 Welcome to the first meeting of the committee. It's a very unique committee and the Parliament is supporting it in partnership with Young Women Lead. That's a leadership project that 38 young women from across Scotland are taking part in. Some of them are around the table today and others are with us in the public gallery at the back. I'm really pleased to be welcoming both the committee members and our panellists to this session. The session will run to approximately 12.25. I also want to welcome those who are watching online and thank you for the interest that you are showing. We'll move to the agenda. Agenda item 1 is to agree that we take items 3 and 4, which is consideration of the evidence that we hear today and the future work programme in private. Are we all agreed? Thank you very much. Agenda item 2 is an evidence session on sexual harassment in schools. This committee met in February and agreed this topic of inquiry. We're going to look at the issue of sexual harassment in particular as it's faced by girls and young women in schools. I'm very pleased to welcome our witnesses this morning and I will ask them to introduce themselves and where they come from quickly. I'll start with you, Catherine. Hello. My name is Catherine Dawson. I work for Rape Crisis Scotland. I'm the sexual violence prevention coordinator there. My role involves the co-ordination and oversight of a programme that works in delivering education around consent and healthy relationships in schools, delivered by rape crisis centres locally. We're also developing a whole school approach in partnership with Zero Tolerance. That's about thinking about how schools can take a holistic approach to preventing gender-based violence and promoting gender equality. That's me. My name is Amy Johnson. I'm a policy officer with Zero Tolerance. We work with Rape Crisis Scotland on the whole schools approach. As an organisation, our focus is primary prevention of violence against women and girls. Hello. I'm Roseanna MacDonald. I'm the children and young people's policy worker at Scottish Women's Aid. My role involves making sure that policy developments relating to children experiencing domestic abuse are appropriate and reflect their lived experiences and also working to make sure that children and young people who have experienced domestic abuse are able to feed in and engage with policy developments. Thank you very much for inviting me as well to this very special and unique session. I'm very excited to be taking part. Hi there. My name is Mary Gordon. I am from Girl Getting Scotland. I'm the media officer there. Our young members have been spearheading a campaign to end sexual harassment in schools, calling for a Zero Tolerance approach, better recording of incidents and improved high-quality sex and relationships education in every Scottish school. Thank you very much. I'll now open up the session to questions from our members. I'll begin with a question from our deputy convener, Naseem Ahmad. I'd like to open up the discussion by asking our witnesses whether they think the term sexual harassment and any associated terms, for example, sexist behaviour, if that is widely understood, and if not, what might be missing from that common understanding of the issue? Who would like to respond first? Oh, you've got them right in the first question there. Catherine Doce. I'm not very good at being quiet for long, so... I think that my broad answer would probably be no. I think that there are many, many behaviours that are happening on everyday level that aren't understood as sexual harassment. I've heard it said that what might be recognised as sexual harassment in a workplace setting isn't recognised and validated when it's young people, when it's in a school setting or education setting. No, I think probably we lack our universal services, working with young people, lack a kind of a way of understanding and dealing with sexist behaviour and sexual harassment as such, naming it and having consistent ways of dealing with it. Amy Johnson. I'd like to add as well, I'd agree with Catherine that it's not widely understood. It's normalised, both in terms of how perpetrators view it and also from the perspective of people that have to experience it. Something that's also not understood very well is how it interacts and often interacts with racism, homophobia, transphobia and ableism, and there's very little information on that. We're not good at gathering that, and that's something that needs to be taken more seriously as well. Roseanna McDonald. I would completely agree with what Catherine and Amy have been saying. In terms of domestic abuse, I would say that that is a terminology that conjures up images of a family home and people who've maybe been married or in a relationship for a long time. I think that that is a term that maybe doesn't chime with young people and their own experiences, so it's maybe looking at how we frame that in relation to young people. Sometimes we talk about dating abuse instead, which seems to speak a lot more to young people. I think that a large part of that involves working with young people to come up with raising awareness of what this terminology means as they'll have a better idea than adults about how it would speak to young people of their own age groups. That's also really important. I'd like to second everything that has been said. In our research and girls' attitudes survey, we broke down sexual harassment into different categories to get a real insight into what girls mean when they talk about it. For example, we found that in 2017, 41 per cent of girls aged 13 to 21 had experienced jokes or taunts, a similar number had experienced sexist comments on social media, and about a fifth had experienced unwanted touching or groping. It's helpful to break it down into practical terms so that girls can relate to that. A lot of the anecdotal evidence that we gathered during our campaign was that, often when girls spoke to their peers about sexual harassment, even among girls, it was dismissed as a bit of banter. Again, when they spoke to boys of a similar age, it was dismissed as a bit of banter or boys will be boys. Probably the most worrying thing was when they spoke to teachers about what they'd experienced. Sometimes they would get the same response, like, oh, that's just how boys behave. You just have to, you know, not provoke it, stay quiet. So that's something we're really keen to address at a really early level. What do we mean when we talk about sexual harassment and how can everyone, but especially teachers, be trained to recognise it and address it effectively? I would like to ask Mary Gordon. You were speaking about how many of the young women girls were asked about their experiences. Was this done over a varied age range? Or did you find it more so in certain age range? I'd need to go back to our full research to find the breakdown into different categories, but the bulk of our research in this area focuses on girls 13 to 21. It's UK-wide research, and we interviewed about 1,700 girls for each girls' attitude survey. We've also got a really interesting comparison in how the problem has sadly got worse over the last five years, so we started gathering data in 2014 when 59 per cent of girls said they'd experienced some form of sexual harassment, and in 2017 that had increased to 64 per cent. Sadly, despite the fact that awareness has been raised around those issues, the experience seems to be getting worse for a lot of girls. I have a question that relates back to what Catherine Dawson was saying in regards to the perception of what sexual harassment is in schools. It's a question for the whole panel. If you think that the Scottish Government or other public bodies could be doing more to ensure that girls and young women understand what sorts of actions and behaviours amount to sexual harassment or sex's behaviour? I think that that's a big part of our call, looking at how we can improve sex and relationships education. The feedback that we had from girls in some schools is really good, and in some schools it's quite patchy. We see that as a pivotal part of changing girls' experiences while they are at school, but also for the rest of their life. If we can really get the message out then, it will hopefully mean that they don't have to deal with those experiences during school and in their future lives as well. I think that it's also important, as much as we want to make girls aware of what's acceptable, we also need to make sure that boys are aware of what's acceptable, and sex and relationships education seems like the ideal opportunity to start that message. I wanted to echo what Mary said about that point about boys and young men understanding. I think that that's really important. Perhaps there's a point to be made about the policy framework and the guidance that's out there for education. I think that there is a preference to neutralise issues of equality into respect and fairness and individual-level good behaviour. It would help if the guidance that was there for all the education services, teacher training, to be clear on the need to educate on inequality, the different forms of intersecting inequalities and how they work, so that we're clear, for example, why it is that we're talking about girls and not just young people in this respect, so I think that that would be helpful as well. I'd also like to add that, whilst the review of PSE that's going on and religious—sorry, I always get RSHP mixed up—so many acronyms—is on-going, we need to think about the whole school and how the whole curriculum can support this, because you can have an amazing PSE class that really engages young men and young women and then young people go out to another class where it's undermined or where there's no safe spaces in the school and again what they've learned is immediately undermined. I think that approach could also be reflected earlier on within possibly the early years as well. The idea of sexual harassment being rooted in gender inequality starts much, much earlier. It starts from the age of two, according to a lot of evidence. Considering how that can be tackled and whether it's gender-friendly or gender-equal, nurseries or childcare practitioners can feed into that and what policy can look around that as well. Would you like to add something? The rest of the panel have said a lot of what I would have said or agreed with already, but in terms of what you're saying about what the Scottish Government could do, the Equally Safe Delivery Plan was recently published and that set out a range of quite encouraging actions. We're very pleased to see, including building the capacity of education professionals to recognise and address harmful gender stereotypes and roles. You'll probably hear me saying this a lot, so sorry for becoming a stuck record in advance, but I think that they could be making stronger commitments to working with children and young people to develop those messages and to develop materials and education and awareness-raising materials for schools and education. I think that Erin Wimble wants to pick up on a theme that was mentioned during that response. Thank you, convener. Following on from what Catherine Dawson said about focusing on young people, do you think that in the context of the debate and the discussion, it's necessary to focus on girls and boys and women and men instead of focusing on just women and girls? I think that however you tackle it, I do think that we need to talk about boys and men and people of all genders as well. I suppose that there are kind of intersecting things to talk about, so there's gender and there's age and there's inequalities associated with all of that. I think that when we're talking about boys and men, then that needs to be about predominantly trying to engage them as allies to work alongside us, understanding that gender equality in all forms of equality are in all of our interests. There's a trade-off. I think that if we tackle gender equality effectively, boys and men will lose some power in relation to girls and women, but I think that they'll gain in wellbeing. I suppose that's the way that I would approach it. Does that answer your question? I think that just to add to that, there is maybe more conversations to be had about how rigid gender norms and stereotypes harm everyone, not just women and girls. It does, of course, disproportionately impact women and girls, but I think that we need to be having more conversations about the fact that the only emotion that is okay for young men to display in public is anger. I think that we need to be having more conversations around that. There seems to be a general agreement there, so perhaps we can move on. It's interesting that the Scottish Parliament, one of its committees, the Human Rights and Equalities Committee, held an inquiry into a lot of this, and I know that many of you, if not all, will have read some of the evidence on that. I think that one of the issues that came up was the lack of holistic knowledge that we have about how many instances they are having and how they are dealt with. I know that Emily Davis would like to explore that theme. A sexual harassment in schools in Scotland? Who knows the answer to that one? Mary Corth. At the moment, our knowledge, as an organisation, comes largely from the girls' attitudes survey. It is UK-wide research, and I think that it would be really valuable to drill down into the experience of Scottish girls and to be able to pull out any differences that may exist. I suspect that, sadly, the picture is pretty true across schools across the UK. I don't think that that is limited to Scotland. I have been surprised to see the scale of it to think that 64 per cent of girls have experienced some form of sexual harassment. It is heartbreaking to think that, in a place where they should feel safe and empowered and probably the place that they should feel most safe, girls are experiencing things such as unwanted touching, they are experiencing sexist comments sent to them over messenger, even just jokes in the corridor and just to read a little bit from one of the girls that we have spoken to. I think that this is one of the saddest lines. She said that, following an incident, she was like feeling mortified. It was weird as a girl, you are expected to just put up with it, to admit that I upset you, reflected badly on you and not on the boys. I think that speaks to the level that it is normalised and I guess that is an indication of how common it is as well. Catherine Dawson. I suppose that the nature of our organisations engagement with young people is through direct delivery in schools, so I would defer to other sources of statistical information. I wanted to make a point about how it is not just the individual incidence rates that are important but also because it is so widespread, the climate of policing and control of young women's sexuality and sexual expression and bodies and how in that climate it is very confining. Whether or not somebody has experienced individually direct sexual harassment, it is about that kind of climate. Just to add to that, that climate is happening via online technologies as well. I think that it is very important that our approach to online technologies is not to see them as a completely separate thing but to see how the same human behaviours are happening, the same dynamics of gendered harassment are happening, just as they are face-to-face, they are being facilitated by technology as well. Yes, Emy Jones. From our perspective as well, all of our information is UK-wide but given what Catherine just said about the culture, and these cultures can be unique to different places, I think that it is very important that we drill down and look a little bit more about Scotland in specific. I think that a lot of the information that we have is UK-wide, and even that we know will be incredibly under-reported. Roseanna McDonnell, nothing to add. Do you have anything that you would like to probe on that question, Emily, because I do have a couple of supplementaries to it? No. No? Okay, can I have our deputy convener and then Martha Barr? Thank you, convener. Just kind of touching on what everybody has already spoken a little bit about, which is that a lot of this is happening with young girls. There was a study conducted by Offstead, which stated that girls and boys tend to start putting men and women into jobs by the age of about seven and eight. Sorry, my throat is going. So about the age of about seven or eight, that is when they start saying that footballers have to be men or nurses have to be women. So do you think that it is important that those studies are just not done in lower high school ages but also in primary schools, and maybe even so even earlier than that? Can I have someone to address that point? I mean, I agree completely. Just as an example of how it's done somewhere else in Sweden, they've had tackling gender inequality in the early years, so from two upwards in Sweden in their national curriculum since 1998. So it's, you know, it can be done. And I think acknowledging how young children, how young children interpret and absorb things that are around them and learn from a very young age whether what they are is less or more and also have to fit into a binary that requires a lot of them is really important to tackling this as a whole for sure. And it fits into health and wellbeing, which is a priority for children of all ages. Marta Byr, I have a question for Catherine Dawson. You said that the school climate can be difficult for women expressing their sexuality. And I just wanted to clarify what you meant by this. Yeah, so I suppose I was speaking about sexuality distinct from sexual orientation, so just about being able to become sexual beings in having freedoms in the way that they do that and what that means to them, rather than that being getting very, very strong messages about what's okay and what's not okay. But I would certainly add to that that that should include freedom around sexual orientation as well. Back to Emily Davis. Thank you, Carina. Can the panel give examples of the activities that they have going on in schools to address sexual harassment and sexual behaviour in the context that they've mentioned? Catherine, back to you. I mentioned in my introduction that we have a national sexual violence prevention programme, and that has been operating since 2013. It's been funded, so its main funding is through the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention Fund from the Scottish Government. That currently funds us to reach approximately 13,000 young people every year with up to three workshops from a range of workshop topics that include gender, consent, understanding what sexual violence is, social media, the impacts and how you can be supportive to people who are survivors of sexual violence, how we can all play a role in tackling sexual violence and another one that I can't currently remember. Each of those topics is adapted to four different age ranges. At the moment, it's delivered by prevention workers based at rape crisis centres, so a real strength of it is that they're specialists, they're going into a series of schools and other youth settings and talking to young people about those issues. We're very pleased that through sort of in connection with the Equally Safe Implementation Plan, the Violence Against Women Fund has extended funding for that so that we will be able to soon work in all of the local authorities in Scotland. It won't be enough to reach all the schools because of capacity issues. They're still part-time workers, but it will mean that there'll be a prevention worker with some coverage of each local authority area. That's the prevention programme. Do you want to speak about whole schools? The whole schools approach, which rape crisis Scotland zero talent is doing partnership, centres young people and asks them through a series of steps to identify the priority issues within their school and then take steps and actions to respond to them, but because the whole schools approach also works with young people to go through the entire curriculum and look at how that can be strengthened to support gender equality within the school and also the schools policies, teacher training. It covers just about everything, but it's a fairly resource heavy-ish approach. The model includes a co-ordinator. It's a pilot at the moment, so we're really trying to see what works and how much. From our experience working with schools in general is that you need somebody who's got that kind of expertise and knowledge specific to gender-based violence to be able to support a school through each stage to work out what that means for them and to help young people to frame their own actions and priorities. The co-ordinator is currently piloting in two schools next year or further two, and in the final year it'll be four. Throughout that whole process we'll be looking at what's possible in the future, taking this from a pilot and having discussions with the Scottish Government around that as well. I think what I was trying to say was that having this co-ordinator role allows young people to be really centred, but it doesn't mean that that person has to be an expert, has to be able to really know their stuff and be very expert with working with young people as well. Both Katrina Carter and Erin Wemble have small supplementaries to this, so if we could ask those before we bring in Rosanna and Mari Katrina. You mentioned about teacher training, so my question is more about the implementation of how much room there is in the current curriculum for this and the relevance of this on wider Scottish Government targets around the attainment gap. Do you think that it could be argued that closing the attainment gap could be done by improving this kind of education in schools and through teacher training? I would like to ask Amy Johnson. You talked about the pilots and Catherine Dawson. Are they equally spread across Scotland? Are they focused in the central belt? Are they reaching out to rural communities and young women in the more remote parts of Scotland? I'll mention the panel, then I'll go back to Emily. I'll answer the first question first. Absolutely. I think that's really important, I think, because as we move forward with when the PSC review and report comes out as well, I think working on how to articulate the link between gender equality, health and wellbeing and attainment is absolutely key to having this centered as it should be, because how can young women and young people focus and study if they're scared or if they're tired or if they're facing mental health challenges because of their experiences and what should be a safe place. I think that it's a matter for the third sector to try and work out how to articulate as strongly as possible, because I think that's a really, really key point. I suppose just to add to that, in terms of attainment, when we were researching for the whole schools, I read a very convincing document that had pulled together some key issues about how do we think about attainment and bringing the issue of gender to attainment, and actually that there's a strong case to be made that if we want to tackle attainment in relation to boys, tackling gender inequality is a key way to do that, so yes, I would be concerned about that attainment, the priority given to that, that it's probably, I think, probably, it's fair to say it's largely not a gendered approach and that would strengthen it. In relation to the spread of the pilots at the moment, the first two are in Lanarkshire. As it's a pilot, it's going to be a small number of schools, it's not at this stage going to be, the sort of the scaling up is the next stage question, but because we're on a limited budget and because the worker is Glasgow based, then schools are going to be constrained by that within one to two hours of Glasgow, which doesn't necessarily rule out rural areas, but it certainly does rule out for the pilot much further away areas. We did do some research for leading into it in Highlands as well, so yes, I know that it's got limitations, unfortunately, in terms of how representative it's going to be as a pilot. Do Maria Rosanna have anything to add to any of that? No, I'll move on to Martha Barre. I was wondering what reasons any of you could give for the amount of sexual harassment and sexist behaviour that happens in schools and is it as commonplace as the researchers suggesting? I think that it's definitely an area where more research would be really valuable. I think that the reasons behind it are very complex, but I'd second what Catherine said about a cultural issue when sexist attitudes are so pervasive and when they start so early on in life. I think that explains a lot about the prevalence of sexual harassment and the sort of normalisation that we've seen in all areas of life, but sadly in schools as well. We do have some further research about how early gender stereotypes start to affect girls' views of themselves and their views of how they should behave. Our recent survey found that for girls as young as seven, they start to change what they think, they start to change their willingness to say what they think, to speak up in class, even how they behave around other girls, other boys, what they wear, what types of sports they'll play. I think that the roots are really early on and as much as the focus should be on the recording of incidents and taking a zero-tolerance approach and ensuring that our schools are safe, we also have to look at the wider cultural question and how we can start changing those attitudes when children are young. Roseanna MacDonald I agree with everything that Mairi has said. I would also add that in a time when relationships sexual health and education are not quite as adept as it could be in working with young people and talking to young people about issues of gender stereotypes and sex education, young people are going to increasingly easy to access pornography, which is often depicting violence against women. There is a lot of research out there that shows that watching this and having access to this can impact on views about gender roles and norms and violence against women. I think that that is an area that needs attention in order to tackle it. Amy Johnson I follow on from that zero-tolerance conductors survey. It's a bit old now, it's 2014, specifically on this and views of pornography and how that impacts young people's perceptions of themselves and also how they are in school. I can definitely point that out for the clerks to have later on. I'd say that sexual harassment is about power inequality and it does exist within this broader continuum of violence against women and girls. Within that, there is a huge array of nuances and other forms of power inequality that play into that. I think that when, especially when we are talking about it in schools, young people, young women and girls and young men and boys have a lot of the answers and can speak to a lot of their experiences and identify some of those nuances. Something that came up through the whole schools approach was how homophobia and sexual harassment is often linked as a way to police gender norms and gender roles and to re-confirm any transphobia, re-confirm binaries that then play into gender inequality. That was articulated by young people. I think that trying to focus on their voices as you are obviously doing and hearing their perspectives is a really important way to continue to gather information. I agree with everything. I think that I want to then add something about the stuff that is really difficult to tackle, which is that a lot of the messages coming around gender roles are quite promoted by sex, music and fashion industries who have a profit invested in business models that sell. I think that that is very difficult. The levers to try and tackle that are challenging for young people, for government and for everybody, but I still think that it helps to keep it in view because those images are so powerful, including erotic images through pornography, images in music videos and absolutely not to shame young people for wanting or being interested in those things. However, if those images that are coming through are giving quite confined ideas about how you should be and the pay group is magnifying those pressures, I think that we need to look at the power and the financial interests in pushing those ideas. Deputy convener, I have a quick question for Mary Gordon about Open to all the panel as well. You were mentioning there about how when it comes to the groups of girls, maybe aged around seven, this is when they begin to change and begin to see themselves kind of more confined. What we often see with a lot of schools is that they bring in role models or they bring in kind of inspirational people that they can look up to. Do you think that this is something that is working or something that can make a difference? Does it change their perceptions? Yes, I do think that it is a good place to start and Girlguiding Scotland have run our own campaign a few years ago called Wow Woman that was encouraging girls in our units to think about what it means to be a role model, to think about what a leader looks like and to start identifying women in their life who inspire them. I think that role models have a hugely important role to play. It is difficult to be what you cannot see. I think that it is only one part of the puzzle. Unfortunately, because there are limited role models in areas of politics and science, business and media, what we really want to get to a point is that women succeeding at those high levels will not be an anomaly where it will become the new normal. That is definitely something that we are aiming to work towards. We launched a new campaign yesterday called Citizen Girl that is about taking the next step and saying to girls, okay well now you can be the leaders of tomorrow, here is how you use your voice, here is how you engage with Parliament, hopefully complimenting the work that you are doing already here. I think that role models have an important role to play for boys as well as girls. I think that the more boys see girls, the more boys see women at these high level positions, the more normal that becomes, the better it will be for everyone. Mari, could you send us in some information about Citizen Girl that we can distribute to everyone? I would like to bring in Mina Baird and then we will go back to Martha Burr. Thank you, convener. I wanted to ask a question following up from a point from Amy Johnson that any of you can respond. I would like to ask if you were talking about different intersecting power inequalities and I wanted to ask if you are aware of evidence that highlights the prevalence of sexual harassment among different minority groups. So, in terms of where homophobia, racism, transphobia and so on plays a role in sexual harassment. Amy? Yes, but I think not to force on you Catherine about really interesting to your perspective too. Yeah, continue your joint working, that's fine. I don't think there's enough research and I don't think there's enough evidence. In terms of broader sexual harassment outside of school, there's research that's being done and I'm going to have to follow up with the names of who did it unfortunately, but it's on street harassment and women of colour and how they experience that and it goes specifically into the fact that racism is usually directly accompanied with the harassment, like the harassment itself is racist or as soon as the harassment is, the person tries to stop the sexual harassment, the woman tries to say leave me alone, it's immediately followed up with racism and the experience, I think the reason it's so important to look at it, whether it's the intersection between all forms of discrimination and harassment, is that can be a barrier to people reporting and to people feeling safe and even to them recognising it's harassment if there's no role models that they can see that reflects their identity. So yeah, I would pass on to Catherine in case it's something else that's come up more within the prevention stuff. I had a few thoughts about it and I don't know of any studies, I'm not saying there aren't any, but I don't know of any studies that look at sexual harassment in a school environment and then think about how that's broken down and of course intersecting characteristics. Certainly we know from work that one of my colleagues has done particularly with groups of black and minority ethnic young women that those experiences of racism and sexism and Islamophobia as well can be experienced as not separate, not distinct, but expressed as combined and I suppose therefore experienced as an attack of several parts of a person's identity and a general sense of an inadequate lack of response in their education setting that might validate or recognise or do anything about that. I'm thinking also of the Tell Mama report which is about reports of Islamophobic racism and harassment that's not specific to young people but that found that particularly women who wore a hijab were at the greatest likelihood of facing Islamophobia generally from white men so I think that's going to be the same for young women in the school setting as well and again this is at university level but there was a subset done of a university and it was an NUS report that was done some years back and the LBT society did a sort of a data analysis and found that there was a sort of at least twice the same levels of cisgendered heterosexual women that LBT women were facing in terms of harassment so absolutely clear that there's sort of increased levels of harassment I'm not sure that we've got the kind of data that we would like to have on that. Martha Byrd would like to come back with a quick point. I just have a question for Mary Gordon. Is there any work being done in partnership with Scout Scotland to educate specifically young boys on sexual harassment because as a woman in Scout Scotland it's a very male dominated area? We don't have a partnership at the moment but it's something we'd be interested in exploring we do obviously work closely with them on offering a number of opportunities for our members so yes it's definitely something we could look into. Thank you. I think one of the things that's coming out one of the themes is about the school environment and that was certainly something that was looked at with the committee of the parliament when they did the study so I know that Faria and Mina both have questions on that so if we could take both questions and then the panel can answer them. Faria Sayed. Does the panel think that the school environment is adequately supporting girls and young women by protecting them from sexual harassment and also are pupils reporting incidences as they see or hear them and if not why is that? I'd like to ask the panel in relation to that what it is they think is preventing schools from being able to provide the safe environments that children and young people need to prevent sexual harassment or sexist behaviour from taking place. Mary Gordon was the first to look up. Sorry, I'm drawing a slight blank there. Sorry, could you just repeat the first question? I just want to make sure that I've got it right. Yes, sure. Do you think that the school environment is adequately protecting young women and girls when they experience sexual harassment and are they reporting it if not then why do you think that is? Yes, so I'd say at the moment I'm just going off of our figures and our anecdotal evidence which is obviously limited. I would say that schools probably could and should be doing a better job of creating safer environments and I think that reporting is a big issue. A lot of the feedback that we had from girls was that they're very nervous around reporting and that is because of the sort of normalisation of the behaviour. So if they report saying, oh, a guy yelled a sexist on at me in the corridor or somebody pulled my brass strap, unfortunately we're at a point where those kind of behaviours are seen as so normal and just a bit of banter that they feel that by reporting it either won't do any good or they themselves could then become a victim of more harassment because they'll be seen as somebody who runs the teacher that will have a negative implication. So I definitely think there needs to be more training, there needs to be better recording and I think sadly it does come back to that wider cultural change as well that these behaviours need to be seen as unacceptable so that girls do feel confident in reporting them. We do have some good news, our recent survey found that 59 per cent of girls do feel comfortable challenging sexual harassment when it happens in schools so they do feel comfortable calling that out. Obviously we'd want that to be 100 per cent of girls and I think really for the change we want that needs to be 100 per cent of boys as well who feel comfortable challenging that. Faria, I know you had another question as well about systems that perhaps should be put in place and it may be an appropriate time to bring that in as well in the light of Mari's answer. Kind of touching on what Catherine and Amy were talking about earlier as well, some ethnic minority children can't speak about sexual relationships in the home, particularly children from Muslim or other faith-based families and they might also be afraid of victim blaming so I just wanted to ask is there any specific support for these groups of people? It's not an area that we have specific research on but the feedback that we got from girls is there are lots of different reasons why it can be challenging to report and to talk openly about these issues so definitely welcome greater support. Can I bring in Roseanna MacDonald and could you also address Mina's point about what are the barriers, what is it that is preventing good practice happening? I hopefully have an accurate enough note of the question so I'll try and deal with them one by one. In terms of whether the school environment is doing enough to protect children, young people or young women when experiencing sexual harassment I would say without being too hard on schools because I think the intention is really there but I think no at the moment there isn't enough protection in place. When it comes to domestic abuse and we know of instances where if the abuser is also in the school sometimes it's led to the young woman being asked to leave the school because the school doesn't have sufficient protection processes in place for her so this can often lead to the young woman feeling that she's the one who's been penalised for what has happened she's the one leaving so I think there really needs to be more processes in place perhaps through a gender-based violence policy in the school that addresses from primary prevention early intervention to support the whole spectrum of what is needed in schools so I think that needs to be looked at. In terms of reporting I think well we know that the majority of abuse goes unreported for a range of reasons maybe the fear of being stigmatised or blamed but also lack of recognition of what they're experiencing as being abuse and so I think we need a lot to do in terms of reporting and making sure that those are accurate and I think the stats that we do have don't always reflect lived experience so for example with domestic abuse this is going off and we tend to it but it's just to give an example Police Scotland's stats on domestic abuse are about domestic abuse incidents rather than the whole pattern of controlling behaviour so it doesn't necessarily reflect accurately what's actually going on. In terms of the question of preventing I think I would just echo what Mary had said it's about awareness it's about education it's about knowing how to respond appropriately I think a lot of staff maybe don't feel that they're equipped to respond appropriately to a disclosure and have a fear of doing further harm so I think we really need to make sure that staff feel confident to respond appropriately and know that the right question is to ask and the right way to respond and then your question about young people who are from minority ethnic families I think that's a really great point and I think I'm the same as Mary I don't think we have that much information on it but I think that is something that is now on my radar so thank you for bringing that up I think it's a really important point and I certainly know that for young people who have experienced domestic abuse in their families there's additional barriers to reporting because they feel that people don't understand their culture and have stopped them from for example calling child line so yeah lots of work needed on that. Catherine I don't want to repeat anything that's been said so I think to say there's a sort of a whole rate in general no not enough being done to protect otherwise we wouldn't be we wouldn't be having this discussion probably but I think you know I think it's important to recognise the huge constraints that there are on schools and teachers in terms of time and resources and the fact that for the majority I think there is the will to try and the will to perhaps to name if they see what they what they see is inappropriate behaviour to say something about that but I think that we also hear about some really concerning things about you know the the blame or the responsibility being sort of transferred to the person who's experienced the behaviour for example heard about an incident that same young people told us about where a boy had touched a girl's leg in class you know without her consent she had called from a rude word and she had been sent out of the classroom so that kind of lack of a teacher thinking what's actually happened here and what's the right way of response what are the power dynamics in the situation so I think having very clear guidelines for being able to understand the behaviour that's being seen to respond appropriately I don't think I do I have heard that a huge amount of what guidance staff time is taken up with is about safeguarding concerns particularly around social media so there's obviously a lot of a lot of time being put into these issues but I think perhaps it's there could have been prevention in place to stop certain abuses happening via social media beforehand and I think probably the the guidance so that the ways that they are handling these things could be strengthened. I think that a point about sort of specific support for black and minority ethnic young women and perhaps other groups of young women with protected characteristics as well I think that that's going to be patchy you know I know that a lot of our learning has come through the young Sahelia group in Edinburgh which has been a fantastic forum for young women to be able to talk about and actually identify some of these issues that they're facing I think there needs to be strong messages that these discussions are valid and that these issues are happening to give a clear signal that it's okay to talk about them okay thank you yeah Elena has a quick point should like to make and then we'll move on to Katrina thank you convener I just wanted to ask specifically to Mary Gordon but also for the rest of the panel for my second point whether there was any evidence of a contrast between the reporting of actual physical violence against women and girls in schools and sexual harassment and as a second point whether there was any framework or best practice that's currently in place for physical abuse in schools that could be adapted to create a sexual harassment policy. Thanks for your question it's not an area where we have that in-depth research and I wouldn't be the best place to speak to sort of best practices within schools I can say from what girls have told us a lot of their experiences of sexual harassment are focused on verbal abuse jokes taunts sexist media comments but we did see a significant percentage around 20 per cent saying that they were experiencing things like unwanted touching and unwanted attention and I think as well a concern for us is if these aren't addressed at a school level what happens later in life when they do start forming relationships so I think it's important that we see it as a continuum it may just start as a sexist joke but what does that say about girls wider experiences and what they can expect in future relationships and in their future lives I don't have any examples of best practice around physical abuse and violence I'm afraid I don't know if anyone else on the panel can speak to that in more detail though. I'm afraid I don't have statistics on the variants but in terms of looking at school policies there's usually very clear anti-bullying policies that very much encompass physical assault and the process involved there the commitment to not victim blaming the fact that it's usually articulated quite clearly to young people in the schools are all you know pretty minor best practices that could certainly be used when it comes to sexual harassment policy because there's no reason why that wouldn't flow over entirely but when we do look at policy in schools little in practice just the policy there's a lot it's a lot more opaque I doubt it's communicated to young people very clearly so I think even just that would be would be excellent. Okay me and I was asking about barriers you know and what is it that's preventing reporting and that ties in I know with a question that Katrina Carter wanted to ask so if you could put your point Katrina. Thank you so it does tie into the question of what schools are doing so my question was about what steps schools should be taken to ensure that sexual harassment is not either allowed to happen or ignored or downplayed when it does happen and it's what resources schools have to allow that. Mary Gordon, so you keep making the mistake Mary of looking around. So in our campaign we were calling for first off compulsory high quality sex education in every school in Scotland and to make sure that what young people are being taught is relevant to their life so are we talking about consent are we talking about online abuse are we talking about gender equality and healthy relationships and we've also called for schools to take a zero tolerance approach and to be held accountable for recording instances of sexual harassment. We gave evidence to the Equalities and Human Rights Committee a few months ago when they were reviewing their national anti-billion guidance and I'm really pleased to say that our research and our members' views were taken on board and the Scottish Government has committed to better recording. In terms of getting that into every school and really making that a practical change I think it does start with the improved sex and relationships education and also just looking at the wider skill culture and how safe young people feel in the corridor is how safe they feel going to teachers and discussing these issues and so I think for me it comes from improved education and it's hard to sort of put a name to it but just an improved sense of openness and willingness to talk about these issues. Catherine? I suppose the whole school approach aims to to take a sort of a multi-layered approach to do that so that there's the preemptive education that talks about gender equality and gender-based violence as a whole and gives people a framework for understanding where all these behaviours fit in and what the problems are and why therefore it's not just the case of a comment or a touch. That's the kind of proactive education that also names these behaviours as well so shifts the kind of silence around them so that someone who is perpetrating such a behaviour is less able to kind of minimise it and perhaps hopefully less likely to perpetrate it in the first place. It also means that there's guidance for school staff. The teacher training includes interventions into everyday behaviours that they might see in the corridor in the classroom so that they are given a response and that that response says something about the nature of the behaviour. It doesn't just say don't do that but names it a sexist and the downplaying as well that would probably come in as well as those proactive things. It would come in at the stage when a concern had been raised, a disclosure had been made so that usually the guidance staff will know how to fully honour that and honour that person's experience, trust, belief, respect and those things. One thing I was thinking as well in relation to that idea of making it clear that certain behaviours aren't allowed, I do think that that's really important. I also think that it's really important that it's not just the case of adult tells child that this isn't allowed. What I would really like is for our boys and young men to decide for themselves that they don't want this, that they don't want to do this so then when they're in a different space, when they're in a private space, they don't even have the impulse to do it because they want to live in equality with this other human being so as well as not allowed, not wanted. I think that I have to move on a bit but Farry I was asking earlier about the need for systems to be put in place to allow confidential reporting and I know that our deputy convener wanted to ask a supplementary to that but I think I'll bring in Alexandra first because I know that Alexandra's interested in that theme and about who are the most appropriate people for these systems to be run by Alexandra. My question for the panel is which organisations have a responsibility for ensuring that the systems and supports are in place to allow girls and young women to report these issues and get support for them? We'll bring in Nazia's supplementary as well at the moment. Thank you. It was just in relation to creating an environment that can be safe. There's been kind of talk about this idea of creating a safe physical space within schools for those facing harassment and discrimination. Do you think that that would be beneficial or do you think that that could actually cause more scrutiny to those using those spaces if, for example, more bullying and such? Amy Johnson. Yes, I'm sorry. I think exactly how you described it could be problematic but if you take a space that's already in existence and you declare it a safe place and you work with young people to ensure that bystander intervention is understood and people feel safe and confident to do it and with teachers to make sure that they're in the same boat because just a quick stat from the National Education Union's 2017 report, one in three teachers say they see sexual harassment on a weekly basis so it's like if you're seeing it are you equipped are you empowered to stop it? I'm assuming for young people it's much much higher that figure and so yeah I think a safe space but that's supported with other initiatives is really important and then in response to the first question I think it's it's first and foremost the school's responsibility but they need to be supported by the entire education setting in Scotland. Catherine. I just I think I would say the same as Amy in terms of that responsibility you know that state agencies have a responsibility under the Equalities Act but I also think that sort of third sector organisations have a responsibility to bring in their learning from working directly with victim survivors into that as well. I'm not sure if I understood your question about the safety issues and talking about safety for those who are more likely to face harassment and discrimination. Was there an issue there about sort of drawing attention to those people and making them feel singled out? So for example maybe for students who if they were to go into the safe space and other students were to notice this do you think that could cause an issue for that student as in you know other children making fun of them or something or you know just things like that? Yeah yeah I think it's probably about how it's handled then and maybe that safe space being general enough that it doesn't make people feel too singled out for going. I suppose I was thinking about a wider issue as well about when you're talking about these issues that certain groups perhaps minority groups rather than women as a whole that might sound when we have those discussions that those people might feel that the issues sort of singling them out so I suppose in that then then our messages really need to be more about the ways that discrimination works and the people who discriminate rather than focusing on those that face the discrimination but in relation to the physical safe space I think if people say that they want it and that they would value it then it's about trying to discuss with them how that would work in a way that it actually felt safe rather than exposing. Yes good. I think that we're moving on to the last theme now that we wish to cover today. We tried very much to group things together in order that we could have a good discussion. Very important theme though and I would ask Mina to open that up. Thank you convener. I'd like to ask the panel what they think about whether the laws that currently stand offers the right levers to ensure that incidences of sexual harassment in schools can be dealt with appropriately and if not what needs to change. I can see that Mary is staring at her desk. Views on that. Roseanna McDonnell. This might be slightly indirect but it's definitely related and I think it's an important thing to bring up so recently the Scottish Parliament passed the domestic abuse bill which is a really groundbreaking piece of legislation and it basically more accurately reflects the lived experiences of women and children experiencing domestic abuse. So I think that this will lead to raised awareness of what domestic abuse and other forms of gender-based violence and sexual harassment entail and I know that part of the follow-up of implementing that act is to have an awareness raising campaign so I think that it's important that schools are targeted within that but certainly I think that's all part of the general action to tackle gender-based violence through law. I could always say so. Why don't I bring in Anisa to ask her first because it's a related question and it can be addressed together. So my question for the panel is, are legal measures the most appropriate appropriate way to tackle sexual harassment in schools? So do we need more and is it most appropriate way? I think my answer to the first question was going to be I think about you know that there are many many of these forms of harassment and violence that we've talked about that are illegal a lot of them underneath the sexual offences act and also the abusive behaviour and sexual harm act which is specifically about sharing of images through technology. So a lot of that is relevant and it's there but I think it probably isn't brought into alignment with the kinds of guidance that schools are using to recognise the kinds of behaviours that they're seeing so not only is there do they know that the laws are there and are they clear about that but also then what's their messaging to young people around what the law says and then there's a set of issue as well about the kind of the stage of getting access to that justice which throws up all those issues about you know do young people have the choice and the knowledge to be able to report when they want to. I think a lot of young people and indeed adults as well often don't report or feel worried about reporting because they don't know what's going to happen to their information whether they're going to lose control of what happens so you know hence that we have such a big gap between incidents and reporting. So I think to summarise the alignment of behavioural guidance at school and and what legal protections there are but also thinking about how young people can have real access if they want to to that and legal measures are I think they're a piece a part of the puzzle I think if we don't have a within a school and within a society if we don't have those kinds of robust measures of you know if you behave in this way if you violate other people and if you disrespect other people's rights you know there need to be measures that a state or a school or an institution or a workplace will take about that and if those are more effective then that sends a message which plays into prevention as well so I would say part of the picture rather than being the most important part of it. Lisa, would you like to add to the discussion? Could I ask the panel what they think we need to change to ensure that teachers know how to properly report incidents in schools including to the police where necessary? I know that Martha also had a supplementary to the discussion going on. I just wanted to ask Rosanna MacDonald quickly to just clarify that was this the domestic abuse bill that had the new inclusions with the economic abuse as well in it? Right, so we were looking at what needs to change to ensure that teachers know how to report. Up on Lisa's point I think teachers grew up in the same culture that the rest of us did so the same attitudes, the same sexism and the same sort of generalized acceptance of sexual harassment affects them as much as it affects young people. I think a greater awareness of what constitutes sexual harassment, a greater awareness of what girls are experiencing at school and in their wider lives online would be really helpful so that they can recognise these incidents and feel confident to take action when they see them in the corridors and to take further action if necessary including reporting to the police. It feels like a bit of a cop-out to say that we need to change the sort of broader understanding but I do think that's essentially what needs to be done. On both those points, our work with early years practitioners and with youth workers, like the first step is asking them to reflect on their own internal bias or prejudice that they've inherited or absorbed and that's hard to do in a blame-free setting but it's really important to do in a blame-free setting. Can you mind me for your second point? Sorry, I'm going. It's a question. Can I still remember it? Yeah, I think just talking about the importance of teachers being able to recognise sexual harassment, understand what that term means, understand that it may not be what they think it may just be a joke or a comment in the school corridor but being able to recognise it at that level I think and call it out really at its root would be very valuable. So the only other thing I'd add then is within the whole school approach one thing that we do encourage as part of the teacher training is for young people to deliver certain sessions of the training and as the pilot continues we'll develop on that but especially when it's about online abuse or harassment having the young people's perspectives fed directly into what the teachers understand and know is key. Kathleen? I remember my second point and I forgot my first one but I was thinking about this idea of there being a proportionate response. Not all forms of violence will necessarily even if they do register as being a crime it might not necessarily be the right thing to report whether or not it's the right thing I think starts with the person who experienced it and what their views are on that and whether they would want it to be reported. So I think if a school is going to take forward a report that needs to be delicately done with consideration for what the young person wants. Child protection procedures are going to come into play as well so it might be that they are discussing it in partnership with social work or the police. So I think that it very much depends on what's happened but it's important to be in discussion with the young person about that. If something was reported without a young person wishing it to and if the police decided it was in the public interest to investigate and potentially bring to trial that young person is then a witness when they haven't necessarily wanted to be it. So in the same way we were with adults it's very important that a person has due choice as far as is appropriate given child protection concerns as to whether or not they want to report. The other thing I was thinking as well is that so not all forms of violence that are perpetrated might be the police response, might not be the most appropriate thing but I think we need clear measures in place for those who are starting to perpetrate things sexually harassing comments, maybe certain forms of online abuses, things where it wouldn't necessarily be something you would want to see a full police investigation of but is there some kind of disciplinary educational response for people who are using those behaviours? It always seems to come back round to reporting as well and I know that Farrie has got a particular interest in reporting. If you would like to go back to your original question about that, Farrie. Okay, thank you convener. Is there a need for a national helpline to be put in place that would allow young women to safely and anonymously report incidents of sexual harassment? That happens. Can I ask for fairly quick responses in that please? My eyes are on the clock. Catherine? I'll just go along. Catherine? I don't know. I haven't given it due consideration. I think what we need to think about is what would that enable them to do that they're not already able to do? What would their expectations be? So for example, if you were to anonymously report, yes, you've then been able to have your incident counted, recognised, validated, but it wouldn't be able to go any further than that. If it's a case of being able to contact somebody to discuss that experience, there are certainly the rape crisis Scotland helplines available there for anybody aged 13 upwards of any gender, so that would be a space that they would be able to discuss their experience and get support. So I think it would be about clarifying the purpose. Amy, a quick response please. I don't have anything to add to that. That's quick. Yeah, I think I agree with Catherine, and I think we know that from the, so SWA runs the domestic abuse and forced marriage helpline, and we know we get very few calls from younger women. So if there was a helpline around this, I think they would need to be doing a lot of work of what we've been talking about already, about awareness raising of what that behaviour entails as Catherine says. What would be the outcome for the person who's reporting it? What would help then in that situation? Mary? Yeah, just to second what Roseanna said, I think it's an interesting idea, and I do think there's an issue where younger women are maybe less aware of the support that's available in the various helplines, so perhaps it's also about how do we make sure that there's awareness of what already exists and how do we connect that with young women? Right. Thank you, everyone. I am going to give our deput convener one minute to give us her views on what was heard today. Thank you, convener. I think it's fantastic to know that there's so much being done in regards to research, fighting this harassment and just challenging these norms, but also that, as a table here, we've now been able to constructively agree that further research and action is required to change these norms and these perceptions, but that means not only for young people. It also means for teachers, for adults, for schools themselves and even organisations, so it's not just about us tackling this within schools but also within everything that's associated with the schools. So, yeah, I think that we've got quite a lot out of today for that. Under a minute. Yeah, and I have miscalculated, so I'm going to speak very slowly. I would like, on behalf of everyone here, to thank the panel very, very much for coming along. I think everyone would agree that we heard some really interesting evidence from you and a lot of food for thought, so I know that there's going to be a lot of discussion in the private session. So, what I will do is... No, that concludes our evidence session for today, so again, thank you to our panel and I close this session and we now move into private session. Thank you very much.