clear through committed funding for every rape crisis centre in Scotland until 2008, continued core funding for Rape Crisis Scotland and Scottish Women's Aid, and powerful awareness-raising work.
We need sophisticated responses to domestic abuse and male violence against women. Public agencies have improved in that respect, but the situation is not yet perfect. Although the police are now much better at assisting women survivors of violence, too many abuse cases remain unreported. Moreover, I am sad to say that some of our police officers are still not responding as they should.
The justice system is beginning to realise that when violence and domestic abuse cases come to court, women need to be supported, not revictimised. However, the number of cases that actually come to court remains shamefully low. The report on the first specialist domestic abuse court, which has been piloted for two years at Glasgow sheriff court, will be published early in 2007. I welcome what appeared to be the minister's commitment to continue that pilot scheme. I believe that the initiative has made a difference in the treatment of domestic abuse cases, and I join Cathy Peattie and Carolyn Leckie in asking that it be extended to other courts. After all, although there are sympathetic ears and understanding minds in our local courts, such cases can take too long to come to court and can be subject to too many delays. That situation is too stressful for the people involved.
Too many women who are victims of male violence or domestic abuse remain reluctant to report the crimes, so we should do everything we can to empower women and to make them feel able to report the people who perpetrate violence against them. If the courts were better equipped to respond to women's needs, more of those women might come forward.
Male violence against women does not differentiate along age lines, racial lines or religious lines and it does not matter what a woman's sexuality might be or where she stays. The fact is that one in 10 women will be the victim of male violence in her lifetime. Those women are wives, mothers, sisters or daughters who deserve our support and every effort that we can make to keep violence against women on the political agenda. I well understand how women such as Maureen Macmillan and Cathy Peattie, who have campaigned for their whole lives on these issues, remain determined to continue the political fight and to eradicate male violence against women.
Domestic abuse and male violence against women require a sophisticated response. I hope that the Executive continues in its efforts to combat the myth, to challenge the perpetrators and to care for the victims. We need to ensure that public servants who work in the front line, whether in our police forces, housing departments or courts, are well trained and supported so that they can offer the care and support that the victims need.
We have heard this afternoon about investment in our future. We need to invest in education so that our young men and women know that violence is not acceptable. If they or their families are victims, they should know that that is not acceptable. Only by supporting and encouraging young people to gain knowledge of the matter will we eradicate male violence against women.
As other members are, I am proud to have been part of a Parliament that has made so many advances. I congratulate the Executive and all the people who are involved in the fight, but we have a way to go yet. I offer my support for the Executive's motion and its efforts to eradicate this disgusting problem.
We have had a good discussion this afternoon rather than a debate. One of the best things about it has been that we have not had the ritual of Mike Rumbles telling us why we should be talking about violence against men. Thankfully, he has had the decency to stay out of the road this time; that is good.
I hope that there will be support for my amendment. A number of changes could still be necessary. It is not just about legislation, but further legislative change would send a message to the police, judges, sheriffs, and defence lawyers that their attitudes and approaches to witnesses are unacceptable. Such attitudes are endemic in our society—that is what we are trying to challenge. Change will have to be effective and measured so that conviction rates can go up. I hope that we can agree that we still need to do that.
I want to shift away from my amendment for a wee while. The discussion has concentrated on the extreme forms of male violence against women such as rape, domestic violence and so on, but a continuum of violence against women is perpetrated by society as a whole—by men and by the systemic structures in which we live. I am particularly concerned that young women today are being absolutely bombarded with messages that encourage them to objectify themselves in order to be valued and to boost their self-esteem. Exploitation of women is proliferating through lap-dancing bars, pole dancing, pornography, film and everything else that is contributing to the enormous pressure on young women in society.
That is all coupled with a regression in consciousness about such issues during the past 20 or 30 years. That was evidenced for me recently when I spoke at two conferences. One was a University of Strathclyde debate on abortion rights, which although it is different to the issue that we are discussing today, is definitely related. When I was making the arguments on that issue and placing it in the context of the situation of women in society and their oppression and inequality, there was actual laughter from a significant section of the audience, as if the battles have been won and I should not be so ridiculous. That is symptomatic of a regression in consciousness.
Perhaps a wee bit of complacency has crept into our society, and perhaps the formal women's movement has become a bit fragmented and more taken up with voluntary organisations. The concept of feminism, which became a dirty word, needs to be recalled, regained and restamped. People who are feminists and socialists, or feminists and whatever else, should be proud to call themselves what they are, because the issue needs to be challenged up front. We need to go on the offensive again.
I welcome some of the legislative changes that are proposed. I believe that people who abuse women through prostitution should be criminalised, but I want to see the women decriminalised and I hope that that is the direction in which our legislation will take us and that we can develop a Swedish-style model for tackling the issue.
We must all be responsible for challenging attitudes on our own doorsteps and in our own organisations and, as everyone knows, we have been through a pretty traumatic time. However, I shall finish on a more negative point. All the progress that has been made to change attitudes and to advance the ideology that underpins the Executive department that is responsible for tackling violence against women is definitely to be welcomed, but change needs to be backed up with resources. I have sympathy with what the SNP amendment says about domestic abuse.
I do not deny Malcolm Chisholm's belief in or commitment to the issues: of all the ministers in the Executive, I probably respect him most. When it comes to delivery and to the equal pay situation in local authorities, the draft budget for local government makes no reference to equal pay, although that is an Executive priority to which the minister has emphasised his commitment. Nevertheless, he does not seem able to bring his influence to bear on the fact that equal pay is the biggest gender equality issue affecting women in Scotland today. A lot still needs to be done and it needs to be backed up with resources. That will be the proof of the pudding.
This has been a passionate, articulate and well-informed debate. I want to continue by quoting from the inaugural professorial lecture that was given in 2001 by the feminist academic Professor Liz Kelly, when she became head of the child and woman abuse studies unit at London Metropolitan University. She said:
"We are a very long way from the ambition of the women's liberation movement—later adopted by the United Nations and Council of Europe—of ending violence against women. But we—and by we, here I mean women and men across the globe involved in this work at every level—we have changed the world.
Violence against women is now defined by the UN and many national governments as both a fundamental violation of women's human rights and a continuing barrier to achieving equality between women and men.
The themes of domestic violence, incest, rape, sexual harassment and trafficking appear in popular media on every continent.
The new responses we imagined and created in the 1970s—refuges, helplines, support groups—are now considered basic requirements and have, arguably, even in some instances become institutionalised themselves."
That is a good summary of where we came from and where we have reached. It is occasionally good to look back and to see how far we have come, but we know how far we still have to go.
There is no country in the world where women are safe from violence. That encompasses all forms of violence, throughout all sectors of society. In Cambodia, 16 per cent of women are physically abused by their husbands. In the UK, 30 per cent are physically abused by partners or ex-partners. The figure is 52 per cent in the West Bank. In Nicaragua it is 21 per cent, in Canada it is 29 per cent and in the United States it is 22 per cent. It was estimated in a World Bank report that violence against women is as serious a cause of death and incapacity among women of reproductive age as cancer, and that it is a greater cause of ill health than traffic accidents and malaria combined.
At least a quarter to a third of all women in Scotland will experience domestic abuse at some point in their lives. Domestic abuse can and does happen anywhere, so there must be women among our friends, our family, our colleagues and our acquaintances who are or have been subjected to domestic abuse. The fact that we cannot identify them demonstrates the hidden nature of the problem.
Does the member think that it is more appropriate to use the phrase "domestic violence" than it is to use the word "abuse"? Although it is abuse, we must recognise that it is, in fact, violence against women.
I take Cathy Peattie's point, but I refer her to what other members have said about the mental undermining of people. Cathy Peattie's point is well made but the wider point, which I think she made herself earlier, is also a good one: sometimes mental and emotional abuse can be just as devastating—in some cases more devastating—than physical violence.
We must raise general awareness, change attitudes and encourage victims to come forward and seek help. Work must still be done to shift social attitudes, to acknowledge that this happens in people's homes and to take responsibility individually and collectively to make it unacceptable.
There was a 10 per cent increase in the number of domestic abuse cases that were reported to the police between 2003 and the report on recorded crime in Scotland in 2004-05. However, that is a good thing if the increase in reporting such crime means that more people feel that it is worth reporting because they have confidence that it will be dealt with. I believe that the record on conviction for domestic abuse is much better than it used to be.
A lot of work must still be done on attitudes to other forms of violence. In 1998, one out of two boys and one out of three girls thought that there were some circumstances in which it was okay to hit a woman or to force her to have sex. In 2005, a poll showed that of those questioned 28 per cent believed that women were partially responsible for being raped if they had behaved flirtatiously and 20 per cent believed that women were partially responsible for being raped if they wore sexy or revealing clothing. There is no room for complacency.
The fact that we have this debate annually illustrates how far we are from the goal of eliminating violence against women. That is only in the context of our own country. How much worse must the situation be in countries where there is heightened tension in the aftermath of natural disasters, such as floods or earthquakes, or where there is drought or where wars are raging? We must hope that what we do here to challenge and change attitudes about what is acceptable in respect of how women are treated will help to change attitudes in other parts of the world.
I will finish by quoting the last sentence of a statement on the motion that was e-mailed to us by the Zero Tolerance Charitable Trust. It states:
"We look to the Scottish Parliament to remain ambitious in its approach to tackling violence against women and to continue building on the work of the past seven years."
We have to live up to that.
As Carolyn Leckie said, this has been a good debate and it has been largely consensual. Perhaps uncharacteristically, I will not seek to break that consensus. I think that we all agree that this is a serious issue. Although one may joke from time to time about how women perhaps have their moments, it would be naive of me to suggest other than that the main problem of violence is men perpetrating it against women. That must be accepted.
I have heard Maureen Macmillan speak on this subject before. She obviously feels strongly about it and has a degree of pride in what has been achieved in the Highlands. That is natural and understandable. We should all congratulate the people she mentioned in the Highlands who have done so much to ease what was clearly a real difficulty.
The debate has been consensual and we intend to vote with the Executive at its conclusion. It is perhaps a little bit unfortunate—although I understand why it is the case—that two amendments, which we do not feel we can support, have been proposed.
Carolyn Leckie's amendment deals with the low conviction rates for rape and sexual offences and expresses justifiable concern about the issue. A report is expected from the Scottish Law Commission on the law of rape. We will have to wait and see what happens when that report is received.
I have to flag up an issue that I regard as a problem. Rape is a crime for which there is not normally corroboration, as required under Scots law, by means of eye witnesses or other forms of evidence. It is a very difficult crime to prove. The conviction rate is undeniably low, but it is important to remember that, when cases go to court, the conviction rate is almost 50 per cent.
The problem is that many cases do not go to court because there is no corroboration and the case cannot go before a jury. Adjusting the law to resolve that problem while still leaving people with a defence will be difficult. Quite properly, there is a presumption of innocence in Scots law. There are people in the chamber this afternoon who have sons and who would be very concerned indeed if one of their sons was wrongly accused of rape and was restricted in the level of defence that he could present.
Part of Carolyn Leckie's complaint, although justified, is largely historical. I do not think that any judge in the High Court of Scotland would permit any witness to be traduced and tormented by counsel defending an alleged attacker, but that certainly has happened. The situation has improved, in no small measure due to the acts of this Parliament.
Rosemary Byrne rightly mentioned the case of Lindsay Armstrong. In that case, our systems did not work. We subsequently changed the systems to ensure, as far as possible, that something similar could never happen again. Rosemary Byrne was also right to point to the educational element. She said that it would be appropriate for schools to participate much more.
Domestic violence has long been a problem. The problem is particularly acute in our cities, and is not restricted to the Highlands. The domestic violence court in Glasgow has been a success: 1,000 people have been prosecuted successfully—although we must also be depressed that so many cases have had to go before the court.
Domestic violence is a very serious issue, not least because it happens in the home. If someone is in fear of being attacked in a bar, in a certain street or at a football ground, the obvious remedy is not to go there, but people cannot avoid going to their home. Several speakers have said that domestic violence frequently occurs in the presence of young children and that it leaves them traumatised. Domestic violence is straightforward bullying that is totally and utterly unacceptable.
Cathie Craigie said that a shamefully low number of domestic violence cases come to court. Again the question of corroboration comes up. The Lord Advocate was here earlier. The Crown would proceed with a case if there was sufficient evidence, but the law of Scotland naturally requires that the evidence be sufficient to convince a sheriff, magistrate or jury that the assault took place, and it is sometimes difficult to get that corroboration.
In a very thoughtful speech, Shiona Baird raised the international dimension. I am sure that we all agree with what she said about RAWA in Afghanistan. That organisation is clearly doing a very great deal. This country has a reasonable record, but Shiona Baird was right to say that we should be pursuing, through the United Nations and all our international contacts, the issue of women who so often find themselves subjected to vicious and evil attacks. In Africa, for example, rape is often used as a weapon.
Although we cannot be complacent while such issues still arise, the Executive and the Parliament can look back with some pride on what has been achieved since 1999. I refer to what we have done with the rules of evidence, although we may have reached the pivotal moment at which we have gone too far and, in so doing, prejudiced the rights of the accused person. That said, under a number of headings, we have made things easier for the victims of crime.
I am hoping that Mr Aitken will get to the point of addressing our amendment, which I surmise from his comments the Conservatives will not support. I ask him to comment on the number of refuges in his patch. As I said, there are only four refuges for the whole of Glasgow. I am surprised that he has not commented on that yet.
You should be finishing, Mr Aitken.
I intervened as he looked as if he was running out of steam.
Clearly, Glasgow has more than its fair share of this type of problem. I fully concede the point. However, from reports that I have received, I understand that although victims of this type of abuse use the shelters, many of them are accommodated by family and friends. I say to Christine Grahame that that may be a better solution as it means that women have the support of relatives and close friends, which is much better all round, no matter how well intentioned social workers are.
I have made a reasonably lengthy contribution to a debate that has been carried out in a measured manner. Like Stewart Stevenson, I hope that in time there will be no need for such debates.
I concur with everything the Executive has set out in its motion. I am pleased that the debate is being conducted under the heading "Violence Against Women" and not under the heading of domestic violence. Regardless of who the violence is against, it is a crime. For far too long, because it was perpetrated by men against women, domestic violence has been looked on as a form of second-class violence. I have always had the notion—the absolutely correct notion—that violence of any kind is a crime and should be treated as such. We must not look on violence against women as anything less than that.
I admire the commitment that the Deputy Minister for Communities and the Minister for Communities give to the issue and to the sincerity of that commitment. I share Carolyn Leckie's view of the minister. She did not say that he is her favourite minister, but mentioned his sincerity. Johann Lamont is also sincere in her commitment; I know that for a fact. Both ministers are passionate about the subject.
I applaud Carolyn Leckie and Cathie Craigie on their contributions; they were spot on. I have never understood why someone's past relationships or what they wear should be used to tarnish their reputation, particularly when the attacker is set free as a result. Rosemary Byrne referred to the tragic case of Lindsay Armstrong. Some weeks ago, I met Mrs Armstrong. Not all members may agree with the proposal, but consideration should be given to changing court procedures.
The debate has been excellent and every speech merits a response. I will attempt to pick up on all of them, but members will forgive me if I do not manage that. We have debated the subject of violence against women since 1999, at which time the debate was billed domestic abuse. Since 2003, the Parliament has held an annual debate on the issue. I welcome that. I also welcome the many projects that aim to stop this terrible crime that have been launched and the money that the Executive has made available.
As Christine Grahame said, violence against women has increased over the years. We have to ask why. Cathy Peattie and Nora Radcliffe, among others, touched on possible answers, including the fact that women are more aware of what is happening and where they can report the crime. Another possibility is the upsurge in lad mags, lap-dancing clubs and the accessibility of some forms of pornography. We need to look more deeply into why violence against women is not diminishing but increasing. The figures speak for themselves.
Many members, including Shiona Baird and Rosemary Byrne, talked about funding. I agree with their comments. The SNP amendment mentions funding for refuge places. Some women are lucky enough to have relatives they can stay with, as Bill Aitken said when he talked about refuge places in Glasgow, but many women do not. There should be refuge places for such women and funding is crucial if we are to help them.
I remind the minister that Ranald Lindsay, who is the convener of the Law Society of Scotland's access to justice committee, has talked about the emergence of legal aid deserts. As a result of a change in how civil legal aid is paid, many victims are unable to access lawyers to take on their case. He said:
"Our consciences are basically being exploited by the Executive on this. They know that it's difficult for us to turn away Mrs Jones who's been battered black and blue, saying that we're not being paid enough."
The minister should consider the problem of people's inability to secure representation, which happens not just in Glasgow, but in Edinburgh, Stirling and elsewhere.
Other members talked about the lack of long-term funding, which causes serious difficulties for people who are trying to do their best in organisations that cannot access funding that lasts longer than two years. I received a letter from the Glasgow presbytery, which is part of the interagency working group that is funded by the Executive and Glasgow City Council. The initiative provides a fantastic support network for women before, during and after court cases, but it has to submit a bid for funding every two years.
Many other groups are in a similar situation and do not know whether they will be funded in two years' time. That is unsettling. I have written to the minister to ask him to consider how such groups can secure long-term funding. In his speech, he said that money is available, but it does not seem to filter down to the many agencies that need it. Perhaps he can consider how they might access funding.
Cathy Peattie and Shiona Baird made valid points about the international situation. They referred to Afghanistan and other countries. It is imperative that we do not take an insular view of violence against women by talking only about domestic violence or violence that takes place in Scotland and Great Britain. The problem is international. Trafficking of women and abuse of children is taking place abroad, for example in Russia and its neighbouring states. We should consider how to alleviate the problem. If we cannot provide money, as Shiona Baird suggested, we can surely contribute by highlighting the problem. Operation pentameter tackled trafficking and was a great success. We need more such forward-looking action to prevent women from being trafficked to this country, as well as action to protect women from violence in their home countries.
Stewart Stevenson and other members, including Shiona Baird, made important points about violence that takes place behind closed doors, which has a seriously detrimental effect on children. As Rosemary Byrne said, we do not know what is going on in the lives of children who come to school. I have no doubt that exposure to violence at a young age sends a message to kids that it is okay to be violent. There are education programmes, but we must improve education for children so that we send a clear message that violence is not acceptable. If we emphasise that message to male schoolchildren, perhaps it will filter through.
As everyone else has said, this has been a good debate. I hope that we will not have to debate violence against women next year, because that will mean that it has been eradicated. However, like others, I think that it will be a long time before that happens. As far as I know, this is the only Parliament that has raised these issues year after year since 2003 to keep them on the agenda and which funds projects such as Scottish Women's Aid to deal with the problem specifically. I hope that the funding goes from strength to strength and is made more long term.
Every one of us here hopes to eradicate violence against women, which is a crime against humanity, not just against women. I look forward to the day when we do not have to debate it, because it has been eradicated. Thank you for the opportunity to speak in the debate, which has been excellent, because lots of good points have been raised.
I welcome the opportunity to sum up this very important debate, which reminds us of one of the critical issues that we discuss and have to address.
I will reply to some of the points that have been raised—I will not be able to deal with them all, but I am happy to pursue those that I do not cover at a later stage—before I make my own comments.
We will not support Christine Grahame's amendment. The figures she used are not accurate. The figure for the year she identified is 425 refuge places. As we have indicated, there has been support for more than 600 new or improved places. We acknowledge that there is an issue with refuge numbers. There is also a challenge for mainstream services to deliver for women. Increasingly, women do not particularly want to go into refuges, because attitudes have changed. Women need refuge places, but refuges are not the only way in which we can support them.
I thank the minister for that clarification. I was not sure how secure the figures were; they were the best that I could obtain. I am obliged to her for the information and for recognising that there is still a huge issue with refuges to address.
We are hearing anecdotally about women going elsewhere, for example in Glasgow. What evidence does the minister have that the people who have applied for places are secure, wherever they are? Does she have information on that on a database, rather than just anecdotal evidence?
I can get back to Christine Grahame on the detail of how the statistics are managed. I agree that there is a challenge for all those who are working to support women who are experiencing violence to understand the particular issues of safety and security that they and their families require to be addressed.
Christine Grahame asked how we analyse the figures from responses to adverts and so on. We interrogate the data. The national group on violence against women is considering what further data we need to improve service provision. We will report on that work in detail. We also have an important job to do in relation to qualitative research, through talking to women. I do not know whether anyone else gets the Assist bulletin weekly, but interesting qualitative research can come out of that kind of work, where women talk about their needs, how they express them and how they feel about the services that are provided to them.
Significant funding goes to women through the violence against women fund. We have to challenge the attitudes of mainstream organisations in relation to supporting women.
The fact that the numbers are increasing is concerning. We are certainly not complacent about that and we need to interrogate the figures further.
There is an issue about greater understanding that support is available and that there is support for women other than simply those who have bruises. Significant work has been done on psychological abuse.
Women of an older generation to whom I have spoken have told me that their generation had nowhere to go. It is understandable that the problem is more visible, because we talk about it more and there is a greater understanding of it. I assure members that there is no complacency about that.
Christine Grahame's amendment refers to the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001. I agree that it is essential that we continue to review all the legislation that we put in place. Legislation is the starting point, not the end point. We work hard to keep people informed about the protections that legislation provides, but we are more than happy to monitor that and I am sure that the committees of the Parliament would wish to do so, too.
Does the minister agree that it is surprising that the issue of alcohol has not been raised during today's debate as, often, the pathetic excuses for men who carry out these acts of violence are fuelled by alcohol and—in modern times—some other substances?
The remarkable thing about violence against women is that it is no respecter of place, class or sobriety. With regard to alcohol being the cause of violence against women, it is remarkable that we are expected to believe that men can manage to contain themselves when they are in the pub but cannot contain themselves when they go home. Very often, alcohol is used as an explanation when, in fact, it is not. Abuse can be perpetrated by men who are entirely sober as well. We have to challenge our young men who are, perhaps, moving towards behaviour that involves being oppressive and violent towards young women.
I recognise the significance of the points that Carolyn Leckie made about the justice system. My only concern was the implication in the amendment that nothing has been done. In fact, significant work has been done around the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005. Obviously, we have to keep monitoring that.
We recognise how terrible it is that a survivor of male violence can have that perpetrated further on them by the legal system. I expect Carolyn Leckie to acknowledge that there has been movement. We know about the rape review, as a result of which there were 50 recommendations. The implementation of those recommendations is under way but the major reforms will take up to three years to put in place. The First Minister has referred the law of rape and sexual offences to the Scottish Law Commission, which gives us an opportunity to change the legal framework. I hope that Carolyn Leckie will not underestimate the importance of that, just as I do not underestimate the significance of the points that she has made.
I acknowledge what Maureen Macmillan said about the progress that has been made and how difficult it was, particularly in the early days, to achieve it. She also highlighted how much of an achievement it has been to make violence against women a political issue at all.
We talk about the fact that we will support women with mobile phone numbers that will not appear on a telephone bill. That seems to be as good an example as I can think of of how horrendous the problem that we are dealing with is. There are women who are so terrified of the man they are living with that they have to ensure that the mobile phone number that will give them protection and safety is not visible to that man.
To Shiona Baird, I say that we are supportive of Zero Tolerance's respect campaign and pleased at the number of local authorities that are taking up the pack and training. We are working with Zero Tolerance, Scottish Women's Aid and the violence against women partnership to do vital work in schools. In fact, we fund a number of projects, including the Eighteen and Under project in Dundee, which she talked about.
The issue of boys seeing violence and, in turn, becoming violent was something of a theme this afternoon. We have to be clear that one of the lessons that we learn from talking to young people is how helpless, frustrated and angry boys feel when they are unable to protect their mothers and how those feelings continue into adulthood. I do not think that we should diminish that experience by implying that it makes them become violent in later life. I do not think that the evidence suggests that that is the case.
Carolyn Leckie said that our motion marks a shift in our approach because it talks about "male violence". I do not know about anybody else, but that does not signal a shift in my position and I do not think that it signals a shift in the Executive's position. It is important to identify the problem if we are going to eradicate it. If we do not understand that the overwhelming pattern of domestic abuse and violence involves males perpetrating violence on females, we will never get rid of it.
We recognise that there is a consensus in this Parliament, but we are also saying difficult and challenging things about the nature of our society. Certain things have to be challenged if we are to have a society of which we can be proud.
I want to finish on a positive note. We want to celebrate how far we have come and acknowledge the remarkable successes of the volunteers Maureen Macmillan and others have highlighted. They saw a problem, identified the need, understood what caused that need, determined that that need would be met and not only delivered support and care to women through the practical delivery of refuge spaces and so on but rose to the challenge of making that a political element in our society.
My upbringing made me a socialist, but it was an understanding of male violence that made me a feminist. I saw that it did not matter how clever or smart a woman was or whether she had the vote, because if she could be oppressed by male violence she would be denied her human rights.
We must celebrate the survivors of domestic abuse and male violence who made it a political issue. I celebrate the work of Scottish Women's Aid, Rape Crisis Scotland and the national domestic abuse helpline volunteers. We imagine them working in a call centre, but in fact they sit in their own homes and bring the pain and suffering of other women into their homes, giving them comfort whenever it is required. All those organisations support women, understanding and focusing on delivery. They are to be commended for that. Government and agencies at every level, too, must understand how they should support women and how women experience violence from men.
Sometimes, we may think it odd to talk about male violence against women, but the police, the health service and teachers all understand that the violence is hugely—overwhelmingly—perpetrated by men against women. It even passes the soap opera test: there is no longer a soap opera—whether "Coronation Street" or "Eastenders"—that has not addressed the issue of violence against women. We recognise it for the challenge that it is to a decent society.
We in the Parliament are clear that we need to change the justice system and the way in which support and protection for women are delivered. We also have to challenge the attitudes that underpin violence against women, which are to do with the roles of women and men in society. The Parliament and the Executive have—and have played—a critical role in that. Today we celebrate the volunteers who saw the problem and demanded change. The progress that we recognise has been made over the past 30 years has been theirs, and we congratulate them on it.