Question reference: S6W-06605
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 15 February 2022
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Current status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 March 2022
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to address the reported significant increase in sexual assault, rape and attempted rape crimes in the last ten years.
Answer
Violence against women and girls is a devastating violation of human rights and any increase in reports of these types of crimes is concerning.
The Scottish Government has taken robust action to help justice agencies tackle sexual offending by improving and making much clearer the operation of our sexual offence laws, providing the necessary funding to support law enforcement efforts to deal with sexual offending and encouraging more victims of recent and historical cases to come forward so that justice can be achieved.
Our Programme for Government committed to legislating for a statutory right to lifelong anonymity for complainers in sexual offence cases, and a Scottish Government led Governance Group has now been established, comprising key stakeholder interests, to enable progress and detailed consideration of the recommendations within Lord Justice Clerk’s Review Group report on improving the management of sexual offence cases.
Our £100 million three-year commitment to tackling violence against women and girls includes a new Delivering Equally Safe Fund which will direct £38 million to frontline services over the next two years.