 That concludes topical questions. The next item of business is a debate on motion 3485 in the name of Nicholas Sturgeon on international women's day 2022. I'd be grateful if members who wish to speak in the debate could press their request to speak buttons now or enter R in the chat function. I call on Nicholas Sturgeon to speak to and move the motion. It is a privilege to open this debate today. I will talk shortly about what international women's day means for us here in Scotland, but this is also an opportunity to show solidarity to women and girls across the globe, not least those on the front line of conflict and war. Today in particular, I know all of our thoughts are with the women and girls of Ukraine. Ukraine is one of the countries across the world that marks international women's day with a public holiday. This time last year, thousands marched through the streets of its capital city, Kiev, to demand gender equality. Today, the reality could not be more different. Kiev and cities across Ukraine are under brutal Russian bombardment. Far from participating in peaceful democratic protest, Ukrainians are now fighting and fleeing for their lives. Today, from our national parliament here in Edinburgh, Kiev's Twin City, let us send the women and girls, men and boys of Ukraine, our love, solidarity and support. Let us also, Presiding Officer, send this message. In the face of the horror in gulfing Ukraine, words are not enough. In the past 10 days alone, more than 2 million people have already fled the horrors of war. That number is rising rapidly. The majority of those seeking refuge are women and children. So far, the UK's response has fallen short. Today, on International Women's Day, I appeal to the UK Government to follow the example of Ireland and other EU countries. Refuge and sanctuary first, bureaucracy second. Let people in and do the paperwork afterwards. Let's open not just our hearts but also our doors. Our common humanity demands it. The theme of this year's International Women's Day is break the bias. Three short words that mask the scale of the task that we face if we are to ensure equality for women and girls here at home and across the globe. The bias that we seek to break is ingrained. Its roots are deeply historic and I will reflect on that point later, but its impacts are very current and all women experience it in some way, shape or form. Of course, for minority ethnic women, disabled women, trans women, lesbians, the impact is compounded. The bias that we must break encapsulates prejudice and discrimination, outdated gender stereotypes, sexism and misogyny, attitudes that have no place in modern society but which still shape and limit the lives of women on a daily basis. Those attitudes result in the systematic underrepresentation of women, the result in the undervaluing of the contribution women make to our society and the result in too many women living in perennial fear of harassment, abuse, domestic and sexual violence and, in too many cases, murder. Breaking the bias must mean changing all of that or it will mean nothing at all. Let's be clear that it is not women who need to change. What must change is a culture in which prejudice, sexism and misogyny still thrive. International Women's Day is of course a time to take stock of progress made and there has been progress. I stand here as the first woman to hold the office of First Minister. I lead a gender balanced cabinet. 45 per cent of this Parliament's members are women and, albeit very belatedly, we now count amongst our number women of colour. All of that is progress and it is helping to drive deeper change. The world's first comprehensive women's health plan, free period products, removing for women and girls both the financial cost and the stigma of periods, reform of the law on domestic abuse, the doubling of early years education and childcare and the new child payment, tangible examples of policies that are making the lives of women and girls better. We should celebrate progress made but we must not let it mask the deep inequalities that still exist across society or distract us from the work still to do. Better representation is not yet eco representation, not here in Parliament or across our council chambers, not on company boards or decision making bodies, the length and breadth of the country. Women still bear the biggest responsibility for childcare and unpaid care more generally. Women are still much more likely to work in occupations that are underpaid and undervalued. Of course, the lives of women are still blighted each and every day by an epidemic of harassment, abuse, threats and violence, an epidemic that seems to be getting worse, not better. That problem is real and it is very current but the misogyny that motivates it is age old. That is why I want to focus the remainder of my remarks today on two issues, one deeply historic and one contemporary but linked by that common thread of misogyny. Before this Parliament right now is a petition demanding a pardon for the more than 4,000 people in Scotland, the vast majority of them women, accused and in many cases convicted and executed for being witches under the witchcraft act of 1563. Those who met this fate were not witches, they were people and they were overwhelmingly women. At a time when women were not even allowed to speak as witnesses in a courtroom, they were accused and killed because they were poor, different, vulnerable or in many cases just because they were women. It was injustice on a colossal scale, driven at least in part by misogyny in its most literal sense hatred of women. The pardon that the petition calls for would require this Parliament to legislate and in future this Parliament may choose to do so, but in the meantime the petition also calls for an apology. After all, those accusations and executions were instigated and perpetrated by the state, and so today on International Women's Day, as First Minister on behalf of the Scottish Government, I am choosing to acknowledge that egregious historic injustice and extend a formal posthumous apology to all those accused, convicted, vilified or executed under the witchcraft act 1563. Some will ask why this generation should say sorry for something that happened centuries ago, but it might actually be more pertinent to ask why it has taken so long. For me there are three reasons. First, acknowledging injustice, no matter how historic, is important. This Parliament has issued rightly so formal apologies and pardons for the more recent historic injustices suffered by gay men and by minors. We are currently considering a request for a formal apology to women whose children were forcibly adopted. Reckoning with historic injustice is a vital part of building a better country, so too is recognising and writing into history what has been for too long erased, the experiences and the achievements of women. Second, for some, this is not yet historic. There are parts of our world where even today women and girls face persecution and sometimes death because they have been accused of witchcraft. Thirdly, fundamentally, while here in Scotland the witchcraft act may have been consigned to history a long time ago, the deep misogyny that motivated it has not, we live with that still. Today it expresses itself not in claims of witchcraft but in everyday harassment, online rape threats and sexual violence. All of it intensified by an increasingly polarised and toxic public discourse and amplified each and every day by social media. It is no wonder that more women than ever before, certainly in my lifetime, are now questioning whether politics and public life are safe environments for women. It is no wonder so many still feel scared to walk the streets. In recent days we have marked the anniversary of the horrific murder of Sarah Everard. Her death sparked outrage and a demand for change. And yet in the year since Sarah was killed, dozens more women have been murdered across Britain. Just last week I chaired the cabinet's annual meeting with the Scottish Children's Parliament and the Scottish Youth Parliament. One of the trustees of the youth parliament, Sophie Reid, gave a powerful presentation about the experiences of young women today. She spoke of the ways in which women are forced to adapt their own behaviours and restrict their own lives to protect themselves as far as possible from the harassment, abuse and violence of men. Those experiences are heartbreaking but they are not new. Those are also the experiences of my generation and my mothers and my grandmothers. If they are not to become the experiences of the next generation too, a line in the sand must be drawn. It is no longer acceptable to expect women and girls to adapt and accommodate. It is time to challenge unacceptable male behaviour and better protect women from it. We must change for goods the culture of misogyny that has normalised such behaviour for far too long. It is of course in this context that Baroness Helena Kennedy's working group on misogyny has this morning published its groundbreaking report. I thank Baroness Kennedy and the working group, including of course the late and sadly missed Emma Rich, for producing such a powerful and compelling report. His recommendations are bold and they are far reaching. It proposes a new misogyny and criminal justice act and it recommends that this act includes a statutory misogyny aggravation. It is important to stress, in anticipation of concerns about freedom of thought and speech, that this would not criminalise misogyny per se, but it would allow crimes assault, for example, which are motivated by misogyny to be treated more seriously in sentencing. Importantly, it would not apply to crimes such as rape, which are inherently misogynistic. The report also recommends three new criminal offences to reflect and better address the daily lived experience of too many women. Those would be stirring up hatred against women and girls, public misogynistic harassment and issuing threats of or invoking rape or sexual assault or disfigurement of women and girls, whether online or offline. The Scottish Government welcomes those recommendations in principle. We will now of course give full consideration to the detail and we will respond formally as soon as possible. However, the report, in my view, matters beyond the detail of the specific recommendations that it makes. It matters because it acknowledges and it gives powerful voice to the stark realities of everyday life for women. It recognises that misogyny is endemic and that it blights the lives of women every single day. It rightly points out that not all men are misogynist, but all women do experience misogyny. It also recognises the power of the law to drive social and cultural change and concedes that for women and girls our law is currently failing. Perhaps most importantly of all, it articulates a fundamental truth that, on this international women's day, we must all reflect on. A society in which women do not feel safe is not one in which we can ever be truly equal. On international women's day, let us in this Parliament rededicate ourselves to building a society in which women and girls are safe and in which they feel safe. Let us acknowledge and reckon with historic injustice and, in doing so, let us redouble our work now to consign age old misogyny to the history books once and for all and let that then be the foundation on which we build a truly gender equal Scotland and offer it as an example to women and girls across the globe. On this international women's day, at a time of real darkness for our world, let us today send a message of hope and light to women and girls everywhere. I move the motion in my name. Thank you and I'll call on Tess White to speak to and move amendment 3485.1. Presiding Officer, international women's day has been observed for more than a century. In many parts of the world much has changed for women since the early 1900s, from enfranchisement to the Me Too movement. In others progress has slowed significantly or even reversed and sometimes drastically and so while today is a celebration of the remarkable achievements by women around the world, it's also a protest that the persistent gender inequality and discrimination women continue to experience every day. It's a day of reflection, frustration, anger and sadness. As we come together today to mark International Women's Day 2022, it's against the background of violence and conflict in Ukraine. We do so with particular somber hearts. We know that women and girls are disproportionately impacted by war. One former UN peacekeeping commander believes it has become more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in an armed conflict. Too often women bear the humanitarian cost of war, but their acts of bravery, heroism and kindness also demonstrate there's a humanity in adversity. Since Russia's unprovoked invasion almost two weeks ago, we've seen and heard harrowing accounts of how this appalling conflict has collided with the lives of the Ukrainian people. In just a matter of days, daily commutes to work and the school gates have been replaced by desperate journeys in search of safety. Two million people have been displaced as they flee the violence, mostly women and children. They've left everything behind. As fathers are called up to fight and families are separated, courageous mothers have walked dozens of kilometres with their frightened children in frigid winter temperatures. The threat of Russian attacks spurring them on into the unknown. For weary Ukrainian refugees crossing into Poland by train, Polish mothers left prams, buggies, blankets and baby bags on a station platform, a deeply moving gesture of solidarity and support. The bravery and resilience of women across Ukraine humbles us all. The female doctors who stayed behind in hospital basements to care for their patients as the sound of Russian shelling reverberated through the buildings. The resistance, the women making Molotov cocktails and taking up arms to defend their country's sovereignty from an irredentist dictatorship. The director of Save Wild Sanctuary Natalia Popova, who stayed with the lorry evacuating animals to Poland as Russian tanks advanced just 80 meters away. The Ukrainian parties and women who secured safe passage for them. The volunteer medic who lost her life on the front line helping injured Ukrainian soldiers. The grandmother who pleaded with Russian forces for the lives of her grandchildren. A six-year-old girl called Sophia and a six-week-old baby called Ivan as they fled the conflict. They were shot to death. Presiding Officer, we cannot possibly know what it's like to walk in the shoes of women in Ukraine during this senseless violence. To those women and to those women in conflict zones around the world who are experiencing the aftermath of war, please know this. We are with you, shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm. Presiding Officer, last week marked one year since 33-year-old Sarah Everard was kidnapped, raped and murdered by police officer Wayne Cusins, who pretended to arrest her as she walked home from a friend's house. He was a predator hiding in plain sight, cloaked in pretence and deceit. The brutality of Sarah's death shook our country to its core. I and other MSPs were humble to join the Sarah Everard memorial protest in Edinburgh on Thursday last week, but as campaigner and founder of Strutsafe, Alex Chung said during the protest, nothing has changed. In the year since Sarah was killed, 125 more women have reportedly lost their lives across the UK. In Scotland, the number of domestic abuse incidents has increased for the fifth year in a row. On average, 180 domestic abuse cases are reported to Police Scotland every single day. Dundee City in my own region has recorded the worst rates of domestic abuse in Scotland. Nine in 10 cases took place in the home. Supposedly a place of sanctuary, but the least safe place for far too many women. The number of sexual crimes recorded across Scotland increased by 13 per cent last year. The number of rapes increased by 12 per cent. The majority of the correspondence that I receive at the moment relates to women's safety. I know that women want to be able to wear what they want without the threat of sexual harassment and violence. I know that women are hoping for the day that they can walk home from a friend's house or a night out without clutching their keys in one hand and their mobile phone in the other. I know that women the length of breadth of the country are asking what will it take for the status quo to change. Presiding Officer, the reality is that, for change to take place, we must see a change in attitudes and belief systems. There was widespread outrage when footballer David Gilwily ruled to be a rapist in civil court proceedings was signed by Wraith Rovers in January. The Wraith Rovers women's team cut ties to the club in opposition to the decision. Women's captain Taylor Attrie stepped down, saying she wanted nothing to do with the signing. Public outrage was pounded by disgracefully tineared statement from the club defending the decision, highlighting Gilwily's footballing ability and emphasising that this was the community club's foremost consideration taking him on. What kind of message does that send not just to women and girls but to men and boys? A poll by Ipsos and the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King's College London published last week. It revealed that almost one in five men across the UK do not believe that gender inequality really exists. Almost a third of men think that traditional masculinity is under threat. Almost a third again think that feminism does more harm than good. It is these regressive attitudes that need to change to break the bias. No longer do we want to hear statements like over my dead body will you play in my boys' football team, girls don't play football, a seven-year-old Rachel Pavlofft was told by her herd master. She is now the Football Association's Development Manager for Diversity and Inclusion. I started my career in HR in the 1980s and working with some truly inspirational women. I have seen firsthand how transformative diversity and inclusion policies can be in the workplace. I remember challenging male employees about the pornographic calendars in their workplaces long before the sun stopped publishing page 3 photos in 2015. Slowly we have chipped away at the casual misogyny that has characterised workplaces for decades. The too-long employers have expected women to minimise their differences and adapt to the workplace rather than adapting the workplace to them. So much female talent has been lost because of this draconian mindset. From pregnancy to parental leave, childcare to the menopause, we must do better at responding to these issues. The Economist's Glass Ceiling Index, the annual measure of the role and influence of women in the workforce across 29 OECD countries, ranks Great Britain well below average at number 22. That is simply not good enough. The World Economic Forum estimates that it will now take 135.6 years to reach gender equality as the Covid-19 pandemic set progress back by about 36 years. Without measurement there is no improvement and I cannot emphasise enough how pivotal Theresa May's drive to compel companies to publish their gender pay gap data was in helping to improve workplace equality. As life increasingly returns to normal and the threat of the pandemic recedes, Governments and businesses must work collaboratively to nurture female talent and find other innovative ways to promote equality in the workplace. That is not about positive discrimination, it is about fairness. I am proud to be in a Parliament made up of 45 per cent women, but I do not take for granted that we in this chamber have so much more to do to achieve equality in Scotland and in the world. I move the amendment in my name. It is a great privilege to open this debate today for Scottish Labour. If you had asked me barely over a year ago whether I thought I would be doing this, I would have probably said no, partly because I have massive impostor syndrome in all circumstances, as many women do, but largely because past behaviour is often the strongest predictor of future behaviour, and the past does not look great for women like me. However, I am proud to say that the future looks much better, and that is in no small part down to the strides that this Parliament has made in the representation of women. I would like to note and recognise in particular how proud I am to be in the chamber, alongside Pam Gosall and Colcab Stewart, two women who have broken down barriers and made history, becoming the first women of colour to stand in this chamber, and Pam Gosall, the first to seek women. International Women's Day and Fighting for the Rights of Women is an issue that transcends party lines, and I know that all of us here in this chamber today stand ready to do just that. Breaking the bias is a fight for all of us. Although the usual focus of this day would be to celebrate the achievements of women and girls throughout history, it is important that we stop and remember that this year, as we celebrate women, we do so against a backdrop not only of an incredibly difficult few years for women, but also in the context of war in Ukraine, where women are fleeing for their lives, trying to escape bloodshed in their own towns and cities, and doing everything they can to protect their families. Hundreds of thousands of women have left Ukraine, taking their children to safety and often leaving their husbands behind. Women in Ukraine are not just fleeing though. Many are staying to fight, taking up arms against Russian aggressors and putting their lives on the line to defend their homes and citizens. Presiding Officer, I know that all of us from the relative safety of this chamber stand in solidarity with those women of Ukraine today. But standing in solidarity, as we have heard, is not enough. It has been reported that the number of Ukrainians who have been allowed to come to the UK stands at just 50, a number that would not even fill half of this chamber. That is simply not good enough. Scottish Labour and I will be supporting the Conservatives' amendment today because it ensures that this Parliament recognises the situation facing those women in Ukraine and across the world. However, in doing so, I make a plea across the chamber to my colleagues on those benches. Please ask your colleagues to do more. Lives and women depend on it. Just this morning, it was reported that 286 Ukrainians hoping to come to the UK have been turned away at Calais, told to go back to Brussels or Paris to apply because there is no Home Office team in Europe. Conservative colleagues again, I plead, do what you can to encourage the Home Office to send a team to Calais, do not make life any harder for those refugees, many of them who are women, than it already has been. Do what you can to lobby those in power, make your concerns known, ask the Home Secretary to go further in offering safety to those who need it. We, as women, must do all that we can. We can do more and we must do more. I also want to take time today to talk about the impact on the women of the pandemic and the difficulties that many women right here in Scotland have faced this past year. Let me focus first on disabled women. The theme of this year's international women's day is to break the bias. Let me be clear—we still have far more to do before we even begin to make a dent in the bias that disabled women face. For so many disabled women, life has been characterised by broken systems and endless misunderstandings about our experience and our worth. That means that many of us do not get to live up to our full potential. Bias against our worth, our capability, our contribution, our hopes and dreams and our bodies has held us back. After decades of austerity, disabled women have found our rights are so often ignored or are first to go. Before Covid hit, disabled women were already some of the most disadvantaged people in the country. We are twice as likely not to be in employment and the pandemic will no doubt have made this worse. When the going gets tough, it is usually disabled women who have to get going. Where we are in work, the disability pay gap, which stubbornly remains at 8.3 per cent, means that we effectively worked for free for the last 57 days or eight weeks of the year. We are more likely to have mental health. We did not and do not get the social care and support that we need. Disabled women do not have our reproductive rights supported either. I was part of a project by Engender called Our Bodies, Our Rights, and I refer members to my register of interest. The stories that we heard were horrific. We heard of fears of children being removed into care due to stigma and stereotyping, forced sterilisations and terminations, lack of care and support for our sexual health, failures of maternity services, pervasive violence, discrimination in accessing reproductive health services, barriers in accessing birth control and family planning, and disabled and young women and girls being less likely to get sex and relationship education in schools, leaving them both more vulnerable to exploitation and lacking in sufficient information to make informed choices. We also know that there is growing violence against disabled women. In committee last week we were told that global rates of gender-based violence show that 90 per cent of women with learning disabilities have been subjected to sexual abuse. I could go on, but I'm sure you get a picture. A society largely designed without us has not served us well. We must crave more innovation, more equality, from the high street to the boardroom and from the boardroom to Parliament. We need those disabled women if we are to face the challenges of today and create the world of tomorrow. For far too long, inequality has simply been the default because of bias and because we haven't been in the room. It's time we fixed that by design and I know why we'll do all I can from those benches to make sure we do. Today is, of course, a celebration of women, and I want to take a moment to celebrate the incredible women who support me every single day of my life, my carers. Without you, I would not be able to sit here today and I thank you. We cannot celebrate carers, both unpaid and paid, without acknowledging the barriers that huge numbers of them face, and those carers are predominantly women. Women have been put at substantial risk either as key workers or unpaid caregivers. We know that inequalities and income power and wealth hold women back, and addressing women's income matters. Women are more likely to be in poverty than men, more likely to experience and work poverty and find it harder to escape poverty than men. Women's work incentives such as care, cleaning, hospitality and retail have long been undervalued, underpaid and underprotected. This year, paid carers, most of whom are women, received just £48 an hour increase on their wages. It fails to take account the substantial risk that they put themselves at to continue doing their job and supporting all those who rely on them. That's why my party supports £12 an hour wage rise for carers. Unpaid carers are not properly supported either. The pandemic has led to women doing more unpaid labour, being forced to carry out more unpaid caring responsibilities, childcare and housework than before. Women have been forced to perform more unpaid labour with their collective lost earnings or productivity to more than £15 million a day in Scotland. The Government is also so far not committed to a further doubling of the carers allowance supplement, which could help to address some of that injustice, and I again make a plea to the Government to make that commitment and give unpaid carers certainty. Young women faced incredibly detrimental impacts of the pandemic too, many, of course, working in sectors such as retail and hospitality that were shut down early entirely. Many of those women were struggling before the pandemic, two thirds of them earning less than the living wage were women. We have to fight for all women. Today, we must celebrate, yes, but we must also recognise that things have gone backwards and we must all work together to put us back on track and move forward. Women's inequality has been exacerbated in the pandemic, but if we put women at the heart of our recovery, we can reverse that trend and, once again, make great strides. The innovation of women, of disabled women, of black minority ethnic women, of lesbians, bisexuals and trans women, the resilience that we must fight through together and how we will still campaign for our social justice never ceases to amaze me. The graft of women this past year should never be forgotten. A better world lies ahead if we celebrate and reward the efforts of all women. Do not just look in awe or admiration, although do that too, because women are pretty remarkable. But put us in the room where things happen. I say to my male colleagues across the chamber many of whom I know are fierce supporters of women in our rights. Please keep backing us, do what you can, to help us to break down barriers. I am pleased to say that my own party leader Anna Sarwar will do that tomorrow, as he leads our work to deliver Millie's law, which will do so much to ensure that from one girl's story, our women and girls will get their justice too. Sisters, let us do everything we can to put our talent in the room where it happens. That, I believe, is how we build a world free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination. A world that is diverse, equitable and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated. Together we can do this. Together we can all break the bias. In the member's debate last week on International Women's Day, I spoke of the situations in Ukraine and Afghanistan and the impact that conflict has on women. My thoughts and solidarity are very much with the people of Ukraine today. Let us also remember women and girls around the world who face conflict, injustice and poverty every day. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Baroness Helena Kennedy-QC for her working group on misogyny and criminal justice for the published report. We will look at this in much more detail, but I hope that we are able to end the abuses that degrade women's lives. Today I would like to focus on the issues facing women in modern Scotland and how we can break the bias to improve women's health, finances and representation in politics. Stigma and lack of understanding surrounding women's reproductive health leaves millions of women suffering pain and shame every year. Biases that lead people to believe—sorry, I will start again—biases that lead people to believe that debilitating pain is normal for periods or that there is something embarrassing about cervical screenings can also have long-term consequences. Despite an estimated 1.5 million women in the UK being affected by endometriosis, too many are led to believe that the debilitating symptoms are just something they have to put up with. Since I started speaking out about endometriosis, I have heard from many women in Shetland about how it has impacted their lives, their relationships, education and work. One woman told me that it took 15 years—yes, 15 years—to get a diagnosis. It would be interesting to know if a similar painful condition that affected as many men would have an average of eight and a half years for a diagnosis. Misconceptions and misogyny need addressing, and medical staff need to learn how to listen to what women are saying when they describe what is happening to their bodies. Data from Joe's cervical cancer trust revealed that one in three do not attend the cervical screening appointment when invited. 220,000 women and people with a cervix are told that they have cervical cell changes every year. Many more receive a diagnosis of HPV, but those receiving the news are often confused, ashamed and scared. Screening numbers have fallen across Scotland, and this is likely to have been due to the pandemic, but it is really important for those eligible to have the screening and keep up to date. Hearing the news that there have been cervical cell changes must be scary, but support and treatment are available. We have to break the biases that tell people that reproductive health is not something to be talked about. Screenings save lives. No barrier should prevent anyone from being proactive about their health, especially not a feeling of shame after a diagnosis. Turning to finances, we know that women are more likely to be paid less, to work in more insecure jobs and are likely to take on the bigger share of caring, paid and unpaid and domestic chores. These inequalities have been further exacerbated by policies that have had consequences either not foreseen or ignored by those making them at the time. I am a member of the CPG for women against state pension inequality. Changes in 1995 and later left many women facing a longer than anticipated weight to receive their state pension. Many women were left unaware at the time of the initial announcements and subsequent changes, and many women only found out when they neared what they thought was the end of their working lives and were shocked to discover that they would not get their pension at 60 after all. It might have been the right thing to have the same state pension for everyone in a modern economy, but some of the women affected did not have the same work opportunities open to later generations. We should not have a situation where women are now forced to choose between heating and eating because of when they were born. Women of pensionable age living alone are one of the demographics most at risk of fuel poverty, and the islands have some of the highest levels of fuel poverty in the country. We need a better understanding of the gender impacts of policies so that such devastating negative outcomes do not happen again. It is a privilege to be one of the women elected to the Scottish Parliament and also being Shetland's first female MSP. The 2021 election results between women now represent 45 per cent of MSPs, a record number, but at local authority level, the elected women account for just 29 per cent. I have spoken to women who say that they would not stand for elective office because of the toxic nature of social media. We must strive for many more women across chambers to be elected. What we wear, how we do our hair, how we look, how we sound are often commented on more than the ideas that we bring to debates. We need to break the bias against women candidates and politicians. More women in politics means bringing a wider understanding of society to our discussions and better representation of the people who put us here. Finally, I want to thank the men here this afternoon. I am sure that we will hear more about men's violence against women during this debate, but it is only through men listening, learning and changing behaviour that men's violence against women will be addressed. Scottish Liberal Democrats have been calling for the establishment of a commission to end gender-based violence. We need a more socially equal society to break the bias against women. Thank you. We now move to the open debate, and I call Natalie Dawn to be followed by Sue Webber. On this international women's day, I am extremely proud to stand here in the most representative Parliament this country has ever seen. As a woman from a working-class background, I never thought I would be standing here today, and it is proof that we are moving in the right direction, but we have a long way to go. It is right that recognition has already been given to the horrors that women are facing right now in Ukraine, and I would like to join in emphasising my dismay over that. It has been absolutely heartbreaking to see the displacement of over 1.5 million citizens, most of whom are women and children, and for those who have been unwilling or unable to flee, we are seeing allegations of rape, women giving birth in underground stations and newborns being treated in makeshift bomb shelters. The strength and bravery of those women cannot be understated. I want to welcome the First Minister's apology to those convicted under the Witchcraft Act. I am currently in the process of beginning a member's bill to pardon these victims, mostly women, and I am sure that this will go a long way in tackling bias and sending a message across the world that this practice is not acceptable. In the current day, I want to begin by paying homage to the contribution and the sacrifices that women have made throughout the course of the pandemic. Women have played a huge role in keeping society together during the toughest of times, undertaking the majority of front-line roles and taking on an increase in caring within the family setting. However, that has come at a cost, and UN Women have estimated that the impact of the pandemic on women's equality could mean a rollback of 25 years of progress on women's rights. The majority of women are expected to be managers in our own homes. Taking on the majority of caring responsibilities and everyday mundane tasks, including cleaning and cooking, and the pandemic has only served to strengthen this. A publication from Engender noted that if you recorded all that uncounted labour, it would be worth an estimated £1.1 trillion, or around 56 per cent of GDP. New mothers have also missed out on a whole range of experiences with their little ones, and pregnant women over the past two years have experienced a pregnancy like no other. Limited birthing partner visits, missed antenatal classes and face masks during birth. With a two-year-old daughter and a seven-month-old son, I have experienced some of that myself, and I have heard firsthand, both through my own personal relationships and from my constituents, how difficult mothers and pregnant women have found this. It is no wonder that mental health issues among women are soaring, an issue that I am confident that the Scottish Government is committed to improving. Also, as my colleagues have quite rightly highlighted, we have seen domestic abuse cases increase during the pandemic, and that was especially heightened during severe restrictions. Eradicating violence against women and girls is a priority for the Scottish Government. Within our first 100 days of government, funding was directed specifically to rape crisis services, and the delivering equally safe fund will see funding directly to front-line services and prevention. It is absolutely right that tackling violence against women is and remains a priority. With all of those issues put upon us, it has been an extremely hard time for so many women, and I pay tribute to each and every single one of you who has given everything that you have during the pandemic. Now, on to this year's theme for International Women's Day, break the bias. Structural barriers and prejudice continue to cause inequality in our society, and break the bias challenges each and every one of us to take action against prejudice whenever we see it. Despite how far we have come with gender equality, and I do believe here in Scotland that that is a long way, bias continues to surround our everyday lives, and breaking it can be difficult. Stereotypes fuel misogyny, and women should not have to act or behave in a certain way to conform to those outdated stereotypes. Women face judgement, stigma and criticism for everything we do, everything we say or dare to speak about, the clothes we wear, how we style our hair, our weight, our height, how we conduct ourselves on social media. We are expected to go above and beyond to help and keep a smile on our face while we are doing it. We get judged if we choose a career over a family, and likewise we get judged if we decide to start a family. When we do, that comes even more questions. How are we going to cope with work? Are we even going to bother with work? How do we raise our children? Are we going to bottle feed them or breast feed them? The list is exhausting and it goes on and on. Women have so much more expected of us in so many ways that we are expected to behave, and whether you are a young girl, a woman, a mother or a grandmother, I have no doubt that you face this kind of judgement or questioning along the lines of this in the past. It is tiring. Please can we just let women be and stop scrutinising us in a way that few men would ever be subject to? I have no doubt from the women I have witnessed in my life that the majority of us are smashing it regardless of any negativity or perceived bias. However, it takes an emotional toll and it is unjust that women should have to fight these battles on a daily basis. Now, our Scottish Government does trailblaze when it comes to fighting for equality for women, but, like most things in Scotland, we do so with one hand tied behind our backs from Westminster, who reinforce those gender stereotypes with abhorrent misogynistic policies such as the disgusting rape clause, the treated waspy women and when the British Prime Minister refused to apologise for writing an aspectator article that the children of single mothers were ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate and called for action to restore women's desire to be married. So to the UK Prime Minister and any other misogynistic man in a position of power, as a young woman raised by a single mother, we won't stop, we won't be quiet and we are here to be heard. To finish, I want my daughter to grow up in a world where she is free to do what she wants and follow any path that she wants without fear of judgement, where she doesn't have to walk down the street with her keys between her fingers, the way we all have in the past. Equally, I want my boy to grow up in a world where he is respectful to women and understands that we are all equal. Of course, we've made much progress here in Scotland, but we undoubtedly have such a long way to go to break the bias, and until the day we achieve true equality for women of all different backgrounds, we still have much work to do. Thank you, Ms Dawn. I now call on Sue Weber to be followed by Co-Cab Stewart for in six minutes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Today, I want to take the opportunity to mention and celebrate some of the most influential and inspiring women that I know and call friends. In my role in Parliament as Shadow Minister for Public Health and Women's Health, I particularly want to mention some trailblazing women that work within healthcare. First, there is Dr Eamor O'Connell. Eamor is leading the way for women in dentistry. She was the first women president of the Association of Dental Implantology and works hard to promote women in dentistry in Scotland, England and Wales. She was also the first female dentist in the UK to gain her implant diploma from the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. She is a warm and reassuring dentist who builds excellent long-term relationships with her patients. I should know, as I am one of those patients and have been since 2006. In 2014, Eamor won a business, a UK business award from software of excellence, as well as winning best overall practice in Scotland. In 2015, her practice won best patient care award. I also want to acknowledge that her positivity has helped me in more ways than dentistry when things have been tough Eamor found quite discreet ways to support me through tough times. In 2019, the BBC selected 100 influential women from around the world asking, what would the future look like if it were driven by women? The list of 100 women featured globally recognised names from climate change activists Greta Thunberg and footballer Megan Rapinone, among others, but I was absolutely thrilled to see my friend Dr Sarah Martins de Silva on that list. Sarah is a consultant gynaecologist and honorary senior lecturer in reproductive medicine at NHS Tayside and the University of Dundee. In 2019, Dr de Silva featured in a BBC documentary on fertility issues and IVF. However, Sarah's approach to fertility is different. Her work, running translational research programmes, is focused on male infertility, sperm biology and drug discovery. Why is that so important to recognise and make note of on international women's day? I cannot express it better than Sarah did herself when she said, I hope that we can harness science, technology, investment and innovation in male reproductive health to redress global inequalities and the current burden of fertility that women face. I met both of those fabulous women while studying at the University of Edinburgh, but it was not science and healthcare that brought us together. It was sport and it was hockey. We all met through Edinburgh University Women's Hockey Club. Sport, sadly, is never quite given the focus that it deserves in this chamber, despite the positive impact that it has on so many lives. For me, it has provided friends for life unconditionally. The leadership shown in women in elite sport should also be recognised today. As a child—we did not have as many channels on the telly right enough—I was a huge fan of Martina Navratilova. She is one of the best female tennis players in history. She is the only player to be ranked number one in singles and doubles for over 200 weeks. She won 18 Grand Slam titles, 31 major women's doubles titles and 10 major mixed doubles titles. She is also only one of three women to achieve a career Grand Slam in women's singles and doubles and mixed doubles, which consists of every senior Grand Slam title. Her achievements did not stop on the tennis court. Navratilova came out as a bisexual in 1981 and has been an activist for gay rights, along with animal rights and underprivileged children. In 2000, she was the recipient of a national equality award from the human rights campaign, the United Nations largest gay and lesbian activist lobbying group. Closer to home, Sharon Davis set a record by swimming for the British national team at the age of 11. In 1976, at age 13, Davis was selected to represent Great Britain in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. In the 1980 Olympics, Davis took the silver medal in the 400m individually medley beating East German Petra Schneider, who later admitted that the victory was drug-enhanced. By the time she retired in 1994, she had been a British champion on 22 occasions and had broken 200 British swimming records and five world-mastered records. Davis continues to highlight the need to predict the credibility of fair sport for biological females. The reason that Davis is so vocal on this issue is that she spent 20 years racing testosterone-fuelled East Germans, who treated a whole generation out of their rightful medals and does not want to see this happen again. Like Martina Navratilova, many find their voices, views and opinions are being cancelled. For all that they have achieved in their chosen sport and for they continue to accomplish, they have all earned the right to be listened to. International Women's Day is celebrated annually on 8 March to commemorate the cultural, political and socio-economic achievements of women. I am delighted to be able to take part in this debate today and raise all of the amazing achievements of women across different fields across the world. I call on co-cab Stuart to be followed by a Rhoda Grant for around six minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is an absolute pleasure to speak in this debate and to stand with my colleagues as we celebrate the journeys and achievements of women all over the world on this day. This time last year, of course, there were no women of colour in this chamber and today we have two. I thank my colleagues for bringing that to everyone's attention as if nobody had noticed. However, not to diminish our own success, I am just going to say it again, in 2022 we have two. Let that sink in. Although we have certainly seen progress and in this Scottish Parliament has more MSP women than previous ones, we share a collective responsibility to continue that trajectory towards equal representation for women and to break that bias. Whilst we have seen progress in recent decades, we have also witnessed sobering reminders that we for equality is far from over, the fight for equality. The fact remains that whether we are competing in the labour market, caring for loved ones or simply walking home, women face obstacles, women face discrimination and women face dangers that men do not. We know that the pandemic has highlighted existing inequalities between men and women. Furthermore, the research from Close the Gap last year stated that black and minority ethnic women face a combination of gendered and racial barriers that affect their ability to enter, to progress and to stay in good quality employment. According to Close the Gap's research, over 50 per cent of workers in roles that were assessed by the Scottish Government as being at high risk jobs of being disrupted were women. Whilst young BAME women were more likely to experience loss of hours, loss of earnings and almost three quarters reporting that they had experienced racism, discrimination, racial prejudice and or bias in the workplace, it is important to understand and recognise the intersectionality of race and gender inequalities. Women face institutional and other prejudices, but it is clear that the experience of women of colour is even tougher than that. With the additional layers, we talk about the glass ceilings, but we should also talk about the glass walls and we should also talk about the glass floors. One notable example can be found in education. In 2019, the NUS reported that over 80 per cent of white UK university students domiciled in the UK received a first or upper second class degree compared to 70 per cent of black Asian and minority ethnic students. When I asked about the possible contributing factors to this, students frequently cited the lack of role models and diversity among senior staff in education at their institutions. In the same year, the writer and activist Nicola Rolach interviewed 20 out of the UK's total 25 black female professors, a pettifly low number in itself, which represents actually not 0.1 per cent of all the professors in the UK. White men comprise 68 per cent of all UK professors. In those interviews, she had repeated descriptions of a culture of bullying, racial stereotyping and microaggressions within higher education. Sadly, we are even seeing a disparity in the treatment of Ukrainian women of colour as they are also women who are running for refuge. Today, we renew our call for employers across all sectors—our schools, our colleges and universities—to be bolder not to prop up ineffectual equality policies with tick boxing exercises but to implement that real change with measurable outcomes. We must also hold accountable within our own communities and amongst our friends and not to be afraid of introspection on ourselves, appreciating that we are not always free from bias. On a national level, the Scottish Government has proven its commitment to eradicating both racial and gender inequality through extensive range of actions and proposals, including a new bill, which will incorporate four United Nations human rights treaties into Scott's law, notably the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. That will help advance economic, social and cultural rights. Fair work and gender pay gap action plans will also assist Scotland in achieving its ambition to be a fair work nation. We welcome every centimetre and metre—a modern reference there instead of the inches and the miles—because they did not work. However, we know that there is much more to do and the road is long and winding and exhausting. However, as we celebrate this international women's day, let us acknowledge the essential contributions of women, the importance of diversity and recommit ourselves in solidarity to breaking that bias. I would like to close with the words of one of my favourite poets, Maya Angelou. That is dedicated to all the women from our past, our present and the ones to come. Now you understand just why my heads not bowed. I don't shout or jump about or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing, it ought to make you proud because I'm a woman phenomenally, phenomenal woman. That's me, members. That is all of us today. The theme for international women's day this year is break the bias. The very foundation of discrimination against women is a negative bias whether it be in the workplace, in the home, within design, in wider society or even within the health service. I want to touch on some of those issues. In a recent letter that I received from the Lord Advocate who told me at the end of March 2020, there were 2,978 summary trials scheduled that involved domestic abuse-related offences. However, at the end of September 2021, there were 6,889 summary trials scheduled that involved domestic abuse-related offences. That's an increase of 131 per cent. That's shocking. When we think we've moved forward in dealing with violence against women, we appear to fall back even further. The reason for my approach to the Lord Advocate was to push for more virtual trials where domestic abuse is involved. I understand that the virtual trial national project board has presented its report to the Cabinet Secretary in January. I wonder when we can expect a response to this, because it's especially necessary in rural areas where public transport is limited. Therefore, it's often the case that the abuser and their ex-partner are using the same public transport to reach court, often some distance away. That is intimidating and can lead to a reluctance to give evidence. In a report in 2019, Scottish Women's Aid stated that it believed that the Scottish Government needed to pay more attention to the experiences of women who live in rural and remote areas. The report makes a series of recommendations, including ensuring that the safety of women and children is paramount when planning and promoting participation. Women in the highlands and islands are particularly vulnerable due to close-knit communities, geographical isolation and a distance from services. That's why I pushed for domestic abuse courts to be rolled out throughout Scotland and I'm now asking that they are virtual. Another aspect of violence against women is commercial sexual exploitation. We have been aware of the damage that it causes for decades, yet it takes place unchecked and indeed is growing throughout Scotland. We hear of men offering to be sugar daddies in return for sex funding young women through university. We hear of men offering accommodation in return for sex. This is all exploitation and violence against women. A Health Scotland report on commercial sexual exploitation way back in 209 is stated that the key risk factor for being abused through commercial sexual exploitation is being female. Nothing has changed since then. The cross-party group on commercial sexual exploitation carried out an inquiry into websites that are used to sell sex. It was clear to us that those websites were not only profiting from sexual exploitation and trafficking, they were actually encouraging it. They offered account managers to those who placed a large number of adverts, offering deals to change where a woman was based with promotions such as On Tour, which is actually trafficking by any other name. That same 209 report talked about prostitution pornography and other involvement in the sex industry and found that the exploitation of women through those forms of entertainment legitimises negative attitudes towards women and is extricably linked to gender inequality and sexual violence. Yet we know that many young people learn their sex education from that same pornography, hence changing attitudes that lead to an increase in sexual violence. I want to turn and touch quickly on health services as well and their bias against women. Take, for example, maternity services throughout my region. Communities both in Caithness and Murray have campaigns about reinstating local maternity services. Can you imagine if men give birth that they would be expected to travel 100 miles in the back of an ambulance in labour? I really do not think so. Beatrice Wishart talked about the harrowing experiences and the length of time women wait for a diagnosis for endometriosis. Women are being told that it is all in their heads, being ignored and belittled and having their health concerns ignored. Gender briefing tells us that many women's pain, especially those associated with gynaecological conditions, is normalised and dismissed in interactions with healthcare professionals. We often hear that women experience heart attacks differently from men and that they are less likely to ask for help and therefore are more likely to die. I look forward to hearing more about the Scottish Government's commitment to establish an institute for women's health, as promised in its 2021 manifesto. I also look forward to the day when, on International Women's Day, I can stand here and simply celebrate women and our equality, but I sometimes lose heart. This Parliament protected many groups of people from hate crime last year. We on these benches believed that women should have also been protected. That stance is borne out today by the report from Baroness Kennedy, where we hear that women and girls should be protected from hate crime. A year has already passed, and women and girls are still waiting for new legislation to get that same protection. Again, women are being left behind. How much longer will women have to wait to be equal in every respect? What is it to be a woman? It is a risky business. That is what it is. There are so many harrowing examples of why colleagues have already been mentioned in the debate. I could list all the negative things that being a woman in Scotland means. I have done that before. Many times I spoke last week in the bias being the root of economic disparity last week in a member's debate on International Women's Day, led by Michelle Thomson. Today, I am going to check my privilege and I am going to use it because there are women in the world today who are silenced. Because of decisions taken and actions made by powerful men, are bearing the blunt of the contempt and dismissal, the hatred and fear of the female, hatred and fear that endangers their lives, that erases them from their societies. What is happening to them around the world is all of our problem. The women of Afghanistan had their rights stripped from them last year wholesale. The voices of condemnation of women around the world were not enough to convince those leaders in the west who removed international troops, opening the door to the Taliban that we knew would remove those women's rights. Whilst heaven and earth were moved to rescue dogs from the country, Afghan women were plunged back into the dark old days after 20 years of having the rights and freedoms that we enjoy here. That bias of looking at the world through a male lens that leads to women being let down, and the women of Afghanistan have been let down as they and we knew they would be. Taliban leaders are currently implementing a raft of discriminatory measures to effectively erase women's participation in civic life. Women's refugees are being closed, putting women at risk of death at the hands of their abusers. It has been over 150 days since girls over 12 have been allowed to go to school. To keep sanctions at bay, the Taliban have said that they are committed to reopening all girls' education by the end of this month, but we cannot be distracted by other world events as we are near that deadline. The Taliban need to know what the world is watching. UN-appointed experts highlighted in January that, far from the Taliban keeping their promises in relation to the rights of women, they are, as many predicted and feared, barring women from returning to their jobs, requiring a male relative to accompany them in public spaces, prohibited women from using public transport on their own, as well as imposing a strict dress code on women and girls. The UN has called this a collective punishment of women and girls, grounded in gender-based bias and harmful practices. Those Afghan women are brave enough to demand their rights on grave danger. On January 16 this year, some Afghan women marched near Kabul University to demand the right to return to work and to continue their education. Footage of that march shows Taliban fighters pointing their firearms at the women and calling them puppets of the west. Three days later, one of the attendees, a 25-year-old journalist called Tamana Zaria Pariani, put out a frantic live stream saying that the Taliban were at her front door of the flat that she shared with her three sisters. The four Pariani sisters, including the youngest, who was just 13, were missing until February 13, when the UN confirmed that they had been released by de facto authorities. Another woman who attended the march, Parwana Ikrahimbil, also went missing and she was released two days earlier on February 11, but for some time no one knew what happened to them. Their detention speaks to the risks women in countries all over the world are having to take day after day to ensure their voices are heard. Other marches are happening in Afghanistan, but they are bigger and more tolerated by the Taliban. They are full of men condemning the women who marched for their rights. Those men hold up pictures of the women marchers with the images crossed out in red ink with slogans saying that the protesters were not quote representatives of chased Afghan women and demands that they quote should respect their worth. Meanwhile, those women on those placards are hiding, fearing for their lives. Today, our eyes are rightly on Ukraine, and I urge anyone who has not already to watch Michelle Thompson's really powerful speech from last Thursday about how the Russian invasion is affecting the women of Ukraine in particular. The people fleeing Afghanistan to safety are more likely to be men and boys because they have the money to leave. The women do not. In Ukraine it is the women and their children that are leaving the country in their millions. We have a duty as a democratic country to support them until they can return to their own country that is hopefully a preserved independent and democratic one. I would also like to send my solidarity to the brave Russian women putting their safety at risk by protesting against Putin's invasion. Both situations have toxic masculinity at their core. The worst of humanity made heads of state it was ever thus, and what's more, some of those leaders in the west who claim to uphold the rights of women make decisions that enable their erosion in other countries. The suffering of women is not high enough priority when it comes to international relations. Those who left the women of Afghanistan high and dry and fearing for their rights and lives must take responsibility and threaten sanctions if those rights are removed. Over here in the UK, we shouldn't just be celebrating international women's day with debates and banners, nice as that is, but with opening our borders to Ukrainian women and children now, action to help women, action to uphold the rights of women. Anything less is a virtue signalling. Thank you very much, Ms Martin. I call on Maggie Chapman, who will be followed by Paul MacLennan for her in six minutes, Ms Chapman. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Cultures of domination rely on the cultivation of fear as a way to ensure obedience. In our society, we make much of love and say little about fear. Yet we are all terribly afraid most of the time. As a culture, we are obsessed with the notion of safety, yet we do not question why we live in states of extreme anxiety and dread. Fear is the primary force upholding structures of domination. It promotes the desire for separation, the desire not to be known. When we are taught that safety lies always with sameness, then difference of any kind will appear as a threat. When we choose to love, we choose to move against fear, against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect, to find ourselves in the other. Those are the words of Gloria Jean Watkins, better known to us by her pen name, Bell Hooks, who has hardly died in December last year. Bell Hooks' fine words provide an important reminder for us how the structures that we live within are used to constrain, oppress and dominate. Today, on this international women's day, and today perhaps more so than ever, I would like to associate myself with the comments of the First Minister and many others about standing in solidarity, love and peace with the women and girls in Ukraine and those who have already fled their country. Solidarity, love and peace, too, with the women and girls in Belarus, in Russia and elsewhere who have and continue to stand up to oppressive regimes and institutionalised violence. Because war is an extreme form of the domination and oppression that society's patriarchal system relies upon and sustains. International Women's Day was, at its inception, 111 years ago, International Working Women's Day, a socialist holiday established by the Socialist International. It is now recognised by the United Nations and celebrated around the world in some countries as a holiday to mark women's contributions to society. Because women have, do and will continue to contribute to every aspect of our society and our lives. Others have already spoken very eloquently about many of these different types of contributions made daily by women. Today, outside this building, women have come together for a climate vigil and rally. They gather together because women bear the brunt of the weight of the world's climate in action. Incidentally, as I was talking to some of the women at lunchtime, two men yelled from their vehicle, get back in the kitchen. But part of this vigil marks women who have been murdered for their community activism. Blunker Jeanette Kawas-Fernandez killed for protecting the land that her community relied upon. Margarita Murillo murdered for protecting lands and rivers. Fikiled Cangase murdered for protesting against coal mining, destroying her community's environment. Maria Henriqueta Matute killed for campaigning against logging and mining and so many more. Today, we remember them all and we acknowledge all of those whose names we do not know. This year, we focus on the theme of break the bias, because bias, conscious and unconscious, is deeply rooted in our patriarchal society. It is systemic and deeply ingrained in each and every single one of us. How many of us choose to surround ourselves with people just like us? How many of us judge others negatively because we have heard something unpleasant about them? How many of us value the opinion of someone more because of their age or skin colour? How many of us ignore something a woman says only to acknowledge it when it is repeated by a man? All of us must confront our biases. That requires active thought to challenge and break down. We must recognise how one bias can be compounded by another. Intersections of difference make for a very complex landscape of oppressions and inequalities. I thank Engender, in particular, for the detailed briefing that they sent for today's debate. In it, they so clearly outlined the overlapping intersections that compound the inequalities that so many women in Scotland and around the world experience on a daily basis. We women know the consequence of these biases. We women live the consequences of these biases every day. We women die because of the consequences of these biases. It is not for us women to address these biases alone. Everyone in this chamber, in every workplace, in every community, in every home across Scotland has a responsibility to act, to change, to challenge themselves and others to be better. Because there remains a wide cousin between the aspirations that we have heard for decades about the eradication of biases that women face and the reality that affects women and girls around the world, I thank the First Minister and others for acknowledging the work and recommendations of the Misogyny and Criminal Justice Working Group. We must now act. We need real gender mainstreaming. We need genuine engagement with and realisation of the rights held within the convention on the elimination of discrimination against women, as well as engagement with and realisation of the rights of other minority groups. Equality is for everyone. On this day next year, I hope that we can all be here to say that we are much further along in our struggle for a different kind of culture, one where we have broken the bias. On Saturday, I attended the international women's day event here in the Parliament, women from all over Scotland, sitting in these seats, talking about issues that women face in our nation. It was great to see. There were lots of inspirational speeches on the day and an opportunity to meet with various groups and discuss the work that they do. It was the first time that I met the force of nature, called Dagnus, who told me, chair of the Scottish Women's Convention, a very inspiring and motivating woman. I am sure that I will hear from her again. The message that I took loud and clear from the event was that gender inequality makes our society poorer, not only in equality terms but it impacts on our ability to grow our economy. Gender inequality is economic inequality. Like Calcab Stewart, I am going to take a quote from Maya Angelou, and it is from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She says, There is no greater agony in bringing an untold story inside you. Too many women in our society have that untold story inside them about what they want to share and what to highlight, what they can do. Our job as parliamentarians is to break the bias and give equal opportunities to women. In Scotland, we are making progress, but much work needs to be done. In 2018, a full-time equivalent employment rate for women was 42 per cent, 58 per cent for men. 85 per cent of people aged 16 to 64 who were inactive due to caring were women. The remaining 15 per cent men. 8 per cent of women of employment aged 16 plus were self-employed compared to 16 per cent of men. The median oil rates were £2 less for women than they were for men. The Scottish Women's Convention in their manifesto asked for elections last year to look at some key issues, and I want to touch on some of those, because I think that it is important that we still remember these. On housing, an increase in funding for women to have access for funding costs, including the ability to be as flexible as possible around about Scottish welfare fund and discretionary housing payments, and ensuring safe accommodation for women that accounts for their own personal experiences at utmost priority. I have seen that when I met women's aid in East Lothian. In childcare, and this came through really strongly in the forum on Saturday, a commitment to high-quality working conditions for staff within the childcare sector, including working benefits and adaptability and flexibility for childcare. Again, that came through very strongly. Social security, and this is even more important than ever now, placing emphasis on the need for greater food security for many families living in poverty, who have that choice now to either heat or to heat. The commitment to universal strategies such as free school meals needs to continue, obviously. We need to ensure that funding for advocacy organisations to ensure that women are aware of their rights around the social security system, appeals process and other financial issues. On in health, Scotland's women's health plan is obviously very welcome, but we need to encourage to take up a recruitment of community-linked workers and grow the Scottish prescribing network. That is key in increasing the use of community hubs in less popular areas where women can go to access information and support around about health. On employability, we need commitment to work with businesses and trade unions to further promote the real living wage across all sectors, with designate return to work and retaining programmes at account for all age groups, including older women and digital skills abilities. I want to talk about what we men need to do more in tackling violence against women. We men are not doing enough. We need to lead and drive change, not only in this place, but in society generally. We need to challenge misogyny every single time we hear it. We need to take women's safety concerns even more seriously. The only way to change that is changing men's behaviour, the only way. Next week, I am hosting a round table and inviting MSPs to discuss this issue with Engender, Henbread crisis, Scottish Women's Aid, Zero Tolerance, White Ribbon and others to discuss this issue. Today, more than 40 MSPs have accepted. Graham Golden, formerly of the Violence Reduction Unit in Glasgow, has called on us men to define violence in a way that would help us to individually prevent it. I have mentioned this in the chamber previously, and I want to mention it again, because it is really, really important. He said in a blog for Don't Be That Guy campaign, when I see the term violence, I look at it as more as an attitude of behaviour rather than a physical act. When we do this, we can start to address behaviours and attitudes that can, if unchallaged, lead to other acts of violence, such as murder, sexual assault and rape. When we don't focus on those behaviours, we remain silent about them, and here we give permission for abuse and violence to take place. The struggle for women to achieve gender equality is one for every single one of us, as men have had that privilege far too long. I am going to close on a quote from an amazing woman Ruth Bader Ginsburg, when she said this. For both men and women, first step in getting power is to become visible to others, and then to put on an impressive show. As women achieve power, the barriers will fall. The society sees what women can do. As women can see what women can do, there will be more women out there doing things, and we will all be better off for it. Let's well ensure that we work together to achieve that goal for the women of Scotland and worldwide. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr MacLennan. I now call on Oliver Mundell, who will be followed by Ruth Maguire for six minutes. I have contributed to this debate a number of times since first being elected to this Parliament, and it always strikes me as a little bit odd when you hear the many powerful voices from women across this chamber, a number of voices that has grown again, and you hear them speak directly of their lived life experience. Of course, I can contribute to the debate as a father, a husband and an MSP, but I am conscious that in doing so my voice is heard while my wife and daughters remain at home. Too often, still in our society, it is the voices and perspectives of men that are heard even when talking about issues that affect women. Sometimes that seems almost as if it happens by accident until you realise that it is no accident at all, and that is why we still need to break the bias. I appreciate that when a man stands up and talks about women's rights, it is greatly appreciated by women all over the country. Oliver Mundell, I take that point on board. It is a delicate balance always to make sure that we are hearing from the voices of women, but I do think that men, as Paul McLean has just touched on very powerfully, have a really important role to play, particularly when it comes to influencing the decision of other men in society and calling out some of the most appalling acts that we still see. That is one of the things that saddens me, because when we talk about women here in Scotland and around the world, progress on even establishing the most basic of rights is painfully slow. As Maggie Chapman and Julian Martin pointed out, being a woman is a risky business that still results in many women ending up dead as a result of standing up just for the basic rights. In some cases, that is just for existing. That is wrong and it is a shame on the whole of our society. Every time we discuss the subject, we hear countless examples of women pushed into a secondary role. Women who are expected, as we have heard many times in this debate, are expected to play simply a domestic role or not seen in the same way as men. That came home to me again during Michelle Thomson's opening contribution on the challenges women face during war and again in my colleague Tess White's contribution today, because we all fall into the lazy habit of watching our television screen of thinking that it is men who are at the forefront and face the brunt of these conflicts, but you do not have to look very far or try very hard to see the harms inflicted on women, many of which remain with them far longer after conflict is finished. Sadly, we will take part in this debate today. The issues around war have moved closer to our shores geographically, but, again, as Julian Martin and others have pointed out, those are not new issues. There are women around the world who face those issues continuously and, for many, there is no escape and our words of solidarity alone are not enough. My colleague Pam Gosol spoke in the same members' debate last week and gave a much more personal account of some of the barriers that she had faced in getting into this place. It is one of the things that I admire about Pam in particular about all the women in this Parliament is that they are not wasting the opportunity to help others to follow them. I think that there is no coincidence that, with each new Parliament, we see new voices and we have to work harder to make sure that everyone feels safe to participate in our politics. In the time that I have left today, I wanted to touch on something personal and, although I cannot speak as a woman, I did not want to let this opportunity pass by to highlight a couple of concerns that I have seen myself. They might not fit in neatly with this year's theme or, indeed, my party's amendment, but I think that it is important that they are heard. I know that Natalie Donne has already touched on one of them. I mentioned it previously during a debate on whole family support and I have asked questions on it throughout the pandemic, but it is something that sits very uncomfortably with me, and that is the support for new and expectant mums during the worst of Covid. Through my own family experience, I have seen how tough this time has been and it is something that has come through in my inbox as well. Too often, the rules and guidance that we in this chamber have sought to impose for public health reasons has left a group of women, yes, all parents and carers, but particularly women, to struggle without a support network, stranded in many cases from their family without the access to the medical support that they would have had in the past. It seems that, at times, in trying to do something good, we have lost the balance between protecting physical and mental health. There are a group of women out there who have no face-to-face maternity classes, others who have no support appointments or scans and others who are left with a face mask on to give birth without anyone there to help and support them. We dodged those issues largely for the birth of what is our second child, but I am painfully aware of the impact that this has had and continues to have on others. Like with so many caring and other family and domestic responsibilities, the burden both physical and emotional throughout the pandemic has fallen disproportionately on women. I remain concerned that we sometimes see those decisions as somehow being less important or just taking for granted that there will be no real pushback and it is something that we have to do better on in the future. I was going to touch on another issue, but I recognise that I am out of time and it has already been covered in part. Mr Mundell, we have a little time in hand and you have taken your intervention, so if you want to mention it briefly, I will allow you the time. That would be very kind. The other issue that Rhoda Grant has already touched on is the additional challenges that women face in more rural and remote parts of our country. My time as an MSP is something that comes up again and again. Too often, we only seem to make provision in large parts of the country for telephone or other remote offerings. In their time of crisis, many women living in rural communities are asked to travel at disproportionate and excessive distances to receive medical treatment, counselling and other expert advice services. That can be impossible given the cost, caring responsibilities and unsupportive partners or family influences. There is no point living in a country that claims to stand for equality when equality only exists if you live in certain post-codes. I therefore ask all those making decisions, but particularly today, that the Scottish Government keep this in the forefront of their mind. We cannot move forward and break the bias if we are not willing to challenge some of the issues that remain in our own society. I now call on Ruth Maguire to be followed by Pam Gozel for in six minutes. I wish to acknowledge the work of women's groups and communities across Scotland and the world to tackle women's inequality. The work that they do is important, often unpaid or underpaid and sadly frequently undervalued by some, but it makes a difference and is in many cases life-saving. I can especially mention North Ayrshire Women's Aid and the North Ayrshire Violence Against Women partnership, which is gathering with the wider community for a reclaim the night march in Irvine this evening. I am sorry, I cannot join you. Our debate takes place against a background of conflict and bloodshed around the world, and we know that women and girls are disproportionately affected by war. With the focus this year on bias, it might be worth reflecting a little on our collective response, the rhetoric and action of Governments, Parliaments and indeed media coverage in regard to global conflicts and injustice. In Afghanistan there remains a devastating humanitarian and economic crisis, with more than half the population suffering extreme levels of hunger, and the UN stating that an increase in child labour, child marriage and the sale of children has been observed. As was laid out eloquently by Gillian Martin for Afghan women and girls, the actions taken by the de facto authorities have curtailed fundamental rights and freedoms, with women being excluded from the workplace and limitations on freedom of movement, negatively impacting other aspects of their lives such as access to health services. I do not think that war can be anything other than grotesque and unfair, but in Yemen for nearly seven years a grossly asymmetrical war has seen Saudi bombs pummeling the country, sinking it into widespread famine and pushing it to the cusp of collapse. Instead of widespread condemnation, Yemeni women struggling for their very survival will have heard very little from the rest of the world. The war there has caused an estimated 233,000 deaths, including 131,000, from indirect causes such as lack of food, health service and infrastructure due to a Saudi-led blockade. In Palestine, ordinary Palestinian women and their families, resisting state seizure of their homes in Sheikh Jarrah and other occupied territories, are conflated with armed militants, meaning that they are labelled and treated as terrorists. The real-current killing of civilians in Gaza by Israeli airstrikes is defended with the same excuses Putin's propaganda has adapted for Ukraine's invasion, that women and children are being used as human shields and that justifies striking civilian targets. A shameful lie is just that, no matter who is telling it. At those global events, we can feel entirely overwhelming without any powers over foreign affairs or immigration, but we are not powerless. I wonder if, as a nation, Scotland could direct some resource to one of the countries that is doing the humane thing and opening their borders and providing sanctuary. Europe's poorest country, Moldova, now has the largest proportion of refugees of any nation. Tens of thousands of people fleeing the Russian invasion have crossed its border from Ukraine, according to the country's Prime Minister. As of Monday, of the 250,000 Ukrainians that had crossed the border since the war began, 120,000 have remained in Moldova. Whilst in Scotland our Parliament does not yet have the power to do something about the UK Government's pitiful response to the refugee crisis, we can raise our voices and say that Scotland stands ready to accept those fleeing conflict. I am very grateful that our First Minister and her Government do just that. Refugees are welcome here. We must also maintain pressure on the UK Government to step up and do the right thing. I saw a clip yesterday of the Home Secretary seeming to say that the reason for not letting folk in was that there were trafficking gangs operating in Calais. Yes, Home Secretary, there are, there will be, and the direction of travel of your Government with the nationality and borders bill plays right into their hands. Pushing displaced, traumatised women to the edges of society makes them even more vulnerable to traffickers. Something that, according to Maria, a Ukrainian feminist activist is already happening. In an interview that was published this morning with Julie Bindel, she speaks of organised gangs trying to abduct young women on the Ukrainian-Polish border and of girls being abducted by pimps from German refugee camps. Sex trafficking is, of course, most prevalent in nations with legalised prostitution regimes. Another thing that we can do right now is that Scotland can make sure that there is no market here for these criminal gangs and sex traffickers to profit from by getting on with the job of adopting laws against sexual exploitation that are fit for the 21st century, making a criminal offence to enable or profit from the prostitution of another person, tackling and ending male demand by criminalising paying for sex and decriminalising and supporting victims of sexual exploitation. With no home, no money, no job, no resources and very limited legal framework protecting them, those displaced women are the most vulnerable in the world. From our position of safety here, we owe it to them, as well as all the women and girls of risk at harm here, of taking every action that we can, of using every power that we have to make the changes that are needed. How fortunate I am to stand in this chamber today for the third time to address International Women's Day. The first, on members' business, was Michelle Thomson, and the second, this weekend, on Saturday, coming together with many diverse women. This is a subject that I am extremely passionate about in my capacity as a mentor for women, a politician and a volunteer for women's organisations. I want to also recognise that in this Parliament a major glass ceiling was shattered in May 2021, with members, Pam Duncan-Glancy, Cookab Stewart and myself, being elected to the Scottish Parliament and also having 45 per cent women's Parliament. While that is a great achievement, and we celebrate that today, there is still much to be done, it is just not good enough. When the world descends in chaos, but sadly International Women's Day takes place against a backdrop of conflict and bloodshed in Ukraine. When the world descends in chaos, women's rights are disregarded, far too often they are desert to targets of sexual violence. Progress is made, conflict emerges and women are again robbed of their education their liberties their safety. Just last year I stood here to address 20 years of progress in Afghanistan torn apart with women forced to give up their rights. Today I stand here again with a heavy heart as we think of women in Ukraine, those women who have been displaced, those women who stayed behind, those women and girls who now face an uncertain daunting future. Until 2016, women in Ukraine could not officially join the military, but today they make up 10 per cent of Ukraine's military, with many more staying behind to fight for their country. I salute your bravery and wish you all safety. This year's theme International Women's Day, as you know, is break the bias. The problem with bias is that it is deep rooted in traditional stereotypes that continue to inhibit the progression of women and women's rights. The outcome of bias is multitude. I think that it is right that we do not look at International Women's Day as an event in isolation. We look at it in concurrence with other events. This week is also no more week. A campaign to say no more to domestic violence and abuse. The pandemic saw many women trapped with abusers to an increased reliance of partners, income and some struggling to access support services. Would that be due to entrapment, a lack of faith in the system or a multitude of other reasons? However, today is an opportunity to address many of the root causes. Domestic abuse is a vicious circle, and sadly it is worsened by many of the biases that we stand here today to discuss. We should all keep in mind that by eliminating barriers to education, the biases in workplaces, we can turn and eliminate inequality. During a pandemic, women—in particular, beam women—disabled women and lone mothers were all disproportionately affected by the pandemic. That, of course, influenced financial insecurity, isolation and mental ill health. The striking commonality among these women is that they simply felt misunderstood by mainstream services, whether that be due to cultural barriers, accessibility or other differences. It is imperative that public boards and decision making are representative of women and the subsequent intersectional groups. How can we expect policy and services to reflect the needs of these women if the people making policies do not understand the plight of these women? We cannot continue to take one-size-fits-all approach to women. Presiding Officer, it is clear that it does not work. I cannot emphasise enough, Presiding Officer, education is of paramount importance to women and girls globally. Education encourages independent thinking. Education is a key tool for women's economic empowerment, and it is of utmost importance of women's future progression. It is apprenticeship week this week, and the Scottish Conservatives rightly recognise the importance of apprenticeships and the role they will play in the economic recovery and our future economy. However, the gender gap continues to grow in modern apprenticeship starts. Companies such as Scottish Power recognise the need for female apprentices and the benefits that they bring, and so altered entry requirements to suit female subject choices. It is exactly that type of decision making that will encourage women to be part of the technological evolution and the future job market. There are three key points that I want to repeat. First, education is paramount. Female education is imperative to our future economy. The continued advancement of women and the economic empowerment and independence of women. Secondly, if we are truly to see a change in the support of policies affecting women, we must advocate more women on public boards in leadership roles and in policy making. Last but not least, Presiding Officer, if we are truly to progress, we must treat international women's day in the isolation. Women's rights and progress must continuously be in our line of vision. I will leave you with a quote from Mother Teresa. I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples. I would ask all members to check who still wish to speak in the debate, that they have indeed pressed the request to speak button and that their cards are in. I now call Christine Grahame to be followed by Fuzzle Childry. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Over these few horrific weeks, we have witnessed dreadful images of women, young and old, carrying their few possessions, pushing baby buggies through the ruins of Ukraine to some kind of sanctuary, and it reminds us of their resilience and determination in the worst of circumstances. By no means on the same scale, I will, however, illustrate how far we as women have come over the short period of three generations in my own family through the resilience and determination of my grandmother and my mother, although, of course, there is still a long road ahead to address bias not only in Scotland but much more across the globe. The first is Margaret Grahame, born 1877, my paternal grandmother. Daughter of a shepherd, her childhood was pervitetic as her father had to move for work. Her education would be sparse and disrupted and she left school at 14 and went straight into service as a lady's maid. A trait she kept all her long life was to favour doilies, cake stands, cups and saucers from her press and she never had a mug in the house all the time I knew her. There is a picture of her in her adwardian dress with bustle and her hair piled high. Tall for her generation, she was a strong, determined woman and along with her husband, Yad, having received a sum as compensation for her heart condition, they put a deposit down on 305 Easter road leak where she lived till her death. Although diagnosed with that heart condition, she has fooled everybody and lived to 93. However, she sent her four children, including a daughter, to the then fee-paying leaf academy. Somehow, this shepherd's daughter managed the finances and saw education as being referred to as the route to improvement as it is to this day. Yet her advice to me as a teenager was to be a clear guess, as she called it, and marry early. The latter I resisted till my mid-20s, which was unusual for the time. However, that advice about education stayed with me and was reinforced by my father, who never ever discriminated between boys and girls, so I became the first girl on my road in the housing scheme to stay on at school beyond 15 and the first to go to university. Another Margaret Graham, my mother, had an even tougher life. Born in 1922, her father was a minor. Her mother died at the birth of her baby brother, Anthony, when she was herself only 15 months old. When she was six, her father died succumbing to a head injury sustained when a pit prop fell on him. On the very day of her father's funeral, she was forcibly kicking and screaming under almost the kencing conditions taken with her young brother and by strangers to an orphanage. Separated from her brother on the following day, she spent months in the orphanage until finally becoming a ward of court and placed with her brother in the care of an ant. Those were bad years of real poverty and tragedy when her brother, Anthony, with whom she was very close, died of meningitis, just 11 years old. At 14, Margaret of Marge, as she was known, like my grandmother before, had a living job at a vicarage, paying four shillings a week. Rebellious, even at that age, she refused to wear the servile grey suit ordered by the vicar's wife and quit the job. She progressed in enamel works at Burtman Trent for six shillings a week, then on for seven and six a week to church Gresley, the factory. In 1940 she was making deisers for warplanes at the British Tire and rubber company before volunteering for the Women's Land Army. In March 1942 she met my father and the rest is history, and that's why I'm here. That war changed everything for her and meant everything to her having been deprived of her own life. Those trials, those sorrows, the poverty and incredible hardships endured by my mother during her formative years became the foundation of an indomitable spirit with the exceptional qualities of her compassion and the understanding that she had with anyone troubled, but more particularly with children and young adults. She was principled to breaking point, fearless in defending the underdogs and attacking injustices, and as I've grown older I recognise how much influence he's had on my values. Me, I left school before I was 17, but remembering education I had the hires in my back pocket. I first approached Farante, a major electronic company in Edinburgh at the time, to get a job. I had a science and maths degree, but on the factory tour I met a woman working in the research department. She told me there was no future for a woman at Farante's. I took her advice, but unfortunately I then went for a Clarkes's job, which my granny had offered me all those years back. However there I saw young men being promoted over bright able women, so I packed that in and went to university. Why tell you this? The women in my family and life have played a fundamental part in taking Christine Grahame from her predetermined, biased destiny, leave school at 15, engage to 18, married at 20, first child at 22, to seeing herself as an individual and having the courage and aiming beyond that Clarkes and that early marriage. Those two margots gave me the determination and we, as women and men in here, individually can give other young girls that determination and self-confidence. Thank you Ms Grahame. I now call Faisal Chowdhury to be followed by Rona Mackay. Thank you Presiding Officer. I must first declare my interest as the chair of Edinburgh and Lothian Regional Equality Council. I welcome this opportunity to speak in this chamber on international omens day. Scottish Labour supports the motion and the amendments. Along with other members, I am shocked by the sin of families torn apart by the war on Ukraine and the women continuing to care for their children and elderly relatives in unimaginable conditions. Women exposed to rape, sexual abuse and male violence simply because they are women, as in every other conflict. In situation of war, women must be placed at the heart of the peace process and at the centre of recovery. That must be one of our message for international omens day. In Scotland each year the Parliament provides a focus for members to celebrate omens achievement here in every spare of life. For example, members have supported me in a motion commanding Angela Mohan and the Lardar project in West Lothian, a project providing high quality training and dignified food provision. Angela has now made it into the NatWest 2022 list of 100 top women in social enterprise. Only one example of so many inspirational stories. The pandemic has shown the strength of so many women caring for their communities and families throughout. All political parties have made promises that there should be no return to the old inequalities as we come out of the pandemic. But we must recognise that evidence is not taking us in that direction. For example, yesterday, women in sport published a report reframing sports for teenage girls. This caught my attention as I'm concerned by the decline in sporting activities during the pandemic, which led to increase isolation and mental health problems for young people as community and sports facilities were closed. The report from women in sport shows that girls drop out from activities participation in sports at nearly twice the rate of teenage boys by the time they reach secondary school, citing reasons such as loss of confidence, worry over body images and increased pressure from gender stereotype. These girls are missing out on so much and it is on all of us to address this. Scottish Labour is committed to seeing more women and girls live active lives and participate in sports at all levels. We must encourage participation from women, particularly from various region and diverse minority communities through the provision of single sex opportunities and also to create community space that are welcoming and safe place for women to exercise. The remit of membership of the Scottish Government Women in Sports advisory board is under review as we learn from the pandemic. I would ask the reframing sport for teenage girls report is considered by the advisory board and that priority is given to addressing the issues which have seen the girl and young woman pull away from sport and outdoor activities. I hope that specific needs of women and girls from ethnic minority communities can be addressed. Investing in the next generation means investing now in girls and young women and supporting them in healthy and active lives. I would like to pay tribute to the many smaller organisations working for and with women in our black and ethnic minority communities and in our different cultures. Organisations like Edinburgh and Lothian Regionally Quality Council, Sahalia, NKS, Milan, MCFB and many others who work with and support women in Edinburgh. Action for children heritage and inclusion project seeking to end isolation amongst teenage girls and the intellectual youth movement. We recognise that so often the contribution made by so many women in our communities is in addition to the commitment already invested in their homes and families. This Parliament must find a way to ensure that their knowledge and experience informs our legislation and policy making. I would also like to pay my tribute to the individuals like Mrs Sarujlal, Mrs Samsadraheem, Mrs Shahi Nunes, Mrs Rohini Sharmajorsi and of course two of my colleagues Pam Gosal and Kokop Styr for making a difference in the BME community. To conclude, women in Scotland today must have confidence that this Parliament listens, learns and acts on their concerns and priorities. Not only on International Women's Day, but every day. On International Women's Day 2022, it is time to break the bias that is holding women back, be that deliberate or unconscious bias. Let us call it out, let us not put up with it any longer. That is the message behind today's motion and the fact that gender equality is at the heart of the Scottish Government's vision for a fairer Scotland. Who could disagree with that? I am glad that consensus has been struck across the chamber. As the last speaker in the open debate, all those speeches have been amazing and inspirational. However, on this day, like so many other speakers, my heart is with the women of Ukraine, forced to flee their homes with their children and elderly parents to keep them safe. It defis belief that this is happening in 2022. I do not think that any of us could imagine how hard it must be to summon the strength to keep going in the face of such adversity. These ordinary women are the heroes of today, and I know that they have the hearts and hope of everyone as we watch their desperate plight caused by a deranged dictator. I agree with my colleague Gillian Martin, who says that we need action now to help those courageous women. We have come a long way since the days when suffragettes fought so hard and sacrificed so much to win us more than half the population the right to vote. Today, I would like to highlight the inspirational women who live ordinary life, just that the women of Ukraine whose lives have been turned upside down. On a personal note, my maternal grandmother came to Scotland from Tullamore in the south of Ireland in the 1920s. She was unable to read or write, but she was smart. Smart enough to know that education was a passport out of poverty for her four children. She also dealt with the stigma and discrimination against Irish people at that time by ensuring that my mother and her brother and sisters were always immaculately dressed and well mannered. She was proud, feisty and funny, and she was my inspiration growing up. But as we know, not all children have the good fortune to grow up with inspirational role models. That is why the more we learn about ACEs and attachment, the more we know how vital it is. For much of my lifetime, Scottish heroines have, until recently, were virtually airbrushed from history. Women like Elsie Engels, founder of the Scottish Women's Hospitals and the subject of my colleague Jenny Minto's members' debate tomorrow, airs Marian Gray, a mathematician who influenced the telecom giants of today, geologist Marian Gordon from Aberdeen, and I could go on and on, but of course time won't allow. The value that women, ordinary and extraordinary, have made to society is incalculable. Today, despite progress that has been mentioned across the chamber, we know that women are bearing the brunt of gender inequality enormously. A helpful briefing from Engender tells us that the UN Women's Estimate that the impact of Covid-19 for women's equality could mean the loss of 25 years worth of progress, and of course Scotland isn't immune to that. Measures to respond to the pandemic have disproportionately affected women's access to paid work, especially younger women and women of colour and the volume of care that women provide. Women disproportionately make up an army of unpaid carers, women are disproportionately in low-paid jobs and women still, despite the Scottish Government's innovative early years education apology, disproportionately manage childcare. Presiding Officer, the Scottish Government has a proud record of promoting women's equality, and I'm delighted that today, on International Women's Day, Barron S. Helena Kennedy QC's report on misogyny and criminal justice in Scotland has been published. This immense piece of work, including examining whether there are gaps in the law that should be addressed by specific criminal offence to tackle such behaviour, and I'm delighted that the Scottish Government will now consider its recommendations of creating a misogyny criminal justice Scotland act, containing a public misogynistic harassment offence, an offence of stirring up hatred against women and girls, an offence of issuing threats of or invoking rape or sexual assault, or disfigurement of women and girls, and a new statutory aggravation of misogyny. So today, we fight on to banish the gender pay gap and to gain equal access to the boardroom. We fight on for an end to sexual harassment and bullying at work. We fight on for an end to the curse of violence against women with their equality-safe strategy and £5 million of new funding to rape crisis centres and domestic abuse services to help cut waiting lists. We fight on for an end to the bias against LGBTI women, disabled women and women of colour, and we recognise the inhumane treatment of women who were forced to give up their babies just a few decades ago. So in conclusion, I'd like to celebrate all women, mums, grands, aunts, sisters, carers, women who are an inspiration to someone somewhere, and to the many amazing women who work in the third sector who work tirelessly to protect and improve the lives of women. We should celebrate how far we've come but know that there is much more to do so that our daughters and granddaughters have shown the respect and best possible future that they deserve, then our work and that of our pioneering sisters will be done. I now call on Katie Clark to wind up on behalf of Scottish Labour around nine minutes please. It is a pleasure to make this closing speech on behalf of the Scottish Labour Party and to associate myself with the solidarity that is being sent to women and girls across the world by the First Minister and others in the chamber. This is a day to celebrate the achievements of women against the backdrop of centuries of oppression. It is a day for sisterhood and I welcome the contributions from women MSPs who have spoken of the systematic discrimination against women in this country and across the world. And the contributions from men in the debate who have spoken of the actions that men must take. My colleague Pam Duncan Glancy has highlighted the specific challenges for disabled women. She'll have Stuart Fousal Choudry and Pam Gosall of the challenges that women from black and ethnic minority backgrounds face. Ruth Maguire and Gillian Martin have spoke eloquently of the horrific situation of women in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Yemen and indeed many other countries of the world. Rona Mackay and Christine Grahame have spoken of the struggles and strength of women in working class communities over many generations and have confirmed again that it is education that will be the liberation for women. International Women's Day, of course, was created by working class women fighting for their rights. In 1908, women in the needle trades demonstrated in New York to form their own trade union for better pay, shorter working hours and the right to vote. The fights of women in the United States reached Europe and inspired socialist women such as Clara Zeckern who suggested the creation of an international day for women. In 1975, the United Nations made it an official day, and this year's theme, Breaking the Bias, is asking us to imagine a world free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination. The Parliament has a good record of improving women's representation in Scotland, but, as we all know, there is still a long way to go. There have been more women elected to the Parliament since 1999 than all the women who have been elected to Westminster since 1918. 45 per cent of MSPs are now women, which of course means that women are still underrepresented in this chamber, and we know that even more needs to be done, for example, at council levels. We have heard from across the chamber and from all political parties on many aspects of women's life, of women's health, sport and women's achievements in many other fields. There have been many expressions of solidarity to women in Ukraine and, of course, women who are the brunt of violence, including sexual violence, in war. It is also right that we send solidarity to those who are protesting and the many thousands who have been arrested in Russia against the war, including children who have been arrested. The challenges of women are the challenges of humanity. I think that we have to recognise that the position of women in the UK has worsened due to the pandemic. The World Economic Forum has stated that the time needed to close the global gender gap has increased from 99.5 years to 135.6 years due to the pandemic. It is not necessarily the case that the position of women and girls in society continues to get better. I think that what we have heard in relation to Afghanistan reinforces that again. Asterity also has disproportionately impacted on women, and I would ask politicians and all political parties to think about that when they make the political decisions that impact on communities. We also know that there is a growing rape culture in schools and that new technology has created a new range of pressures on girls and young women. 40 per cent of sexual crimes in Scotland now, recorded by the police, relate to a victim under the age of 18 years. The Labour Party strongly welcomed the report from Helen A. Kennedy and the proposals for misogyny to be made an aggregating factor in criminal cases. I am a member of the Criminal Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament and we have heard repeatedly from victims of the re-traumatising effect that women have when they go through the criminal justice system in cases of rape, attempted rape and, indeed, other forms of sexual violence. We look forward to the recommendations of Lady Dorian's report coming forward in this Parliament. International Women's Day was created as a day to fight for women's rights. It has changed over the years with a far greater range of organisations and events taking place. I need to think the fact that we have a whole afternoon dedicated to this debate with contributions from all the political parties is a demonstration of that. Fundamentally, however, this day is a day to celebrate the struggles of women, celebrates the fight of women and girls against the challenges and discrimination that we face, and to refocus ourselves both on the massive challenges that women and girls face, but even more importantly on what we all need to do to ensure that we fight collectively to make sure that those historic oppressions become a matter that is something of history and that united as sisters we go forward with the kind of rights that mean that oppression is something that maybe gets discussed in history classes, but it is not something that we need to discuss on a weekly basis in this chamber. I now call on Megan Gallacher to wind up on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives around 10 minutes. It is a pleasure to conclude this debate on International Women's Day on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives. We have heard passionate contributions from members across the chamber, and although we normally have different political views, we are united in our commitment to mark International Women's Day to work together to break the bias that exists in our society today. As we know, International Women's Day is a global day where we celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. However, it is also a day for action and to improve and accelerate women's rights. Despite it being over 100 years since women first received the vote, we still earn roughly 11 per cent less on average than our male colleagues. We run just 4 per cent of Scotland's top businesses, fill just 13 per cent of senior police Scotland posts and are just 6 per cent of Scottish newspaper editors. It is important to acknowledge that, although progress has been made, inequality still exists here in Scotland and around the world. Members of this Parliament have a duty to stand up and fight for women's rights, especially for the representation of disabled, lame and LGBT women. As we know, this year's theme is break the bias. One issue that I wish to highlight today in relation to achieving equality is pregnancy and maternity leave for women. It is an issue close to my heart as my fiance and I are expecting our first child this summer. Although we are both excited to become parents, I have already started to worry about the short time that I will take away from my role as an MSP. I have even felt a sense of guilt about wanting to start a family. I know that I will not be the only woman to experience this feeling of dread, and although I am fortunate enough to have a fantastic support network at home and in my party, for others, starting a family could spell out the end of career progression and future job opportunities. In 2022, no women should be put at a disadvantage just because they have chosen to start a family. Research outlined by the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that pregnancy and maternity discrimination remains widespread in the Scottish labour market. Almost half of mothers in Scotland said that pregnancy and maternity discrimination has negatively impacted their employment status and job security. Women reported that they have not been informed about training or promotion opportunities, where denied training opportunities threatened with dismissal or put under pressure to hand in their notice. More disturbingly, research carried out during the pandemic showed that pregnant women, women on maternity leave or returning to work were being discriminated against in the workplace. One in four pregnant women or women on maternity leave experience discrimination or less favourable treatment at work and were singled out for redundancy and furloughed during the pandemic. Some businesses, however, such as my former employer John Lewis, have taken innovative steps to improve working conditions for those starting a family. Simple but effective changes in the workplace such as equal parental pay and leave, pregnancy loss support, part-time working options and flexible working options are all measures that will support women but also give them opportunities to find a work-life balance, as well as being able to return to work free of discrimination and with opportunities to continue career progression should they choose. I hope that one day workplaces will adopt similar practices to continue improving conditions for working mums and families. That would be a step forward to breaking that bias and improving equality for women here in Scotland and the rest of the UK. I would like to pick up on some of the excellent contributions from across the chamber today. Pam Duncan Glancy spoke passionately about breaking down barriers and the on-going inequalities of women with disabilities experience and the responsibility that we have to improve their lives by looking at the social, economic and cultural challenges. Webber mentioned some of the inspirational women in her life and of their amazing achievements. Colcab Stewart stated that we have a collective duty to do more to tackle obstacles women face, especially for the black minority and ethnic women and the need to eradicate bias, racial and gendered in the workplace. Rhoda Grant rightly highlighted the stark increases in domestic violent cases and the unacceptable maternity experiences that women have to endure just to give birth. I know that this is an issue that many members across the chamber have raised. It is one that I hope that the Scottish Government will find a permanent solution for rural mums. Paul McClellan raised the need to change attitudes towards women and campaigns such as Don't Be That Guy is one step forward to improving the behaviours of how men treat women. Oliver Mundell also mentioned the need to improve societal behaviours and the unconscious bias that many women face. Pam Gossel spoke about her personal experiences as a mentor and supporter of women and groups. She is also right to highlight the No More campaign and the need to tackle domestic abuse that we are experiencing here in this country. Many members mentioned the on-going conflicts and struggles of women and girls in Ukraine and other countries. Regretfully, International Women's Day this year takes place under a dark cloud that has been highlighted in amendments submitted by my colleague Tess White. Every day, we witness more harwing scenes of violence, conflict and bloodshed in Ukraine. One of the hardest stories that I have read so far was of a 10-year-old girl, Polina, one of the first reported children to have been killed in the Russian invasion. Polina aged 10 died alongside her parents when her family was gunned down in Kiev by Russians. Polina will never grow old, will never go on to higher for their education, have a career, get married or have children. What a waste of a beautiful young girl who was mercifully killed by those who were seeking to oppress her and her people. This is one example of violence against women and girls who, as my colleague rightly pointed out, are disproportionately affected by war. I hope that members will support the amendment in Tess White's name as we can all do more to stand up for women against violence, whether it be at home here in Scotland or across the world. Although International Women's Day is a day for celebration, we cannot and must not forget women who have fallen victim to violence. To conclude, every member in this chamber has pledged to break the bias by highlighting the stark inequality that women face in today's society. We need to work together to ensure that we can achieve equality for women and girls, whether that be in our communities, workplace, schools, colleges or universities. Let's make Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom a society where women are treated with dignity and respect. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and thanks to all the members who have contributed to this afternoon's debate, we have heard some fantastic powerful moving speeches across the chamber. As Katie Clark described, it has been a day for sisterhood. Just before I get into my speech, I congratulate Meghan Gallacher and her partner on wonderful news, but I also give some advice. When I had my daughter nearly 20 years ago, I can hardly believe it, I put enormous pressure on myself and I came back to work far too soon, so please take your maternity leave. Absolutely, I would encourage you to do that as your entitlement and you should absolutely do that. Let me begin, as others have, by offering my unqualified support to the people of Ukraine. It is, as others have said, shocking and appalling that, on International Women's Day, we are again seeing women and children fleeing their homes from war and violence. Our thoughts are with all the people of Ukraine, and Scotland stands ready, with open arms, to welcome those who have been displaced by this terrible war. Tess White talked about women being the first casualties of war, or one of the main casualties of war, and, of course, we accept the amendment in her name. Others have also talked about the atrocities that were faced by women. Gillian Martin talked about the plight of Afghan women, with rights being removed and a return to dark days at the hands of the Taliban, with schools being closed and the removal of women from jobs. She talked about toxic masculinity and the worst of humanity being made heads of state. That is certainly absolutely true. Ruth Maguire talked about the plight of women in many other countries in Yemen, and sometimes out of sight. She also talked about the pressures on Moldova, one of the poorest, smallest countries, and yet taking many more refugees. We, in the Scottish Government, will continue to work at pace with our key partners, including the Refugee Council and COSLA, to put in place the necessary arrangements to ensure that people from Ukraine who want to come to Scotland receive the support that they require. The theme of this year's International Women's Day is to break the bias. Sadly, every woman in Scotland and around the world will be touched by gender bias in some form during their lives, a point that was made by Cocab Stewart and Pam Duncan Glancy and Pam Gosell. Some women and girls experience that more acutely and often disabled women, women living in poverty, women from minority ethnic communities and refugee and migrant women, for example. The pandemic has shown this exacerbating deep-seated inequality in our society, inequality that has been a feature of our society for too long, and returning to the status quo as it was before coronavirus is simply not good enough, and that is why gender equality must be at the heart of our pandemic recovery. Women have been disproportionately impacted by Covid-19, the challenges of balancing childcare, paid work and caring responsibilities with the stresses and uncertainties of the pandemic have without doubt been unprecedented. Just as women were more likely to lose work or hours in the pandemic and care for those who have been ill with Covid, we are now, hopefully, moving step by step out of the pandemic, and we are starting to look forward. Many have referred to those pressures, Natalie Dawn and again Pam Duncan Glancy, so we need to learn the lessons and move forward in making sure that we tackle those fundamental inequalities. We have much to do, but, as others have said, this Parliament has already taken important steps to break the bias. We have raised awareness, changed policy and passed legislation that we can all be proud of. We have world-leading legislation to make free-period products accessible to every woman and girl who needs them. Legislation developed directly with women's organisations, which reflects the reality of domestic abuse as more than physical violence, but, in many instances, is an insidious pattern of coercive, controlling behaviour and psychological abuse, and Natalie Dawn referred to that as well. We have legislation to ensure that women are more fairly represented on our public boards, an issue referred to by Pam Gossel. Unanimously passed in December 2020, the Forensic Medical Services Act, which establishes a legal framework to ensure that victims of sexual violence can access healthcare and request a forensic examination without having to make a report to the police. Work continues apace, delivering more childcare, publishing our women's health plan, an issue referred to by Beatrice Wishart, the importance of recognising women's healthcare and listening to women in that response. Since the launch of the plan, we have developed a platform for women with information on the menopause, the symptoms, options for care, treatment and support. For too long, the impact of the menopause on women, including in the workplace, has not been taken seriously enough, and we want to change that. Through our strategy Equally Safe, we are working with partners to eradicate violence against women and girls in all its forms, working schools around consent. It is so important that young people understand consent and that boys understand the issue of consent. We are consulting on a new human rights bill that will incorporate four international human rights treaties into Scots law, including the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. That demonstrates that the Scottish Government's commitment to upholding human rights and proposing and enhancing the current framework. I also want to join others and the First Minister in thanking Baroness Kennedy and the Misogyny Working Group for their excellent report, published this morning, referred to by Rona Mackay, the importance of this and how it will help to move us forward. The Scottish Government will take that report and look at moving forward with the recommendations in due course. I said that the Parliament should be proud of the actions that it has taken to break the bias, and I am grateful to our male allies around the chamber who have made some very powerful contributions during this debate. What is clear is that progress would not have been possible without women standing here in our Scottish Parliament and speaking up about and championing the many issues that women and girls face and are important to them. I do not think that we would have come to the position that we have, whether through policy or legislation, without women in this Parliament moving them forward. Christine Grahame talked about the importance of education and the story behind how many of us got here. Thank goodness that Christine Grahame's ancestors made the decisions that they did, otherwise we would not have Christine Grahame here among us to give us lovely, amazing, powerful speeches that she does. However, one thing that we have in common is that power of education. My late mum used to drum home to me the importance of education. I was the first person in my family to get a degree. It was groundbreaking, and that importance for so many generations of women is absolutely critical. I really relate to that. We need to encourage the next generation of girls to recognise the importance of education and to go into any roles and to go into STEM subjects and to break through some of the barriers that, unfortunately, still see women so underrepresented in the workplace. Last year, the Scottish Parliament came closer to the goal of equal representation with women making up 45 per cent of MSPs. The highest proportion of women MSPs we have ever had, although, as Katie Clark said, we are not there yet—progress but not there yet. This Parliament has to strive to reflect the people that we serve. Although we are not there yet, as others have said, we are closer than ever before in acknowledging the presence among us of Pam Duncan Glancy, co-caps Stuart and Pam Goswell, as women in this Parliament who are breaking barriers, breaking the bias and making this Parliament look more like Scotland looks. That is absolutely fantastic. However, that progress that we have made cannot be taken for granted. We have to strive to do more. As the First Minister highlighted in opening the debate, the misogyny and harassment that women and girls experience is harmful for all, including for women in visible positions such as in politics. Being an MSP or an MP or a councillor is a privilege, and misogyny, abuse and harassment should not be seen and must not ever be accepted as part of the job. I urge all political parties to keep taking action to ensure that more women, more disabled women, more women from minority ethnic communities and other women that are not represented as they should be in this Parliament are supported through our party's selection processes to make our Parliament and indeed our town halls more equal. One could be disheartened by the fact that we still need an international women's day to acknowledge that women and girls around the world still face inequality and violence that we have heard across this chamber this afternoon. However, I am not disheartened because, as long as we do, we can highlight it collectively as Parliamentarians show our resolve to back the day and its intention to end gender inequality across the world. We have done much, but there is more to do. That is a goal around which political parties can find common ground as we have this afternoon. I think that that has been true of this Parliament going back many years and something that we can be proud of and that I am absolutely optimistic will continue. For me, I can give you my commitment to keep working to break the bias and to make Scotland a fairer, safer and more equal country for all women and girls. That concludes the debate on International Women's Day 2022. It is now time to move on to the next item of business, which is consideration of business motion 3518, in the name of George Adam, on behalf of the parliamentary bureau, setting out revisions to this week's business. I call on George Adam to move the motion. No member has asked to speak on the motion. Therefore, the question is that motion 3518 be agreed. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed. The next item of business is consideration of parliamentary bureau motion 3519 on suspension of standing orders. I asked George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau to move the motion. Thank you minister. The question on this motion will be put at decision time and I am minded to accept a motion without notice under rule 11.2.4 of standing orders that decision time be brought forward to now and I invite the minister to move the motion. Thank you and the question is that decision time be brought forward to now. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed and there are three questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first is that amendment 3485.1 in the name of Tess White, which seeks to amend motion 3485 in the name of Nicholas Sturgeon on International Women's Day 2022 be agreed. Are we all agreed? The amendment is therefore agreed. The second question is that motion 3485 in the name of Nicholas Sturgeon as amended on International Women's Day 2022 be agreed. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed. And the final question is that motion 3519 in the name of George Adam on suspension of standing orders be agreed. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed and that concludes decision time. There will be a short pause before we move to members business.