 communities. The banks will work with their clients and that should give us all comfort. Thank you. That ends typical questions. We now move on to the next item of business, which is a debate on motion number 14930 in the name of Margaret Burgess from Violence Against Women, 16 days of activism. I will give some moments to allow the front benches to rearrange themselves. Before I invite the minister to speak, I indicate to all members who are taking part in the debate that we will be generous with time this afternoon, so if you wish to expand the points that you want to, then the Presiding Officer will be sympathetic to that. Now I ask members who want to take part in the debate to press a request speak button now, and I call on Margaret Burgess to speak to move the motion. Minister, 14 minutes and thereabouts. Tomorrow is the international day for the elimination of violence against women, which marks the start of the annual 16 days of activism to eliminate all forms of violence against women around the world. That runs until the 10th of December international human rights day, which is fitting given that violence against women and girls is one of the world's most grievous abuse of human rights. That is why tackling that is at the very heart of the First Minister's personal and political agenda. At the Women in the World summit that she attended earlier this year, she expressed her passionate belief that violence against women and girls is not only a result of gender inequality but a cause of gender inequality. The Scottish Government is clear that we will never have true gender equality until we eradicate violence against women and girls. It is a tragic fact that, today, females in Scotland and across the world are at risk of and experiencing violence and abuse precisely because there are women and girls. In Scotland, gender-based violence continues to disproportionately affect women and girls. 80 per cent of survivors of domestic abuse are female as are 95 per cent of rape victims. Sexual abuse and harassment continues to be an issue and women and girls from some communities are at risk of or have experienced the brutality of female genital mutilation or the misery of forced marriage. Violence against women and girls is a broad issue. It encompasses all those forms of violence. It is completely unacceptable and the Scottish Government is committed to preventing and eradicating it from society. We have made progress in recent times. Domestic abuse, rape, sexual assault and other forms of violence are now widely recognised to be unacceptable and those who commit such acts will find themselves faced with the consequences not just through the actions of the justice system but through the deep stigma that now attaches itself to perpetrators of such abuse. That act is a powerful deterrent but it is not enough to systematically eradicate the problem. That is why, in June last year, the Scottish Government published Equally Safe, our shared strategy with COSLA, to prevent and eradicate all forms of violence against women and girls. It sets out our vision of a strong and flourishing Scotland where all individuals are equally safe and respected and where women and girls live free from all forms of violence and abuse and from the attitudes that help to perpetuate them. I say at this time that we acknowledge and warmly welcome the cross-party support for the strategy that has been shown across this Parliament and that is why we are willing to accept Labour's amendment today. The strategy sets out unambiguously that no women or girls in Scotland should be subjected to violence or abuse of any kind and no child or young person should have to live with gender-based violence or the impact of it. To achieve that vision, our aim is to work collaboratively with key partners across all sectors—public, private, charitable and civil—to prevent and eradicate all forms of violence against women and girls. However, let us be clear that there are no quick fixes to this deep-rooted problem. It requires significant economic, social and cultural change over the long-term and that calls for the sustained commitment not just of a wide range of partners but of individuals and communities, too. It is underpinned by a gender analysis based on the UN definition that recognises that women and girls are disproportionately affected because they are females. To the very great shame of the men here and throughout Scotland, it is not just that women are disproportionately the victims but that men are disproportionately, overwhelmingly the perpetrators of violence and we have to change what goes on in men's minds as well as protect women. Presiding Officer, I absolutely agree with what the member says. In many ways, the Parliament can show an example by the number of men who are highlighting that very fact that the male species is the main perpetrator of violence against women and girls. That is a recognition in something that we have to deal with in terms of changing attitudes. Since the publication of our strategy, we have driven a step change in our approach to this issue. As I said earlier, the First Minister has made clear that this sits at the very heart of her personal and political mission. Police Scotland is showing strong leadership in this area with the establishment of a national domestic abuse task force to target the most prolific perpetrators. The disclosure scheme for domestic abuse has seen an excellent start since it was rolled out across Scotland at the start of October. As of last week, I can tell Parliament that 227 applications have been received. I believe that the level of applications demonstrates that people who have confidence in the scheme are engaging with Police Scotland and other relevant services. The Crown Office has a dedicated national prosecutor for domestic abuse confirming its strong commitment to bringing perpetrators to justice. As the Scottish Government has recently introduced into Parliament a range of reforms to strengthen the law. Those include provisions that will have been approved by Parliament, create a new offence of sharing private intimate images. Within the next few weeks, we will consult on the exact wording of a specific offence to deal with those who subject their partners to coercive and controlling behaviour. The Cabinet Secretary for Justice has been clear that the Scottish Government is committed to developing a specific offence of domestic abuse. We consulted between March and June 2015, and the views that were received in response to that consultation revealed broad support for the principle of having a domestic abuse offence, but there was no consensus on how such an offence should be developed. In light of that, we committed in this year's programme for government to consult on a draft specific offence of domestic abuse. We consider that the right approach is to listen to key stakeholders and take forward the development of such an important new offence informed by their views so that a consensus can be achieved. A draft offence will be shared with stakeholders in the next few weeks. Funding is at record levels. This year alone, we are investing £11.8 million from the equality budget to support a range of projects and initiatives. Earlier this year, the First Minister announced an additional £20 million over the next three years from the justice portfolio. That funding will seek to enhance support for victims of violence and sexual assault, widen access to specialist advocacy and support services for the victims of crime and is also aimed at improving education and information resources to help to increase public understanding of those crimes and to reinforce a zero-tolerance approach to domestic abuse and sexual crimes. Part of that funding has already been put to good use with an additional £2.4 million being allocated to our prosecutors and court services. That funding will ensure that any cases involving domestic abuse will be heard more quickly. Trial diets in those cases will be set within a 10 to 12-week period by the end of this year, reducing to 8 to 10 weeks during 2016-17 and onwards. That will reduce the stress and inconvenience associated with waiting for trial diets to call in court. More recently, the justice secretary announced that £1.85 million has been awarded to Rape Crisis Scotland over the next three years to allow them to expand their advocacy services across the country and to extend their services to Orkneyt and Shetland. Specialised services such as Rape Crisis do not currently exist in those islands, but as a result of the additional resource, Rape Crisis Scotland will be working in partnership with the local women's aid and the Highland Center over the coming months to deliver and develop those services. Those are significant developments, real changes and a sign of our strong and enduring commitment to this agenda. As a Government, we recognise that enhancing the justice system's response to violence against women and girls is not enough. We need to do much more, and it is through the effective implementation of Equally Safe that we believe that real change will be delivered in the long term. I am pleased to inform the Parliament that the violence against women and girls joint strategic board chaired by the social justice secretary had its inaugural meeting earlier this month. The board has members comprising senior leaders from across the public and third sector partners alongside academic experts. The board will ensure that progress is driven from all sectors and that the work under Equally Safe is taken forward and the key partners are held to account. To take forward implementation, an action group on primary prevention has been established and met for the first time last month. I think that everybody would recognise that prevention as we go forward has to be the way that we have to prevent to start with, but for some time we will need to continue to support and fund the front-line services that are dealing with the very serious cases that are coming to them. Prevention is the thing that we are looking to in the future. COSLA are leading a working group to improve the capability and capacity of mainstream and specialist services. At the same time, Scottish Women's Aid is working with improvement service and others to ensure that Equally Safe is underpinned by robust outcomes and indicators, so that we know if we are making progress. The justice expert group met at the end of September and will be working to submit an action plan. I will give way. I am very grateful that I am listening carefully to what she is saying. I think that all of us would welcome the work that the Government is being done. However, if you are looking at the higher incidents of domestic abuse in some cities in Scotland compared with others, such as Dundee City, for example, is 700 incidents per 100,000 above the Scottish average. Will you be looking at why the incidence is so much greater in some areas than others and perhaps with resources there? What I would say is that it is certainly something that we will be looking at. We need to establish the incidents over the country and then where it is happening in the country, and that is how we have to look at resources and targeting. However, there is still work being done on that, and we certainly will not be disregarding it. We are in the process of updating Equally Safe at the moment to reflect the developments since the summer of 2014, and the Joint Strategic Board will consider the update over the next few weeks. That emphasises that the strategist might help to answer the member's question. It is a living document, and we will work with COSLA and others to ensure that it remains so and that we can maintain a relentless focus on improvement. In taking the agenda to the next level, we recognise that that is not an issue that can be found to the Justice Portfolio, nor is it a problem for the third sector to solve alone. That is an agenda that spans Government. As Minister for Housing and Welfare, I have an interest in ensuring that social landlords and homelessness services can play their part in early intervention and that the new social security powers being devolved to this Parliament are designed in a way that looks to embed flexibility and choice for women. To conclude, although the debate coincides with the international day for the elimination of violence against women, it is about much more than that important symbol. The debate also comes at a time as I have illustrated when the Scottish Government and our partners are reinforcing that domestic abuse is inexcusable, entirely unacceptable and can never be justified, and it also comes at a time when we are taking action to eliminate it. However, above all, the debate must mark this Parliament's clear aim and vision to eradicate the scourge of violence against women and girls from our society and that everyone can live equally safe. I move the amendment in my name. I now call on Elaine Murray to speak to you and move amendment 14930.1 at 10 minutes or so. Time for intervention. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I start by moving the Labour motion in my name. I am saying a few words about its intention. Amendment replaces the world world welcome with acknowledges the meeting of the joint strategic board. We are, of course, very pleased that the board has met it last, but we are disappointed that it has taken some 16 months for the equally safe strategy that was launched for the first meeting to take place. Indeed, eight months after the original deadline for the meeting, eight months after the original deadline for the interim report before the actual inaugural meeting took place, we want to make sure that in future we make faster progress than we have done so far. We have also included in our amendment reference to the need for continued strategic funding for projects and organisations and for further legislation to tackle all forms of gender-based violence in Scotland. I hope that everyone in the chamber will agree that we must continue to financially support the implementation of the strategy and those organisations involved in it. Further legislation aimed at preventing gender-based violence is needed, although I suspect that there may not be universal agreement exactly what that legislation should be. The colour orange has been used for some time by the Unite Against Violence Against Women and Girls campaign as a symbol of a brighter future in a world free from gender-based violence. I apologise now for not wearing orange today, but I did not have a sufficiently warm piece of orange clothing to wear on a day like this. This year is considered by the campaign to be critical. The sustainable development goals came into force in September and ending violence against women and girls must be embedded in their implementation. Although violence against women was one of the 12 critical areas of concern highlighted in the Beijing declaration 20 years ago, progress across the world has been slow and uneven. Gender discrimination, inequality and stereotyping prevent women and girls from achieving their full potential. The disrespect shown to females through those practices may lead to physical violence, psychological violence and is also a form of violence in itself. One of the asks of the campaign of all Governments this year is to organise a public discussion to mark the occasion, and I guess this debate is for the Scottish Government's response to that request. Our campaigners are asking us to do a lot more than just to talk to each other. We are being asked for new actions and to allocate resources, and that is another of the intentions behind our amendment today. Of course, we have taken some actions over the past year. The passing of the Human Trafficking Act, initiated by my colleague Jelly Marra and adopted by the Scottish Government, recognises that trafficking, including trafficking often of women and children for the sex trade, is a violent and serious offence that will rightly receive a long sentence on conviction. However, although the very welcome act addresses the supply side of that part of the sex trade, we still have to address demand, which is recognised and equally safe as gender-based violence. The Air Weapons and Licensing Act introduced a licensing system that enables local authorities to control the numbers of so-called sex entertainment premises in their area. That was welcome. A certain urban areas have suffered a proliferation of lap dancing and other similar establishments. Many of us hope that councils will set the number of licenced premises of that type at zero, but the bill does not address the reason behind the existence of those types of premises. Our society accepts the premise that it is permissible and appropriate for women and girls to be objectified and for their sexuality to be sold principally for the gratification of men. During the stage 1 debate on 23 April, my colleague Cara Hylton said that Cara wished to take part in the debate and, unfortunately, had to drop out at the last minute. She made an important contribution about an area that was not covered in the bill, and that was the display of the harmful sexualised material in places where it can be viewed by children, such as on supermarket shelves. In her speech, she referred to the girl guides campaign in advance of the general election, which revealed that 75 per cent of girls and young women aged 11 to 21 and 48 per cent of seven to 10-year-olds—that is primary school children—believed that there are too many sexual images of women in the media. Those statistics are important because they reveal how young women feel women are often judged. Young women are not content to be objectified and they are worth classified on the way they look and how they conform to what is perceived to be sexually desirable. The abusive behaviour and sexual harm bill, which has recently started its stage 1 progress through the Justice Committee, is also a welcome piece of legislation. The bill proposes to make crimes of violence, whether physical or psychological, and aggravated offence where domestic abuse is implicated. That, hopefully, should result in almost every crime committed against a partner or ex-partner, becoming an aggravated offence. That has been welcomed. However, many domestic abuse campaigners feel that that in itself does not go far enough and that, in addition to the aggravation, there should be a specific coercive control domestic abuse offence. That was contained in the pre-legislative consultation, and I understand that there is further consultation in those proposals. The bill also seeks to tackle the scourge of so-called revenge porn, although that term, a bit like legal highs, is now considered to be an undesirable piece of terminology. The evidence to be received by the committee on that has been very revealing in a very unpleasant sense because not only are images of people sent to partners sometimes under duress and then revealed to others without their consent, but there are also some other very unsavory practices of which I have to say that I was completely unaware, such as upskirting and down-blousing in which intimate photographs of women and girls are taken without their knowledge and then published on websites. Those websites are generally hosted in... Stuart Stevenson. I wonder if the member would share my revulsion at the Daily Mail this week, which he published. What could be a sexual image of a woman in a bath saying that it was the suicide bomber in Paris, and it was not that person at all. It was something that happened in this sort of context and that it is exactly an example of how the media uses images of women in an entirely inappropriate and unacceptable way. Thank the member for bringing that to my attention. I was completely unaware of that publication, but it sounds absolutely disgraceful and deserves to be condemned. As I said about those websites, we do not know who is viewing them or who is contributing them. Therefore, even though the websites are hosted in the States, we must not be complacent in Scotland about attitudes to women and girls. We may welcome the fact that three of our five party leaders in the Scottish Parliament are women and half the Government front bench and half the opposition front bench are female. That is good and hopefully that sends out a message that politics is female as much as it is male. Women and girls here do not suffer the same inequalities in education, opportunity or fertility control as they do in other parts of the world, but everything is not okay here and it is not sorted. Far too many young men and possibly young women learn about sex through internet-based pornography, some of which may be very violent and all of which objectifies women. That presents a perception of sexuality, which is not based on mutual respect and equality of esteem, but on female sexuality is a commodity to be used and exploited. Counteract with that view is possibly more important than it has ever been because of the availability of those types of images. There are many men of all ages who are completely signed up to the respect agenda and I think their voices are very important in counteracting those attitudes. More could be done in this Parliament as in any other. In November 2013, my colleague Jackie Baillie led a member's debate specifically on the need to do away with page 3 type portrayal of women by some of our newspapers, and in that debate there were many excellent contributions from all parties, but two years on we have failed to take action in a number of areas relating to violence against women and girls. This point was made during discussions on the Air Weapons and Licensing Bill and is being made again in the discussions around the abusive behaviour and sexual harm bill. Sex education in schools needs to be updated to reflect the exposure of children and young people to pornography on the internet and should focus on respect and consent and on addressing the malicious influence of some material available through social media. In my view, and this is not Labour Party policy, but in my view, those aspects of sex education should be mandatory because all young people are at risk of being exposed to those influences. I am sure that the member is aware that in many schools, certainly across my constituency of borders in Midlothian, the police go in and in fact educate primary children about the dangers of sexting and so on at a very early age. There is even more about the way in which sex is presented in terms of respect and consent. That needs to be right throughout the curriculum. I think that we need to address the constant bombardment of children with sexualised images of women and girls. It is no surprise that lads mags are going out of business as the material that they used to contain is available in mainstream publications on advertising hoardings, but some of the worst offenders are actually in publications aimed at young women and girls. I have been a bit shocked by some of the things that I have seen at the hairdressers in terms of the way in which women are being portrayed. There is still a need for further legislation and other actions in Scotland on many matters connected to gender-based violence. Some campaigners are pushing for a more wide-ranging gender-based violence legislation and possibly that could be part of the programme for government in the next Scottish Parliament. Gender violence is a spectrum of attitudes and activities. I would be very surprised if any woman in this building has not at some time been the victim of sexual harassment. Unwanted and unwelcome sexual advances are physical contact or comments. We all recognise those feelings of embarrassment and shame, they are reluctant to make a fuss in case we are overreacting. Was it just a laugh and have we no sense of humour? The suspicion that we brought it on ourselves by the way we were addressed or the fact that we smiled or that we were too friendly, did we appear to indeed to be asking for it? I think that you can understand this morning that we heard from victims of domestic abuse and much of what they were saying is somehow they felt part of the responsible for what happened to them. I am sure that none of us wants our daughters, nieces and granddaughters to have those same experiences. Attitudes need to change and legislators do have an important role in that process. For example, look at the way in which public perception of drunk driving has changed because of legislative changes. Women adopting sexist attitudes and practices towards men is no part of the answer. I was quite disgusted to hear on the radio recently about a hotel in the Highlands where male staff were objecting to wearing kilts because they were being sexually assaulted by women. That is not funny. Drunk women attacking young men is not funny either. It may be the way in which they think that they counteract what has happened to them, but it is not. In no way contributes to tackling violence against women and girls. Dender-based violence is a serious issue and we all need to take it more seriously. I very much welcome this debate on violence against women and am pleased to support the motion, and we will also be supporting Labour's amendment. This is an issue that transcends party politics. I am sure that, as is evident so far, this will be reflected in the tenor of the contributions across the chamber this afternoon, as it has been in previous years. There is clearly consensus that we must all work collaboratively to eliminate the sub-hordent practice, which has no place whatsoever in our society. However, considering the way forward, I want to first emphasise that violence against women is inherently complex. It encompasses domestic violence, sexual violence, intimidation and maltreatment. It manifests itself physically and psychologically with immediate and much longer-term consequences. It knows no bounds and affects women and girls from all walks of life. If we look at sexual bullying, for example, there are many root causes, but I want to address one in particular that has been highlighted by Girl Guiding Scotland in its recent girls' attitudes surveys on sexual bullying and coercion. Those surveys found that one in five girls aged just seven to 12 has experienced jokes of a sexual nature from boys and 59 per cent of girls and young women have faced some form of sexual harassment at school or college. However, a overwhelming majority of girls said that they would be reluctant to report such incidents because of fears of reprisals. Furthermore, around four in five young women agree that girls are coerced into sex acts because they are frightened that their boyfriend believes them if they do not comply, and that 71 per cent of girls are frightened of physical or sexual abuse from their boyfriend if they do not do what they are asked to do. Meanwhile, the survey reported that teachers have dismissed incidents of sexual bullying as boys mucking around when it is during these formative years that such attitudes and behaviour should be corrected. I am quite appalled if any teachers are saying that sort of thing. Equally, girls and young women need to understand what counts as sexual harassment and that it is unacceptable. Parents, teachers and role models must educate our young people now by dismantling entrenched and archaic attitudes rather than perpetuating them. That is all the more so because the most recent girl guiding girls' attitudes survey found that only 40 per cent of girls and young women aged 13 to 21 agreed with the following statement. I believe that we can change society to be free from violence against women and girls in the future. I think that that is a sad indictment that violence in all its manifestations has become normalised in our society and it falls to us to reverse that worrying trend. I have a grandson of 15 and a granddaughter who will be 14 tomorrow. I find it deeply worrying and upsetting that they are approaching adulthood in this continuing cultural climate. However, how are we progressing? We must pay tribute to third sector organisations such as Girl Guiding Scotland, Scottish Women's Aid and Rape Crisis Scotland, who are all working tirelessly to advocate on behalf of women in Scotland. As politicians, it is our job to help them to push the reset button. I very much welcome the Scottish Government's legislative commitment to tackle revenge, porn and domestic abuse, as well as the equally safe Scotland strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls. The other initiatives that were discussed by the minister in her opening remarks this afternoon. However, there is still a great deal to be done, as statistics on sexual crimes released last week demonstrate. As I am sure members will be aware, the number of sexual crimes recorded in 2014-15 increased significantly, by 11 per cent on the previous year and by 46 per cent since 2005-06, with cases of rape, attempted rape and sexual assault on a consistently upward trajectory. Meanwhile, the outgoing chief constable Sir Stephen House has confirmed that, on average, a domestic incident is reported to Police Scotland somewhere in Scotland every nine minutes, consuming roughly 20 per cent of all police operational time. That makes for dismal reading. It is, however, encouraging that victims of sexual and domestic violence have found the confidence to report those crimes to the police and are increasingly doing so. Both women and men need to be reassured that they do not need to suffer in silence, and it is heartening that victims are increasingly seeking help, the help that they need. That is particularly the case since the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey for 2013-14 found that victims most commonly confided in friends and relatives, as 35 per cent and 27 per cent respectively, with only 13 per cent reporting partner abuse to the police. Police Scotland has introduced a number of welcome and notable initiatives to combat violence against women, including the nascent disclosure scheme for domestic abuse Scotland, or Claire's law, as we know it, which was piloted in my home city of Aberdeen as well as in Ayrshire. Police Scotland has also turned its attention to domestic abuse in young relationships for those adolescents between the ages of 16 and 18. Extremely worryingly, 2014 girl guiding girls' attitudes survey found that, of those polled, 35 per cent know girls and young women their own age who have experienced control or boothing from a partner, while 25 per cent know someone who has experienced violence from a partner. That is a disturbing trend, given that the Scottish Criminal Justice Survey found that 14 per cent of adults reported experiencing partner abuse from the age of 16, and more must be done to prevent that. As we look to the year ahead, it is vital that we build an existing momentum by ensuring that the criminal justice system is robust in its sentencing of those individuals who perpetrate violent and sexual crimes against women. Zero tolerance of domestic abuse is being let down, I am afraid, by zero sentencing in many cases. The need has to change. The victims are to believe that the system takes them seriously. Many thanks. We now turn to the open debate speeches of seven minutes. Please, Christina McKelvie, to be followed by Margaret McCulloch. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. The 16 days of activism against gender-based violence campaign originated from the First Women's Global Leadership Institute back in 1991. There will be a whole range of activities across the world, hinged around orange, and the world will end violence against women and girls. Banner would be remiss of me at this point not to mention and commend Anne and her team at rape crisis in Hamilton, who served all of Lanarkshire and Heather and her team at Women's Aid in Hamilton, who served the whole of Lanarkshire in the absolutely fantastic work that they have done in conjunction with myself and with other organisations in the Lanarkshire area. I am sure that I see the Presiding Officer with a smile on her face, because she knows the very people that I am speaking about and the work that they do. The number 16 is no accident. From 9 November, women in the EU symbolically stopped earning from the rest of the year because there remains a gender pay gap in Europe of around 16.3 per cent. Women working part-time and 34 per cent less per hour on average than men working full-time. That is something that we still have to make a lot of progress on. Back in 1968—a fantastic year, should I say, maybe the year of my birth, if I be so twee—187 women sawing machinists at the Ford Dagonham factory in East London struck against sex discrimination and job grading. The women had been placed in the unskilled B grade, although they did the same level of work and the same quality of work that they were making car seat covers as the men placed in the semi-skilled C grade. The women, even at their lower grade, were paid 85 per cent of the male B grade. Those women met a lot of hostility from their male colleagues and a confused response from the trade unions, but they held firm and gained in confidence and, in the end, the Ford women won 92 per cent of the men's rate, though it took another 16 years and another strike lasting seven weeks to win a proper regrading. The strike gave a huge impetus to the women's movement in the years that followed women's trade union membership's sword and the Equal Pay Act was introduced in 1970. Interestingly, the trade union bill going through the Westminster Parliament right now would probably have rendered those sewing machinists' strikes illegal, and they would have been forced to take a legal strike. That is just another reason why we should think very seriously about whether we should be supporting a trade union bill that takes away rights of women who fought for those rights a whole 47 years ago. However, when it comes to women in the workforce, families and education, we have not seen some of the progress that we need on pay, skills, opportunities and on cultural attitudes. Our welfare reform committee has found that women are disproportionately impacted by welfare reform across a range of issues and benefits—85 per cent of all welfare cuts fall on women and children. In 2006, Britain was placed ninth in the world as equality stakes, but last year it dropped to 26. That is a very sad indictment on the Britain that we live in today. It might be nice in a perfy world to think that we did not need such a campaign, but that would be complete fantasy. It is certainly a blight in our so-called western democratic society that we are still fighting to move the struggle for equality forward. We are not giving up fighting, and I can hear that from some of the speeches that we have heard across the chamber already. However, we take a lot for granted. We are used to thinking that education is a public good and a fundamental human right, recognised in article 26 of the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights. We in Scotland have a far longer tradition of supporting free education for all, but the current Tory Government in power and Westminster continue to deny that freedom to students and look set to reduce those human rights that we currently live by. The repeal of the human rights act is a repeal of women's rights, those hard fought for rights, and if we make this world a better place for women and girls, we make this world a better place for men and boys. In spite of the declaration, many children across the globe are missing out on education. With the increasing radical Islam, we have seen more and more girls denied the opportunity to learn. We saw the fierce fight put up by the young Malala Yousafi, the young Pakistani activist for female education, and the youngest-ever Nobel prize laureate. She stood up for education and was shot by the Taliban for doing so as a vicious reminder of the price of learning in certain countries. A little girl with a book was so dangerous that men with guns sought to end her education. That says a lot for our world too. In 2014, global military spending stood at 1.8 trillion, while experts cite a £26 billion financing gap to achieve the basic education for all by the end of 2015. Children and young people of all genders can face further disadvantage due to disability, race or ethnic origin, economic difficulties and family, whether in times of violent conflict, after an environmental disaster or during relative peacetime. Girls and young women face early marriage or forced marriage, and that can cut short their education too. The threat of different forms of school-related gender-based violence, including sexual violence and abuse on the way or within education settings and discrimination, is unavailability of essential infrastructure such as adequate and safe accessible sanitary facilities. The political, economic and social implications of the right to and denial of education must be at the forefront of the agenda for policy makers, communities and concerned individuals. When we have women, girls, people with disabilities, LGBTQI people, migrants, refugees and indigent people deny the right to education in safe and equal spaces, we as a world community stand to lose. It is imperative that for gender-based violence to end, we work to end all forms of discrimination. That was said by Chris Nattie de Margeray, the Executive Director of CWGL, the Global Coordinator of the 16 Days Campaign. The Scottish Government too has a duty and a commitment to doing just that, and we have heard about that commitment. They are working very hard to do that. We have seen progressive approaches to legislation to ban revenge porn, a personal campaign of mine in this chamber, to provide better support for victims of violence and outlaw human trafficking. They are all important achievements and we are right to be proud of them. Recent data shows that 38 million people are internally displaced worldwide, with 16.7 million refugees, girls and young people in particular are most adversely impacted by insecurity and crisis, with the most recent estimate showing that 31 million girls at primary level and 34 million at lower secondary level are not enrolled in school. Nearly two thirds of the world's illiterate adults are women, a proportion that has remained stubbornly unchanged for the past 20 years, according to the world's women 2015 report. It is a lack of ready access to education that has prompted the global theme for this year's 16 days campaign, from peace in the home to peace in the world, make education safe for all. Now is the time for us all to join and advance in the right to education and challenging violence, discrimination and inequality in education as an intersection of gender, race or ethnicity, religion, real or perceived sexual orientation, social economic stage and the other identifiers. Elaine Murray mentioned the colour orange. In ancient China, the colour orange symbolised transformation. In Buddhism, the colour orange or saffron, as they see it, was the colour of illumination in the highest state of perfection. So, in oraging the world, let's illuminate it with education, transform the world to its highest state of gender perfection and hopefully we can make some progress in this. Today we mark the 16 days of activism that are about to begin to confront gender-based violence all around the world. We are not only united in deploring such acts of violence, but we are, as one, in aspiring to a better world. A world in which there is equality for all. A world in which women and girls can live free from violence. A world in which attitudes and prejudices that view discrimination and gender-based violence are a thing of the past. Twenty years ago, Governments from around the world met in Beijing, and were determined to advance the goals of equality, development and peace for all women everywhere in the interests of all humanity. They recognised that, for all the progress that had been advancing the rights and status of women across the globe, inequality persisted with consequences for the wellbeing of all people. They reaffirmed their commitment to the equal rights and inherent human dignity of women and men. They restated their support for the universal declaration of human rights, the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, the convention on the rights of the child, the declaration on the elimination of violence against women and the Governments of the world declared their conviction that women's rights are human rights. It was true then, it's true now, and nothing that any abuser or aggressor can say or do can make it false. Today, together, let's reaffirm our support for the rights of women, for the rights of girls, for the rights of all humanity and for the cause of gender equality. Presiding Officer, 20 years since the Beijing Declaration and the platform for action, we still live in an unequal world. A UN report on the progress that member states have been making found that there have been a strengthening in the law and in resolutions concerning violence against women and related areas, such as human trafficking. Yet global estimates show that 35 per cent of women had experienced physical and or sexual violence perpetrated by the partner or sexual violence perpetrated by someone who was not their partner. That is one in three women worldwide. The report goes on to say that all regions have unacceptably high rates of violence against women and, alarmingly, the majority of women who experience violence do not seek help or support. Victim blaming attitudes are common and are a frequent barrier to ending domestic violence and violence against women more generally. Data collectors across 37 development countries suggested that 21 per cent of women believed that a husband is justified in beating his wife if she argues with him. 27 per cent of women believed that a husband was justified in beating his wife if she neglected their children. Even here in Europe, a survey conducted across 15 EU states found that 52 per cent of people felt that women's behaviour itself was a cause for violence. We still have some way to go. We have to challenge violence but also the prejudices that make it seem acceptable to so many people. We cannot delay. We have already waited long enough for the implementation of the Equally Safe Strategy, as a number of my colleagues have said. I join the Scottish Government in congratulating all those people and organisations across Scotland who work all year round to raise awareness and tackle violence and discrimination. In my time as convener of the Equal Opportunities Committee, I have had the pleasure of meeting some of them and I want to pay tribute to their work today. The inroads that we have made in turning around some of society's most outdated and offensive views of women has not been down to the work of the Government alone. The leadership and the perseverance that has come from particular sections of civil society has not only informed the work of Government, but it has been absolutely critical in changing attitudes in the country. Finally, I want to address a particular kind of violence that I believe we can prevent by shifting attitudes in communities both here and abroad, but also through having a robust enforcement framework, and that is female genital mutilation. The Equal Opportunities Committee will be returning to the subject soon, but we have already heard that 120 million women and girls well-wide are living with the consequences of FGM. That is a practice that has no basic religion, but in many communities, particularly in 29 African countries where the practicing population is high, FGM can be viewed as a way of protecting a girl's chastity before marriage or a woman's faithfulness afterwards. In communities where marriage is a prerequisite for social acceptance and economic security, women who resist FGM could face exclusion and vilification, and there are women and girls with ties to those practices in communities who are at risk here in Europe. FGM is abuse, it is an act of extreme violence and it must not be tolerated. Finally, I want to once again commend the good work of all those who champion the rights of women and girls in Scotland and across the globe. Twenty years on from the Beejan declaration, we still have a long way to go to achieve full equality, but I hope and I believe that our shared sense of purpose will lead us to a better, gentler, more equal world. I am sure that in the chamber we all agree with the words of the UN Secretary General, when he said that violence against women is never acceptable, never excusable and never tolerable, and yet violence against women is still a truly global issue. It affects all communities, it affects all races, it affects people of all religions and of none. According to the UN, one in three women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. Worldwide, more than 700 million women alive today were married as children. Of those women, more than one in three, around 250 million were married before they were 15. It is a global problem, but it has manifestations on our own doorstep, as people have already said. Research shows that a staggering 43 per cent of women in the 28 European Union member states have experienced some form of psychological violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. According to the most recent girls' attitudes survey by girl guiding UK, 59 per cent of girls aged 13 to 20 had experienced sexual harassment at school, college or work within the previous year. Those statistics are truly shocking, and the progress towards elimination of violence against women and girls is awfully slow. The theme of this year's 16 days of action is prevention. You know, no one is born knowing how to discriminate. It's a behaviour that's learned, behaviour that is also unfortunately often encouraged by societies, by peers and sometimes even by family members. It's a widely acknowledged fact that the key to prevention is to start early, to focus efforts on young children, both girls and boys, and equally safe recognises that. It says that prevention challenges the notion that violence is inevitable or acceptable. It's important that we focus on boys because they are less likely to respect women and girls if they are not encouraged to treat them as equals. It's important to focus on girls because they are less likely to realise that they are experiencing abuse if they are used to being treated differently because they are female. The curriculum for excellence, the focus on relationships, sexual health and parenting will help to tackle some of those issues, but we need to increase the prevention messages. A recent report by the YWCA Scotland on the status of young women in Scotland included a number of quotes from young women in Scotland. One young woman said that there are subtle differences for women. For example, recently there was an attack in the Meadows in Edinburgh, and all the guidance and recommendation from the police etc. was aimed at the girls, asking them to change their behaviour. It's this focus on the victim, not the perpetrator, couched in that it's for your own safety. Another woman said that my brother is younger than me, but he is allowed to see out much later and to make his own way home. My parents say that the different rules are for my own safety. It is for your own safety. Six words that bring the focus from the perpetrator to the victim or the potential victim. Six words that tell girls that if something were to happen to them, it would be their own fault. Those societal attitudes are a problem and a major barrier to the work of prevention. I note that equally safe focus says that one of its initial areas of focus will be primary prevention and in particular identifying additional ways of addressing the systematic inequality attitudes and assumptions that give rise to violence and abusive behaviour. They would scope out the costs associated with this activity in time for an expending review. I would be grateful for an update from the minister in the closing speeches on that particular point. A 2010 survey across 15 EU countries asked whether women's provocative behaviour was a cause of domestic violence against women. On average, just over half agreed with that statement. The figure for the UK was 63 per cent. It is shameful that so many still believe that domestic violence is caused by the victim. Further research also shows that, across the EU, one in four victims of sexual assault do not contact police or any other organisation because of feelings of shame and embarrassment. It should be the perpetrators who feel the shame and embarrassment, but those attitudes are what we are up against. Those are the attitudes that prevent the progress in eliminating violence against girls and women. Of course, the advent of the internet has made the challenges even greater. A recent UN report on combating online violence against women and girls said that an estimated 73 per cent of women have been exposed to some form of violence or abuse online. With the increased information exchange comes a more interconnected world but also some true horrors. To name but a few, online abuse, scores of violent images and videos of child abuse, online stalking and so-called revenge porn. An issue that Scotland will hope to tackle through the upcoming abusive behaviour and sexual harm bill. The internet has unfortunately allowed perpetrators of violence to find new ways to perpetuate their violence. New methods of violence require new solutions. It is clear that a lot more still needs to be done, but I commend the work that has already been undertaken by the police, Governments, local, national and international organisations. Thank you. Having chaired two justice committees, one in the first session of this Parliament and now in the fourth session, I am going to focus on legislation that was put through Parliament, though I am the last person to say that legislation is a cure-all. I note what the minister has said about legislation trying to define domestic abuse, and I wish her well in that, because I think that it will be difficult but not impossible. We started out in that first session. The Justice Committee brought forward its own act of Parliament. There is breaking news. The Protection from Abuse Scotland Act. That was because at that time, if you got an interdict against an abusive partner, you could only do it under a thing called the Matrimonial Homes Family Protection Act. You therefore had to be married within the matrimonial home, and we wanted to have a power of arrest attached to all kinds of interdicts where there was any abuse, and so we brought forward that particular piece of legislation. I think that we have moved on a lot since then, but that was a beginning. Recent measures brought to the Justice Committee, such as the Victims and Witnesses Bill, have tried to do their bit in ensuring that witnesses, who are often the main witnesses of the victim in a case, have some protection not just in the processes of the judicial system—that is from the minute they speak to the police about what has happened, to the point of judgment—but they are also talked about and treated in an appropriate manner because they are vulnerable. They are taken through the court process in a fashion that they can understand where the language can often be bewildering. If somebody has pled or if there is a judgment at the time, they understand what this judgment means. If there is an interim order for bail, they know what that bail order means because bail is there to protect them, but I will come to that later. That legislation pertain, of course, to all victims and witnesses, but is particularly relevant to those who are vulnerable because of domestic abuse, including rape and sexual assault. I want to say something in passing to congratulate and not hear this very often in the Parliament, the chief constable Sir Stephen House, who did make it a priority to put at the top of the agenda bringing domestic abuse into focus and ensuring that it became a priority, a priority that was delivered right down to the grass roots, front-line policemen and so it should be. These officers are indeed sensitive to the difficulties in dealing with such victims. References have also been made to human trafficking and exploitation bill, which came before again the Justice Committee. Abuse of women, particularly, I am going to focus, abuse of women in prostitution. I think that it was important that we made plain then that trafficking may involve crossing continents, let alone countries, but it can mean from Scottish town to Scottish town indeed from flat to flat that trafficking need not be international, but indeed very local. That legislation endeavoured to provide protection to those particular women and young girls who exploited some of them, not knowing that they were being exploited because in some cases they came from such a devastating background that they did not realise that is what was happening to them because it had been hellish where they came from and this was just slightly better though in our terms we knew fine that it was trafficking and exploitation, but it was there to make them feel secure to come forward and afterwards to protect them once they had given evidence when you might have serious organised crime you often did involved. The current legislation we are dealing with is the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm Bill, which is taking evidence just now. I make it plain that this is not a bill about domestic abuse per se, it is about an aggravation of a crime taking place which involves a degree of domestic sexual abuse, an aggravation of a crime bringing a more severe penalty. Separately, and it has been raised before, on the days of Facebook, the internet and sexting and so on, you have so much threatening behaviour and embarrassment caused and in fact embarrassment and threatening to the point where it may be driven somebody to suicide by images on the internet. We are not sure whether images are sufficient, but I think that we will come to a view in that in due course, but this is actually trying to make inroads into a very difficult area where the technology will no doubt be one step ahead of us, as one of our panel said today. I think that it will hardly be dry in the legislation when we will find there is some other way to do it, but we will try our best. Legislation is not the cure-all, as I have always said, in fact it is sometimes too much legislation, just part of the prescription. Education is a huge part of it, right at primary school, a changing culture that others have referred to. Of course, we have now introduced Claire's law, which gives a degree of protection and discretion to the police in finding out if someone has a track record which the new partner should be aware of. The legislation that we have even now is not working. Today, the evidence of a young woman came before us, who despite all kinds of orders—harassment orders, bail orders, stalking—lives a life that she described as survival. Any moment of any day, she is expecting to see her ex-husband prowling nearby and in a very threatening manner. What we have with this bill may help. I am sure that the committee has these concerns that here we have bail orders being regularly breached and apparently only a fine imposed. The bail order in paper might say not to approach Ms X, but Ms X has been through hell for years with this person through the civil courts and the criminal courts. That bail order not approaching him being breached is a major thing in her life. Involving her entire family and providing it is where unpaid security protection for her is so serious as the failure of this. I think that it is something that we should pick up on. However, I would caution members, particularly if you forgive me in Annette Milne, for suggesting that politicians meddle with judicial independence, even if we disagree with a decision that may have good basis or not. We have not heard all the evidence and I would always want to respect the lines drawn between the politicians and the judiciary. Where I have concerns about this particular case and perhaps in general where bail is being breached and where the orders that we are providing to protect women are not strong enough, it must not be for us to tell the judges what to do. We must make sure that if it is not in statute what they must do, they include judicial training by themselves that they learn to see the value of their judgments and the weight that must be put on them. That is a small cautionary note, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am glad to see that it is a very consensual debate. I now call Fiona McLeod to be followed by Malcolm Chisholm. I found it very interesting preparing for this debate today because, as most members know, I like to go and look at my evidence and to bring before the chamber a lot of facts and figures. In the end, I think that all that I could do was come up with many thoughts that I have on that subject. I was reflecting on the fact that it is over 40 years since I first became involved in politics or in the party politics 41 years ago when I, as a 16-year-old, identified as a nationalist, a socialist and a feminist. I am reflecting on that and thinking about today's debate. I came to this debate an hour and a half ago, which is quite pessimistic, thinking about why, after all those years, are we still living in a society and a world where there is violence and abuse of women? We have heard the stats from the minister and we have heard them from many of the members. We are having a debate about it. An hour and a half ago, I thought, why? 40 years on, why are we still having to have this debate? Having listened to the contributions so far, I have to say that I am feeling more optimistic than I was at the beginning of the debate. I still do not think that I have got the answers and I am still not sure that society has the answers, but for me there is still a question to ask. I think that the question for me is violence and abuse of women is a question of equality. It is not a question of violence per se, but it is a question of inequality. As long as we have gender inequality, we will always have a power imbalance within our society. That is not just our society here in Scotland, but as we have heard from other member societies across the world. That power imbalance will always lead, I fear, to an acceptance—or, if not an acceptance—at least a debate about acceptable levels of what is violence against women. Nanette Millan talked about the survey that girl guiding has done. It reminded me of my first term here in Parliament all those years ago, what, 15 or 16 years ago? I know that there are members in the chamber who were at a meeting with me all those years ago, when we heard the results of some research into what young men's attitudes were towards young women and whether violence was acceptable and whether sexual coercion was acceptable. All those years ago, we sat there and were horrified when we heard the levels of research that said that 20 per cent of young men said that it was acceptable to coerce their partner into having a sexual relationship. I think that 40 per cent of young men thought that it was acceptable to give her a wee slap if she was out of line, yet we have heard those facts and figures again from more recent research. That is where my pessimism comes in. The minister talked about zero tolerance and other members have zero tolerance to domestic abuse, something that in this Parliament, from the first days in 1999, we have taken a very strong stand about and should rightly be proud of. We talk about that zero tolerance. The minister talked about the stigma that men now feel when they are involved in domestic abuse, but I am not sure that that stigma goes across all of our society. Elaine Murray talked about the media images of our young women. Can we ever say that people who abuse young women in any way or are violent towards young women in any way will understand the stigma that that brings, the shame that that brings, while our media still presents the images that they do. Just this morning, over my breakfast, I like to read the Sunday papers. It takes me all the way to Tuesday. I was having a wee read the Observer magazine from this Sunday. I was reading the agony ant column at the back. It was over my breakfast. The brain was not ready to engage in real hard stuff. I am reading the agony ant column at the back. My goodness, let me quote from it, because it is quite opposite. I am going to quote from the article that Mariela Frostrubb talks about. Only this week, I sat in a women's networking event as a roomful of mature working women from their 20s to their 50s complained about the levels of misogyny they have to deal with at work. I was shocked at how much a fabric of these women's lives sexist abuse appeared to be and how many of them otherwise able, robust and independent felt intimidated about bringing it up with their HR department to be dealt with appropriately. She then goes on to say, the politics of the playground, body humour, jostling for attention and elevated distrosion levels appear still to be rife in the workplace. That is something that we can all accept, still appear to be rife in the workplace. I take exception to how she started that. The politics of the playground is not acceptable at any age and in any situation. Alison McInnes talked about how we have to start with the education of our young people at the earliest point. When we talk about zero tolerance, we should talk about zero tolerance to little girls wear pink and little boys wear blue. My goodness, did you see how long reporting Scotland spent last night on the Scotland football strip, the away strip, because it is pink? That took six minutes of our national news, because pinks for girls, is it not, for our national football team? It reminded me when I was re-elected here in 2011, being in Glasgow airport, waiting to pick my husband up one night. My young son, a young teenager at the time, came up to me and went, oh mum, you'll love this, come and see this. Hanging in the Tesco's there were dummies for little children. The little boy said, my little hero in blue. The little girls in pink said, little flirt, a dummy for a baby. Being me got all angry, wrote off to Tesco and got an apology from them and said that they would never ever go to that supplier again. However, it is about zero tolerance right from the beginning, is it not? It is about us saying that there is no gender inequality. We have to bring our young children up to believe that we are all equal and therefore are all due to be equally respected. In that, talking about violence, there should be zero tolerance to violence towards children as well as women. If we can smack our kids, what is the message that we are telling them that when they get older they can just give a wee tap to their girlfriend or their wife? I want to add loads more, but I want to finish on. I went to see The Hunger Games the other night. Anybody been yet? It is an audience full of young women. It is just quite an experience, because I was about to explain. I always go to the pictures with my young adult son, so it is not often that I am in an audience full of young women. Katniss Everdine is just the heroine. All those 13, 14-year-old young women, do you know that it was brilliant? The adverts at the beginning? There is an advert for stame. There is an advert for getting young women to realise that they can have jobs in science, technology, engineering and maths, so that was just amazing to watch. Let us hope that that is going to happen. Stuart Stevenson talked about changing men's minds, and I think that that is true, and we have to do that. My feminist generation was about empowering young women, but we must never forget that we must not alienate the young men. We must not make them feel disempowered so that they think that the only way they can get their rights is through physical strength and violence. I had lots of examples from my constituency, but I just finished by saying that I started off fairly pessimistic thinking that, with only four months to go in Parliament, is this fight never going to end, but listening to the debate today, the fight has not ended, but we are going to keep taking this battle out to the public and making something happen. As Fiona McLeod reminded of us, I think that there has been great progress in the years of the Scottish Parliament in our response to violence against women. That point was reinforced to me when I looked back yesterday at the debate that I took place in the Westminster Parliament in July 1993. I was criticising the Scottish Office at the time for a campaign that was trying to persuade women to change their behaviour rather than challenging men. Over 16 years in this Parliament, we have had a lot of cross-party consensus on this issue. I think that there has been a lot of continuity of policy between the previous administration and this one. Throughout, there has been a gender-based analysis of it, a recognition that it is a very serious problem that is very prevalent and has been hidden away for too long and an acceptance that, overwhelmingly, it is perpetuated by men and experienced by women, an awareness that it is rooted in persistent gender inequalities and, therefore, violence against women has, of course, crucially to include action against a whole lot of other issues such as unequal pay, gender segregation, the objectification of women and so on. I welcome the Equally Safe Strategy that was published in June 2014 and the four workstreams that have flowed from it, albeit that it is a bit related. Let's not worry about that today. I think that the capacity and capability workstream is really interesting and important because it is really addressing the question about how do we improve capacity and capability across statutory services, whether it is health, education, housing, social work and so on. It is obviously an issue that people have tried to address over the years. I give one interesting example because I am really impressed by a great campaign from the nursing society of Glasgow Caledonian University, led by Louisa Power. I think that their blog goes live on the first of the 16 days tomorrow, but they have been doing a lot of work again, as I say, led by Louisa Power. The aim is to empower the next generation of nurses to support a vulnerable group of patients that, of course, nurses come across very frequently on their day-to-day wife and empower them to have courageous conversations and confront this issue in order to help those patients overwhelmingly women. Congratulations to that. I think that it is a model for other campaigns and initiatives that could take place across the public sector. Primary prevention is another workstream, which is obviously very important in many of those debates over the years, including the first one in 1993 in Westminster. I was praising the zero-tolerance campaign and, in fact, I initiated a debate on their 20th anniversary. They have led the way, but there are lots of other examples that we could take. Christina McKelvie and I, as co-conveners of the cross-party group on men's violence against women, are hosting a very interesting event next Friday night, if you can get to Parliament at 6 o'clock on 4 December, when rape crisis Scotland has been doing work on prevention. However, they do work crucially with young people involving young people in the preventative work. As I am in all of the work that we will see, I am particularly interested in—you will understand—four short films that have been made by students from Leith academy, in which they have raised issues of consent and sexual violence and so on. Involving young people in preventative work is a very important part of it. The third workstream that Christine Grahame talked about at length was the justice one, particularly on our agenda in this Parliament with the bill that is going to come before us. We know about the revenge porn and tribute to Christina McKelvie for her work on that, and the statutory abuse aggravation, where domestic abuse is a component of the offence, and Christine Grahame spoke about that. There is also a non-harassment order going to be allowed if someone is mentally unfit to stand trial. I mentioned that issue in the corresponding debate last year, when I mentioned the very high-profile individual who highlighted the problem in terms of her own experiences. Still, to come, some disappointment is not in the bill, but we understand the reasons for that. The specific offence of domestic abuse, which I think is the overwhelming number of people who responded to the consultation, wanted to see because domestic abuse is often, of course, a pattern of abusive and coercive behaviour, and that is not necessarily reflected in any of the disposals that are currently available. That will be a very important new offence, which I imagine will be legislated for very early in the next session of Parliament. It is right to pay tribute, as others have done, to all the groups who have led in that field. As it happens, I want to do a quote of a couple of sentences for another couple of issues from a statement by those organisations. I mentioned engender, rape crisis Scotland, Scottish Women's Aid, Scottish Women's Convention, White Ribbon Scotland, Women's Support Project and Zero Tolerance, all national organisations. In their statement, they said that, which leads me on to a couple of points, it is important that the strategy explicitly acknowledges the impact of violence on all women and girls in Scotland and the different risk factors that may affect diverse groups of women and girls and their experiences of invulnerability to violence. We look forward to the detail of that in the forthcoming action plan. In particular, we feel that refugee and asylum-seeking women and women within secure immigration status more broadly should be explicitly recognised in strategic work to tackle and prevent violence against women in Scotland. Obviously, refugees are very topical at the moment and the response to refugees needs to be gendered as well, not least because of the sexual violence that may well have been experienced by some, if not many of them. There is also the persistent issue of those whose immigration status means that they have no recourse to public funds. I am told local authorities and indeed the Scottish Government is taking a hard line on that. I know that there may be legal reasons for that, but let us allow some of our great national and local organisations who work with women's suffering violence. Let us at least allow them to give some level of support to those women. There are also all the local groups, and in the context of Edinburgh, I would like to pay tribute to Edinburgh Women's Aid, the Edinburgh Women's Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre and Shakti Women's Aid. Of course, they are working very much in terms of local services, including refuge provision and funding under pressure with the demise of the supporting people money. However, there is another issue that needs to be raised because the Edinburgh Women's Aid in Shakti currently has an 18-month contract from the council, and then they have been told that the service will be put out to tender, which I was most concerned to hear. I am glad that Scottish Women's Aid is developing guidance with COSLA about that, and they are making it clear that tendering is inappropriate for those services and is not required by European legislation, so I hope that that will be taken on board by the council and Edinburgh and elsewhere. Times just about up, so the final point really is, and this has come up in the cross-party group on more than one occasion. We would like, I suppose that it is the UK Government in the first instance, but perhaps the Scottish Government as well can sign up to the Istanbul Convention, because various speakers this afternoon have drawn attention to the extent that this is an international problem. Clearly, the Istanbul Convention is a European convention that we should certainly sign up to, but of course there is the wider international agenda that was highlighted by the Beijing declaration that is the 20th anniversary of that this year. There is, of course, an international campaign on the 16 days, and the theme this year is the relationship between militarism and the right to education in a situation of violent conflict, and clearly Christina McKelvie spoke very eloquently about that. We are part of a great international movement, because tragically this is a big international problem. Without patting ourselves on the back too much, the Scottish Parliament has made progress, but let's concentrate on what still remains to be done. I am afraid that I have been so generous with time that I now have to ask members to keep to the seven minutes or thereby please. Clare Adamson to be followed by Graham Pearce. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. The United Nations web page entitled, Ending Violence Against Women and Girls tells us that every year millions of women and girls worldwide suffer from violence, whether that be domestic, rape, FGM, dowdy related killings, trafficking, sexual violence and sexual violence in a conflict situation. It also graphically shows us what that means for women in the world today using world bank data, which states that a woman aged 15 to 44 is more at risk from rape or domestic violence than from cancer, from car accidents, from war and malaria. Presiding Officer, it has been a great pleasure to listen to the contributions this afternoon for people who are absolutely expert in this field and I recognise the work that both Christine McKelvie and Malcolm Chisholm have done in the cross-party group and in the cross-party group on trafficking. Prior to being elected as a councillor in 2007, I had little or no understanding of the complexity and prevalence of violence against women. As a councillor, I was a member of the community justice authority and, as such, I got a very quick learning curve. I remember discussing with police officers about the pilot project to proactively visit known domestic abusers and offenders before old film matches. I learned about the spikes in domestic abuse around those big matches. Then Strathclyde police were reporting that up to 138 per cent more than in and I wish the official report could record a gesture. I am going to say ordinary weekends because I use ordinary very carefully because that word for this the need for successful intervention by Strathclyde police brought it home to me how dangerously ordinary, normal, predictive and recognised domestic abuse can become in our society. There is never an excuse, never a cause and it is never acceptable or ordinary that it should happen in our society and that is why I recognise zero tolerance and their campaign in this area that we can never ever accept, as Bankyman said. Violence against women is always a violation of human rights, it is always a crime and it is always unacceptable. It was also during my time as a councillor in 2009 that Lanarkshire held a conference on tackling domestic abuse and the keynote speaker at which was Evan Stark, someone I am sure much more familiar to the experts in the chamber today and to those who have worked in this area for some time. In his book, Coercive Control, How Men in Trapp Women in Personal Life, it is considered to be one of the most important research and policy reference tools in this area. His words are very, very strong. He says that cases where he believes a pattern of violence is complemented by an extended pattern of intimidation, isolation and control and he quote him saying what we are really dealing with, although the analogy is by no means perfect, it is a kind of domestic terrorism, a kind of domestic hostage taking in which the victim has no outside escape to because the supposed safe place, the relationship, the home, the family network has been identified as the point of imprisonment and entrapment. I think that his work has really extended our understanding and our knowledge of this area and I look very much forward to the bill coming forward that may be looking at some of these issues in the future. It has been talked about in the chamber this afternoon that violence, any kind of violence, is a crime against society, it is a crime against humanity, if you like. I would like to concentrate a little bit on the effect of domestic violence on children. In 2006 UNICEF produced the report behind closed door, the impact of domestic violence on children, which explains that some of the biggest victims of domestic violence are the smallest. The report shows that children who are exposed to violence in the home may suffer a range of severe and lasting effects. Children who live with and are aware of violence in the home can face challenges and risks that can last throughout their lives and it also increases the risk of the children becoming victims of abuse themselves. There is a significant risk of ever increasing harm to children's child psychological, emotional and social development. Infants and small children who are exposed to violence in the home experience so much added emotional stress that can harm the development of their brains in pair cognitive functions and sensory growth. At an early age, the child's brain is becoming hardwired for later physical and emotional functioning and exposed to domestic violence threatens that development. UNICEF's report highlights that studies suggest that social development is also damaging children who lose their ability to feel empathy for others, they feel socially isolated, it can be difficult for them to make friends and they can be socially confused about what is acceptable behaviour. Shockingly, it also says that the single best predictor of children becoming either perpetrators or victims of domestic violence later in life is whether or not they grow up in a home whether it is domestic violence. It is absolutely imperative that we as a society look to and tackle these problems. It is an ambitious strategy that the Government has laid out. The Equally Safe in Scotland strategy wants to tackle all forms of violence against women and girls, domestic abuse, rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, intimidation at work and public, stalking, commercial sexual exploitation such as prostitution, pornography and human trafficking, dowry related violence, FGM, forced marriage and so-called honour-based killings. It is a big challenge, it is an ambitious challenge but if I could perhaps finish with a quote for someone who has inspired me in my life and someone who perhaps lived some of the problems that we have been discussing this afternoon from Maya Angelou, history, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage it need not be left again. I am very grateful to contribute to this afternoon's debate. I am pleased that there is a general support for the Government motion as amended by my colleague Elaine Murray. Equally, I support the Government to publication of Equally Safe in conjunction with COSLA, and I am pleased to see the thrust that lies behind the strategy that is reflected in that document. There is much to reflect on over the past three decades and the shifts that have occurred in our society. As other members have mentioned, there are incidents across that timeframe that leads one to be depressed, but I think that we need to face the facts if we are to move forward and see real change in the way our society deals with girls and women. Domestic abuse is about, above all, the exercise of power and control, largely by men in their relationships with women in our society. On the upside, at least today, there is a recognition that domestic violence is wrong. There is also an acknowledgement that violence against women is a violation of human rights, and I think that any right-minded person in our society reflects that view. However, the statistics that the Government produced annually make for fairly devastating reading in that the sheer statistics and numbers of domestic abuse incidents reported in Scotland seems to climb year by year, from 2,056 at 45,300 incidents to the current figure of just short of 60,000 incidents. Often it is reflected that the rise in the number of reports is due to the confidence of complainers willing to come forward. We get some comfort from that view, but the sheer numbers of people who come forward annually to report are very downheartening. The experience of those victims who survive those assaults is debilitating in the extreme and lasts beyond the incident itself. There was mention of the impact of old-firm games, and at one period in our development we recognised the rise in reports on the days of old-firm games. However, the fact that the old-firm no longer meets on a regular basis seems not to have an impact on the annual numbers reported. Within those numbers, again, it is grave to reflect that, by 16 years of age to 21 years of age, the numbers of women who suffer violence and domestic abuse already are in the 2000s a year, rising very quickly to 4,000 and then by 21 to 6,000 a year. At 22 to 35, we are recording six, seven and 8,000 women a year being the victims of this kind of abuse, and even at the age of 41 to 50 still in the range of 6,000 plus women a year reporting abuse. Those are, in any terms, terrible figures to reflect on. Yet, when one looks at the incidents of domestic abuse across a year, almost annually, it is as if there is a target to be met and there is a consistency of reporting, 8 per cent and 9 per cent per month reported to the police. That is not something that we should shy away from. I am pleased to say that no section of the chamber is a reflection that we should shy away from it. It is a serious issue. It is one that impacts on every family in this country, in some form or other, either within their own domestic arrangements or through some relatives or friends, and it needs to continue to be met head on. There are a number of issues that are not in this Parliament's control or in the Government's control. The fashion industry has much to contribute in changing attitudes and cultures. The objectification of women, which was mentioned earlier, is a commodity for sale. It is something that we need to address week by week, month by month. It is not old fashion to say and speak up when we see women being treated as commodities used as fashion horses. In the entertainment industry and in music, women too can be objectified to the extent that they have no real personality as an individual, a person with rights. Lapdancing, the use of photographs in our newspapers, whether illicit or commercial, all have an impact on young men's attitudes to women. I watched an episode of the X Factor only last week, where a man sang a pop record, but for some reason there was a host of women behind him who had to be dressed in swimming costumes with high heels dancing on the stage. The logic of that and the culture of that passes me by. Not to go into the internet material that has already been mentioned, revenge porn, texting and sexting. Within families, we need to ensure that there is respect for women for their own part. The access that girls have to physical education, to the development of their minds as well as their bodies, is limited within schools. That opportunity for girls to have their own space within that sports environment is very limited and needs to be addressed in order that they can understand that they have their own presence, their own power within the relationship. I welcome the changes in domestic abuse courts, but they need more resource and investment. The development of rape crisis, women's aid and women's refuge have all been a positive development. The approach of police has moved light years in the past two decades in its attitude to domestic abuse through its task force and its vulnerable persons database. I make one last mention. The Law Society of Scotland has a female president and her next president will also be female. The reason why I mentioned the Law Society is that, as a profession, it has a very huge percentage of women within their group being successful. Other professions should follow suit and I would like to see women 50% of all our professions across the country in my lifetime, not in another millennium. On Friday, I will be visiting Grampian women's aid, who are having an open day as part of the 16 days campaign. They have recently relocated to an office in my constituency, previously occupied by Home Start Aberdeen. I look forward to discussing with them the work that they do locally. Ahead of today's debate, they have advised me that they are currently working with 390 women and 250 children. That is a figure that has doubled since last year, and that they attribute to increased awareness leading to more women getting in touch. That will, I suspect, be something that is replicated in other parts of Scotland. It is an indication that the focus that the Scottish Government and the First Minister are placing on tackling the scourge of domestic abuse is having an impact on more women seeking the support and the help that they require. However, there are still barriers in the way of those women being able to make that contact. It is noted by Grampian women's aid that a high percentage of women approaching the service do not have recourse to public funds. Welfare reform has had a big impact on women who have experienced domestic abuse. Women experiencing domestic abuse face considerable barriers trying to leave an abusive partner. That includes financial abuse. Their denied access to independent income are prevented from working and are encumbered with debt. Access to financial support provided by the social security system is crucial in supporting women to be able to leave an abuser. However, the cumulative impact of reforms to the welfare system has acted to reduce many women's financial autonomy, resulting in insecurity for them and for their children. One of the other things that we have to consider is that very often the women and their children are forced to leave the home environment, although it is not secure in the sense that abuse is taking place, but they no longer have a fixed abode and often find themselves having to rely on homelessness services in order to find somewhere else to stay. Very often that can be a very difficult period for them as well. I welcome the introduction of Clare's law, both in terms of the piloting of it, which took place in Aberdeen and in Ayrshire. However, it has now rolled out across Scotland. The clear evidence from the pilot project was that that was an extremely important change to the law in supporting and protecting women who were at risk of domestic abuse from partners who had a history of abuse. Inet Milne highlighted the point about one domestic abuse incident taking place every nine minutes in Scotland. On the provisor that I figured Stuart Stevenson would probably have done it, I decided to check. That will equate to around 17 to 18 incidents of domestic abuse having taken place in Scotland throughout the duration of today's debate. That is quite a sobering analysis that more people in Scotland will have been abused during this debate than members of this Parliament will have spoken in this debate. That is something that should give us cause to reflect on that. I speak in this debate as a father, a father of a young daughter. I look at the world that we are creating and the world that we currently occupy and what lies ahead for my daughter and what I want to see change. I look at the fact that we have newspapers and magazines on the shelves of our news agents, which on the one hand will lambast the appearance of an individual of a female saying how they are carrying too much weight and how they have let their figure go. On the other hand, we will carry stories and opinion pieces that say that women who dress in a provocative fashion or carry themselves in a certain way are opening themselves up to abuse and assault. Those mixed messages are being thrown out of every outlet at women and girls in our society. I look at a society in which the people who take offence at rape jokes are somehow implied to be the ones who have a problem rather than those who think that it is okay to make jokes centred around rape and the effect that jokes around rape can have on those who have been victims of rape, who are subjected to those jokes, many of whom have not disclosed the fact that they have been raped and find themselves in an audience full of people laughing at the concept of rape. I look at a world in which—I have noted the comments by Elaine Murray about Zoom magazine, which no longer exists, where a columnist in Zoom magazine, Danny Dyer, from EastEnders, can write a column in Zoom magazine where he advises a reader that what he should do is cut his ex-girlfriend's face so that nobody else will want to date her. That kind of thing is being put out there. We are creating a society, I fear, which is becoming desensitised to those kinds of issues and not seeing them for the horrors that they are. It is as much about changing the mindset as it is about removing those things from existence. I am a supporter of the campaign to end page 3 images. I am a supporter of efforts to remove things such as the Daily Mail's sidebar of shame, where they regularly sexualise girls way under the age of consent, where they put out mixed messages on a regular basis. I am a supporter of removing those kind of jokes from regular use in comedy acts and television shows. I am a supporter of removing the idea that we should idolise singers and artists who objectify women in their lyrics. The point is that we will always find a home as long as there are people who think that way. We will always find a place and an audience if there are people who think that way. Until such time as we tackle both the subjection of those images to people in society but also the attitudes that pervade in society that assume that that is acceptable, until we tackle those things head on at the same time, we will not be able to really get to the heart of that. I welcome the approach that is being taken to legislate in those areas, but it is much about us taking a stance against those who do and say the things that we rightly should object to that will be just as important in the fight to prevent violence against women from continuing to occur. I welcome this debate to mark the international day for the elimination of violence against women and the next 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. I thank the voluntary action fund and the quality and human rights commission for their briefings. I think that it is absolutely clear that, as this debate has gone on, we have emphasised the fact that that is not a party political issue, it is one on which there is broad consensus. Christina McKelvie mentioned that this important international campaign originated from the first women's global leadership institute co-ordinated by the Centre for Women's Global Leadership in 1991. During the next 16 days, we have time to get together, to take action, to raise awareness, to end violence against women and girls around the world. This year is the 24th year of this campaign, which has involved thousands. Almost five and a half thousand organisations have been involved, policy makers, Governments, United Nations agencies and countless individuals from more than 180 countries across the globe. I am really pleased that we here in Parliament are helping to raise that awareness. The campaign has brought awareness to issues of racism, sexism, cultures of violence and homophobia. It is called for the implementation of human rights obligations, the right to health and reproductive rights and the end to militarism and gender-based violence. I welcome the specific focus of the 16 days campaign on the relationship between militarism and the right to education in situations of violent conflict, in relative peace and a variety of education settings, while continuing to make the links with militarism as an encompassing patriarchal system of discrimination and inequality based on relationships to power. It is absolutely clear that, at the moment globally, militarism is having a significant impact on the education of millions and the lack of education of millions. In a previous debate in the chamber, I noted that Kofi Annan, the former UN General Secretary, said that violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation and it is perhaps the most pervasive. As long as it continues, we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development and peace. When we hear from the voluntary action fund among others that this year in Scotland there were over 59,000 incidents of domestic abuse reported to the police and that, in 79% of those situations, women were the victims and men the perpetrators, it is clear that this form of violence is very pervasive indeed. In 1979, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. It is often described as an international bill of rights for women and its aims have never been more pertinent. It calls for the realisation of equality between women and men through ensuring that women's equal access to and equal opportunities in political and public life, including the right to vote, the right to stand for election as well as access to education, health and employment. On the right to education, there was global condemnation and revulsion at the attempted murder of Malala Ysafsai, who was targeted because, as Christina McKelvie mentioned, she was campaigning for a basic human right, the right to education for girls in her home country of Afghanistan and such has been the impact of her bravery and her campaigning, her determination that she has raised awareness of inequality and access to education across the globe. Clearly education benefits us all, but sometimes that is taken for granted, but its impacts can be transformative. When a girl in a developing country receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later, she has too fewer children. Each extra year of secondary education increases her wages by 15 to 20 per cent, so it clearly is the case that educating girls empowers girls, it helps girls become active citizens, and it helps to break the cycle of poverty that traps so many women. Improving education for girls has to be central to any strategy seeking to eliminate poverty. We know that the right to education is a basic human right, but it is not guaranteed. We can see through the dreadful situation that is being faced by refugees at the moment that education is affected by political and economic upheaval, poverty, climate change and war. We know that, globally, 38 million people are displaced within their own countries and that we have more than 16 million refugees. It is not surprising that 31 million girls are not at school, this is at primary level, they are missing out on education, 34 million girls missing out on secondary, lower secondary level education, what a loss of unfulfilled potential, opportunity and talent. It really is quite incredible that that is the situation in the 21st century, and women here too at home become trapped by violence. Mark McDonald pointed out the impact that financial circumstances can have on women and their options. They can feel trapped in an abusive situation with nowhere to escape to, and it is widely recognised that the UK Government's cuts have had a disproportionately negative impact on women. The House of Commons library research showed that, off the £14.9 billion worth of cuts to 2012, to benefits, tax credits, pay and pensions, 74 per cent of that come from women's income. It is no wonder that women feel insecure. This insecurity makes women and girls particularly vulnerable, and we will all have read this weekend, too, of the abuse of Muslim women following the appalling terrorist atrocities in Paris. Many of the incidents reported show that women who wear the hijab are receiving increased abuse and threats, and we really have to have a zero-tolerance approach to this extremely serious situation. We need to make sure that our refugees exist, that they are funded well and that housing is available for those who need it. We need to make sure that our women's agencies are fully funded. I thank those who have been involved in working for gender equality in the years past, and I look forward to working with colleagues and those agencies in the years ahead. Thank you. Thank you so much. I now call on Stuart Stevenson to be followed by June Baxter up to seven minutes. Please, Mr Stevenson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Let me first of all welcome the Government's acceptance of the Labour motion. That gives us the opportunity at five o'clock to speak from this chamber with a single voice that leaves no ambiguity as to what our shared view on this subject is. Of course, violence against women is not simply something that endangers women, it clearly does. It is something that demeans men who are the primary source of that violence. Laws, of course, are one way in which we can tackle the problem. Legislation, there are areas that we need to legislate in, and I welcome the actions of the Government to bring forward some new laws. However, the fear of prosecution by those who perpetrate violence against women is likely to be a substantially lesser influence, which will lead to change than the kind of change that we need. Gathering evidence, in particular, when much of the violence is psychological, as much as it is physical, much of the violence takes place, out of sight of witnesses, is a difficult task for the justice system to undertake, and nothing much that we can do about that will address that issue. However, the change that will make the greatest difference is not so much a legislative change, necessary as that is in certain areas, but when we find ways to change men's minds. Alison McInnes is correct that focusing on female victims feeds a reinforcement both through females seeing themselves as potential victims, but more importantly in relation to men by showing to men that females are victim, inferior, something to be dominated. I think that there are dangers in a gender-based approach to risk management from this kind of violence. Male stereotypes of women can be reinforced if we don't take very great care. Now, there are wider societal benefits from tackling male attitudes and behaviours that lead to the abuse of women and, indeed, of girls. A man who uses what he perceives as his relative power actually, in fact, demonstrating his weakness—a strong man—is a man who is able to share his power, a strong woman who is a woman who is able to share his power to stand back and let someone else of the space to be themselves. It is a weak man who has to enforce his will upon a woman to use his power to abuse women. Of course, using power to abuse women sets a pattern of behaviour among men that is likely to lead to that man also abusing people of different races, of different sexual orientation, of different faiths, of different political views, perhaps even—I have no evidence, but I instinctively feel that this could be the case—more likely to be cruel to animals, because the whole disposition, the whole mental set of people who perpetrate violence against women is likely to lead them into behaviours that go beyond that. There is a much wider benefit if we can change men's minds. The question is how do we actually change men? If we do not change men, we do not deliver very much. Firstly, and quite obviously, we have to help the next generations of men to grow up with different attitudes. I think that I see some progress in that regard. I was recently having my four-year-old goddaughter explaining to me, following a visit across the road, to explain to me how the universe started. It was a really quite good scientific explanation from a four-year-old, and she had in her mind, she asked me which comes first to chicken or the egg, and we debated that. Of course, how did the universe come into operation when there was nothing there? It was terrific that she was getting engaged in pursuits that were previously thought 20 years ago as essentially male pursuits. When I saw her just a week ago, we did a little scientific experiment involving crystals of salt being dissolved in water. We saw them disappear, then we boiled the water off, and we saw the salt reappear, and that was a little scientific experiment that we did together. I gather that she went along to nursery school two days later and explained that to all her colleagues in the nursery school. There is a wider issue about equalising our attitudes to people in our society, which are quite independent of the gender of the people. Men are today's problem. We want to challenge attitudes and beliefs, and that is extremely difficult. The psychological phenomenon that is called confirmation bias, the unconscious filtering out of information that is at odds with our established beliefs and learned behaviours, is a substantial barrier to change. If we are going to persuade people to change their attitudes and their thinking, we need to engage intensively, and a lot of it is one-to-one. We can only do that with the people whose behaviours are most severely affecting other people in society. That is a limited approach, and it is likely to be very costly. The alternative approach that we have to take is to focus on caralling and restricting those unacceptable behaviours. That means shifting wide community attitudes. I am an optimist by nature. We might see the tipping point in this in the relatively near future, similar to that that happened with drink driving. When I first started drinking and driving, it was basically just one of those things that happened. Nobody bothered about it that much. Now, in society, it is viewed in a very different way. We have to get to that position. I do not want the equality that could flow from women adopting the male behaviours that we were spending the afternoon criticising. The society that I want, I hope that we all want, is based on mutual respect, changing behaviours and a safe world for all our citizens here in this country and across the world. Tomorrow, 25 November, marks international day for the elimination of violence against women. The date was designated by a resolution of the United Nations in 1999. It might interest members to know that this was no arbitrary date plocked from the international calendar, and many women's rights groups have used this date prior to the resolution of the United Nations. For it is on this day 55 years ago that three sisters were brutally murdered for standing up to an oppressive regime in the Dominican Republic. The murder of the Mirabal sisters has become symbolic of female resistance, and in particular resistance against violence towards women. Sadly, the Mirabal sisters were not the first women murdered for standing up against an oppressive regime, nor will they be the last. We must be aware that women and men across the world are still fighting today to create gender equal societies. When we remember the price that women from all walks of life and from all corners of the globe have paid to try and deliver equality, we must also be reminded that the struggle is on-going. Today, we discussed the 16 days of activism campaign, which runs from tomorrow up until the 10th of December, human rights day. Also launched by the United Nations, the purpose of this campaign is to raise public awareness of violence against women and girls, and also to increase the political will and resources available in order to prevent and end such violence. I put it to the chamber today that we use this debate not only and very importantly to raise the issue in Parliament and discuss the topic, but also to take that step further to form a united political desire across all parties to do all that is contained within our powers to eradicate violence against women and girls. On this note, I would like to express support for the Scottish Government's equally safe Scotland strategy on preventing and eradicating all forms of violence against women and girls. However, I would like to reiterate concerns over the delay of implementation and funding of the strategy. Governmental delays of implementing the strategy of this level of importance are unacceptable, so I was pleased to hear the ministers in their opening remarks say about some progress that has been made recently. I can only hope that that momentum will be continued. The cross-party support for this strategy shows a united political front to tackling violence against women, and we cannot let bureaucracy stand in the way of such progress. There is no place for gender-based violence in 21st century Scotland, and we must work alongside all nations on earth to ensure that there is no place for gender-based violence anywhere on this planet. It is staggering that one in three women and girls globally experience some form of physical and or sexual violence at some point in their lives. This figure is not reserved to some distant notion of women living in gender repressive nations. It could be women that we encounter in our everyday lives, grandmothers, mothers and daughters. It is women beating behind closed doors by family members in their own homes. It is women harassed on the street for the way they dress. It is women assaulted at their work by the hands of their employers. It is women who receive death threats and intimidations on the internet. We still live in a world where violence against women is commonplace and campaigning against such violence will not stop until what is currently the commonplace becomes the obsolete. That is why collaborative international work with an agreed agenda is essential. I would like to express a welcome to the newly launched sustainable development agenda that has replaced the millennium development goals. In this post millennium development goals world, it is important that we do not lose sight of the original aims set out in those goals. I am glad that the new sustainable development agenda has goals for which, for the first time, it includes specific targets and indicators on ending violence against women. I would like to highlight the importance of working on the sustainable development goals as a key method of reducing inequality and, in particular, violence against women. I would like to call on the Scottish Government to consider the implementation of further legislation in order to ensure that Scotland meets all the targets that are set out in those goals. We must join up existing legislation and ensure that Scotland provides a firm legislative framework that tackles violence against women in all forms and does not allow anything to slip through the cracks. The UN resolution that I mentioned earlier agreed the international day for the elimination of violence against women, and it recognised that violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of their full advancement and that violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into subordinate positions compared with men. This historically unequal power has dissipated somewhat in many western nations over the past century and I believe that the key to this shift towards a more equal society has been driven largely through education. We are privileged in the west with enviable education facilities and one of the main problems throughout the world is a lack of access to education and in particular a lack of access to education for women and girls. That is why organisations such as The World at School, set up by the Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown, are essential to raising awareness of the challenges that many children face in obtaining education. Around 31 million girls are denied their right to education, but that cannot continue to go on. It is no surprise then that this year, 16 days of activism campaigners have called for not only an end to gender-based violence but also an end to violations of the right to an education. We must also be aware that, although poor access to education for women helps to drive inequality, it is also poor education to men that helps to reinforce patriarchal notions of male superiority over women. It is essential that men are challenged and educated around the globe on their attitudes and treatment of women. We must challenge stigmatisation where it is evident and we must work with societies and cultures from every walk of life in order to broaden horizons and challenge concepts of male dominance. The issue of violence towards women is not unique to any one nature or culture. Differing attitudes to varying degrees are prevalent in every nation on earth and the tackling of this violation of human rights requires a global solution. I am proud today to speak in support of the 16 days of activism campaign. Since its inception in 1991, it has seen involvement from around 5,500 organisations, policy makers, UN agencies and countless individuals from over 180 countries. I appreciate the symbolism of connecting both international day for the elimination of violence against women with human rights day. We must all be aware that any violence towards women is not just a women's issue, it is a violation of human rights. It is shameful that we must still campaign on violence against women in 2015 and I have utmost respect for the dedication of campaigners working tirelessly to put an end to such violence. I would also like to express solidarity to every woman and man who is working to challenge the status quo and push for a gender equal world where violence to women is no longer an issue. Thank you very much. I now call on Joan McAlpine after which we will move to closing speeches. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I, too, am pleased to speak in this afternoon's debate after so many serious and affecting contributions from right across the chamber. I would like to start with a quote from article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, penned in 1948. It says that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. On paper, men and women stand equal in terms of rights, however, nearly 70 years on from UDHR and 20 years on from the fourth world conference on women in Beijing, where Hillary Clinton gave her famous women's rights her human rights speech. It is clear that the reality on the ground does not match the rhetoric. It can be easy to think of this as a problem for developing countries, but this is true across the globe. Some of the figures close to home are stark. For example, domestic abuse is still a huge problem here in Scotland, affecting an estimated one in six women in our society. Last year, nearly 60,000 incidents of domestic abuse were reported to Police Scotland. That is one incident recorded every 10 minutes. What we must bear in mind is that, most likely, those are conservative figures as many domestic violence incidents go unreported. The importance of eradicating violence against women is summed up by UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon, who says that violence against women continues to persist as one of the most heinous, systematic and prevalent human rights abuses in the world. It is a threat to all women and an obstacle to all our efforts for development, peace and gender equality in all societies. One lies at the heart of violence against women in all societies is gender inequality. Systematic exclusion from all levels of decision-making process has led to the continuing subordination of women as a consequence of stereotypes and traditional practices. In order to eradicate violence against women, we must first eradicate this inequality, as others have said. I am proud that the work that the Scottish Government is doing is aimed at tackling all forms of violence against women and to affect systemic change that will overcome historic inequalities. For example, as has already been mentioned, equally safe is the strategy that the Government aims to provide a framework to create a Scotland where women feel safe and equal. That strategy recognises that men and boys also experience violence, but it aims to highlight that simply being female can lead to discrimination and disadvantage. As others have said, the framework encompasses a full spectrum of violence against women and girls, including domestic abuse, rape, commercial sexual exploitation, female genital mutilation, NHS, local authorities and the criminal justice system are all called upon to align their work with the goal of creating a country where women live free from violence and the attitudes that perpetuate it. The review of the justice system brought about under the strategy has led to reform of the law relating to sexual offences through the abusive behaviour and sexual harm bill. My view is that the legislation will be very important as it strengthens the power of police and courts to take action against perpetrators of abuse, harassment and sexual offences, but it also creates a specific offence that allows us to tackle the rise of so-called revenge porn. The Government has also announced that £20 million will be invested in a range of measures to tackle gender-based violence, with £2.4 million allocated to the court service to ensure that domestic violence cases are heard more quickly, and £1.85 million to Rape Crisis Scotland, which is particularly welcome as it allows them to expand their advocacy services over the next three years. The funding will see rape crisis services in Orkney and Shetland for the first time, which highlights that the issue affects women in every corner of the country. Rural areas have historically not been afforded the same access to services as those living in the more urban parts of the country, but patriarchal culture exists in every community and it can make it difficult for women to speak out and report incidents of violence because of fear of repercussion. If we are to tackle this issue across society, we require long-term social, cultural and attitudinal change measures taken by the Government such as appointing a gender-based cabinet, expanding childcare and campaigning for gender equality on the boardroom will all contribute to this change in attitude. I would also like to repeat Alison Johnstone's point that violence against women is also economic violence and that it is worth repeating that the welfare reforms are having such a disproportionate effect on women, something that will be debated in Parliament this week when we consider the welfare reform committee's report on the topic. The Fawcett society has reported that 74 per cent of the money saved from benefit and tax changes since 2010 has fallen on women. Globally, the economic crisis that began in 2008 has devastating consequences for women as, during times of economic pressures, more women and girls, particularly in our country but also in low-income countries, are likely to suffer from obviously less work. In developing countries, they are more likely to be taken out of school. They are the first to lose out when there is less food for the family, they are the first to lose out in terms of medicine and often they can be placed in such precarious position that they enter into prostitution, which of course puts them at more risk of violence and exploitation. It is worth remembering that the millennium development goals are behind because of the global recession and the millennium development goals were particularly important for women and that is why I particularly appreciate the global aspect of this debate today on violence against women. Can I, on behalf of my party, very much welcome the consensual tone in the chamber today? I would also like to acknowledge the work that the Government is doing, whether they are doing it fast enough or whatever, that is another story, but I do very much welcome the progress that is being made and will be made. There have been too many good speeches to mention today, but I did feel that Elaine Murray, Christine Gaim and Malcolm Chisholm made excellent contribution, but I would like to make a special mention for Alison MacKinnon, who deservedly won an award at the politician of the year last week. Well done, Alison. We are all very proud of you. Members of all parties clearly recognise that, although significant progress has been made to overcome the scourge of violence against women, we still have a way to go. We can all agree on that. However, as others have said, violence against women manifests itself in many different ways—physical, sexual, psychological, as Christine Gaim mentioned, cyber abuse becoming more common, stalking, sexual harassment and intimidation, as well as forced marriage and honour-based violence. The impact of domestic abuse on domestic violence reaches far beyond the confines of the home. The 16 Days of Action campaign, which begins this week, has some startling statistics about how domestic violence affects women in the workplace. With 58 per cent of women missing at least three days of work a month, 56 per cent of abused women arriving late for work five times a month and 96 per cent of domestic abuse survivors saying that their abuse has affected their ability to work. I know that money does not come into it, but the figures given by the campaign is that domestic violence costs UK business around £2 billion a year in absenteeism, turnover and lost productivity. However, something so complex requires a multifaceted and co-ordinated response from lawmakers—those in the front line, the third sector, other individuals and agencies. Their combined efforts have helped victims to deal with the fallout of the violence that they have been subjected to, making sure that those women are not defined by their ordeals and that the perpetrators feel the full force of the law. However, we can all try to be vigilant in the workplace and elsewhere. We can all try to recognise the signs of abuse and to offer that much-needed support, whether the victims are male or female. As we improve ways of detecting and dealing with domestic abuse, I am pleased that the focus is increasingly shifting to prevention. Several speakers have mentioned Claire's law, giving members of the public the right to ask the police where they suspect their partner could pose a risk to their safety and often that of their children. As the net mill mentioned, the pilots in Aberdeenshire and Ayrshire. However, we also need to be mindful that, while 79 per cent of incidents of domestic abuse had a female victim and a male perpetrator last year, 18 per cent of victims were male, an increase of 11 per cent in the last decade, and, according to the 16 days of action campaign, 25 per cent of women and 16 per cent of men will experience domestic abuse during their adult lifetimes. I found that quite a startling statistic. We should also acknowledge that domestic violence against women and men should also be acknowledged in same-sex couples. In the last year alone, 7 per cent of women and 5 per cent of men have experienced domestic violence, with very deeply worrying statistics. As Graham Pearson said, many people are reluctant to come forward. I do think that that's changing, and I do remember the days when the police were called and it's just a domestic, and they didn't sort it out yourselves. Unfortunately, that led to the behaviour continuing, but I do think that there are many more people out there suffering in silence and maybe just being almost too loyal for their own good. I did mention the figures. I picked up this booklet as I came into the chamber. It's the Scottish Government's statistics. I have to say that I was shocked and I did raise it when the minister spoke that out of the recorded incidents of domestic abuse recorded by the police per 100,000 of population, the Scottish average is 1,120, but we have areas like Dundee with 1703, 700 above the Scottish average, and other areas such as I think at Mark Sterling, about half that amount at 857. I'm just saying that where there is a particular problem, I would hope that the Government going forward would ensure that they can understand why and perhaps work with the agencies and ensure that resources are allocated accordingly. The worrying statistics on domestic abuse public last month by Police Scotland showed that while the number of people reporting incidents is on the rise, only 54 per cent of those incidents recorded by the police resulted in a prosecution last year. My final point, Presiding Officer, I really wanted to pick up on what Stuart Stevenson was saying and I would like to thank Stuart for saying that because I think we're rightly, absolutely rightly, focus on the victims, but unless we get the perpetrators to address their unacceptable, heinious behaviour, unless we can do that, there is simply going to be a repetition of that crime. I welcome the fact that Stuart Stevenson raised that issue because the victims need help, but the perpetrators need help also. As Stuart Stevenson said, the alternative to not helping them is to accept that they will simply go on repeating their violence. I welcome this debate and I believe that it was a very good debate. I believe that there is general agreement that violence against women is caused by gender inequality and imbalance of power leading to an abusive power. Violence against women takes many forms by individuals. It can be psychological, coercive control, financial control, isolation leading to control of movement and indeed physical violence. However, it's societal as well, the modification of women, the exploitation of women and indeed the portrayal of women. Graham Pearson mentioned X Factor, a family programme, but influencing the attitudes of young men towards women. Gendered attitudes are ingrained early on. Fiona McLeod talked about dummies for young baby boys and baby girls, but I think that we've all had difficulty when we go and look for things to buy for young girls and young boys. We find that they're gendered at a very early age and I think that this doesn't help gender inequality. The statistics are horrifying and more so when you take into account that physical violence is often the very tip of the iceberg. Emotional control and the like is much more prevalent and much more difficult to quantify and indeed to prosecute. If we want to eliminate violence against women, we need true equality. Equality in pay, equality in the home and equality in every walk of life, because if there is no power imbalance, power cannot be abused. A number of men, Stuart Stevenson, Graham Pearson, talked about men being the perpetrators of violence against women and I think that that is right. We need to tackle the attitudes of men and men towards women in schools. Many speakers talked about relationship education being inadequate and young people getting their sex education from pornography. They're not learning, as Elaine Murray said, about respect and consent in sex education. I recommend to people the times valley police video comparing consent to a cup of tea. I think that it's really powerful and brings home a lot of those views. That's available on Facebook. It's probably popping up in a Facebook close to everybody. Watch it and indeed recommend it to schools and young people that you're speaking to. Alison MacKinnon talked about the rules for girls and the societal attitudes that blame women for violence against them. Blame them for their behaviour, blame them for their alcohol intake and indeed try to teach them how to avoid being attacked rather than dealing with the attackers. Our society talks about women's dress all the time. We've had talk about women being dressed in miniskirts but we've also had talk about women wearing a hijab. Every form of dress that a woman wears seems to be open for criticism and debate while we don't get the same from men. That is not an excuse to abuse women. Annette Milne talked about the girl guides attitude survey, as did Fiona McLeod. I think that that is really frightening when you listen to some of the attitudes, not only being expressed by young men but also by young women. It really strikes me that this is a new phenomena and it tells us that every generation, indeed every culture, finds a new and imaginative way to control women and especially their sexuality. That's something we have to be careful about because year on year we debate violence against women but we have to be aware that year on year there are new ways of being violent towards women and we need to attack them as well as the historic causes. Many speakers said that violence against women is not a women's problem. Indeed, it is a problem with men and we need to tackle that with men. We need to teach them how to behave. We need to teach them respect, consent and indeed we need to teach them equality and I think that that is really important. Presiding Officer, Scottish Labour supports the Scottish Government and Causeless Equally Safe Strategy. It is right that we are debating it at this time and we want to re-emphasise that unity. However, it will be remiss in this debate not to raise some of the concerns that we have about the implementation of the strategy. We have real concerns about the delay in implementing the funding of the strategy. Voluntary organisations and indeed some of the statutory organisations need to know where their funding is coming from. They need to know about the leadership of the strategy and the funding of the strategy. They need security to know that they are supported and will continue to be supported because last year Scottish women's aid groups were only given their funding allocations a couple of weeks before the end of the financial year. That is not right because people fighting violence against women should be allowed to focus on the work that they are doing rather than on their jobs. That is a case with tendering, as Malcolm Chisholm mentioned. It is not appropriate that support for people suffering violence against women is put out to tender because it is not only based on the service, it is also based on the ethos of the organisations that give that service, their knowledge and understanding of the issues. The same with the joint strategic board, Elaine Murray talked about the delay in setting it up. Indeed, a whole 17 months after the publication of Equally Safe, why was there a delay in setting up the joint strategic board? What is the new date for an interim report? If they have to decide where the funding priorities lie, we need that sooner rather than later. Can I make a plea about an issue that has not been touched on on debate? That is the issue of contact. Contact is often used by an abusive partner to continue the abuse, to grill children for information about where they live and to continue to pester and abuse their partner. They also cancel and change arrangements in order to continue to exercise that control over their ex-partner. Other countries recognise the damage that that does to the children. Can we address that and make sure that the courts do not give access until they are convinced that it will not be used to continue the abuse? We also need a quick and easy means to suspend access where abuse occurs, giving time for that to be investigated before revoking the access. Too often I hear from others having to put their children to stay with fathers who continue to abuse them. Indeed, in some cases, abuse the children and they are powerless to prevent that because they would be subject to contempt of court if they did. There is a horrendous situation for someone to find themselves in and we really must address it and address it quickly. We would like to see comprehensive implementation of Equally Safe and new laws to tackle all forms of violence against women. The Scottish Government introduced a lot of legislation and we have talked about that today. Legislation around FGM, forced marriage, lab dancing and the Trafficking Bill, which was brought forward initially by Jenny Marra, but unfortunately that did not deal with the demand for sexual exploitation and I think that is something that the Government needs to tackle and need to come forward and address. The main bill surrounding Equally Safe is the abusive behaviour and sexual harm bill and it has been watered down and is very much limited to revenge porn, which is worthy, but it is not the comprehensive bill that we are promised. They talked about going out again to consultation about coercive control. We need to know when that consultation will take place and indeed when a bill will be brought forward because I think that that is really important in dealing with domestic abuse. I believe that the whole Parliament can unite around Equally Safe. We think that it is only right that we point out our disappointment in the delay in its implementation. Delays in setting up the joint strategic board to implement the funding and the implementation of Equally Safe and any meaningful legislation coming forward. Voluntary organisations and many of them need to know where their funding is coming from and indeed the direction of travel. The Scottish Government has our full support in implementing Equally Safe. We simply ask them to give it priority. Thank you very much. I will now call on the minister, Mark Beatch, to wind up the debate. Minister, till 5 o'clock we are there by. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is a privilege to add my voice to the many other voices that have today united in the condemnation of violence against women. I do so in the full awareness and indeed caution that that is a voice that is an octave or so lower than many, though not all, of the voices that have preceded it. On an issue that is so interlinked with the fundamental inequalities between genders, it is easy to feel a moment's hesitation. As a man speaking on this issue, do I just disempower women further? I think that we have heard here and I hope that all would agree that men have a critical role in this. Just as everybody has to be empowered to speak up, men have to be encouraged to speak out, to challenge the unacceptable attitudes and behaviours of other men. All men have mothers or sisters or nieces or other female relatives, but it would be a stark society where respect for women only came because of family. I would just ask, is our common humanity not enough? The respect for other human beings that says that this is violence and cruelty and it is unacceptable. This Scottish Government wants to see all lives free of violence and discrimination, whether that is the life of someone here in Scotland or one of the 35 per cent of women and girls who experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime across the world. Tomorrow is the international day for the elimination of violence against women, and it has had an international flavour in the debate today. Malcolm Chisholm, for example, cited the Istanbul convention. It would be for the UK Government to be the state party to that, but we certainly believe that it sets a standard in international consideration of those issues. However, here in Scotland, and as a minister of our Government here in Scotland, I am proud of our record thus far on challenging and tackling violence against women. Funding is called for in Labour's amendment, and I am very glad to say that we have a strong record on this already. 11.8 million pounds in 2015-16, a further 20 million pounds announced by the First Minister in March. Some of the things that that pays for, specific support for children, as highlighted as an issue by Clare Adamson, but strategic funding to Scottish Women's Aid in Rape Crisis Scotland, 14 rape crisis centres, new service in Orkney and Shetland, specialist advocacy, work with LGBT in ethnic minority communities and national helpline, a network of almost 2,000 young mentors in secondary schools, a specialised domestic abuse court, training for NHS staff to spot abuse, a £3 million fund for local projects and Scottish Refugee Council work on female genital mutilation and much, much more. There is a record that we as a country can be proud of in taking action on this. Not on that last point on female genital mutilation, I would want to pay tribute to the Equal Opportunities Committee's work on this that was highlighted by Margaret McCulloch. Early in 2016, the multi-agency team we have will publish an action plan on this topic. It is part of the equally safe plan to take forward the nine recommendations that were made in tackling FGM in the UK report. That is an important point to say about equally safe, because it is a new strategy, but it builds on work that has been on-going. I draw distinction between the governance of equally safe and meetings that that involves and action that is being delivered. There are four work streams on this. Malcolm Chisholm mentioned capacity and capability, recognising the work that it does, but we should also recognise that that work stream emerged from an existing group of the Scottish Joint Council. However, when you are looking at the four work streams, the one that everybody was talking about was the prevent area. That met in October. It is made up of many of the groups that are working in this field. It is about tackling the attitudes in society and finding ways to turn around some of the things that have been highlighted. The sexualised images of women jumping off every supermarket shelf that was Eileen Murray quoting Cara Hilton, or, as Graham Pearson summed it up, women as commodities, as fashion horses. That seems to me to be a very eloquent way of summing it up. I have to, on the issue of cultural representations, thank Fiona McLeod, because she has given me an excuse to link two of my favourite things in the world, equal rights and science fiction. She highlighted the Hunger Games as one cultural representation, sci-fi is as good an example as any, and in this one it is particularly good, because the actress Jennifer Lawrence is an A-lister who does not mince words with the media about the people who mentioned her weight. If Fiona McLeod was encouraged by the adverts beforehand, I could tell her stories about the time I went to see Mamma Mia and the adverts were making very broad generalisations and assumptions about who would be in the audience. It is important that representations like that can turn around, because the skewed demographic of that kind of film is itself a manifestation of the pink for girls, blue for boys syndrome that we want to get away from. If you are a young person who, as Eileen Murray pointed out, is at risk of using pornography as your first contact with sexual issues, it underscores the need for wider action, the work that is happening to update and improve our RSHPE in schools. Alison McInnes also pointed out the wider societal issue of the language that follows incidents. I have a message for the perpetrators of those. Violence against women is unacceptable in an argument. It is unacceptable based on dress, on those justifications that we heard about and that some people have about children. It is unacceptable on the meadows at night. It is just unacceptable. That should not need to be said that we live in a society where it needs to be said itself says a lot, but, fortunately, we are in a chamber where it only needs to be said to mark a point. No one in here, in this assembly of the nation's legislatures, would say anything else. So, like Fiona McLeod, I take from this debate an optimism that what we have as a debate here is not what the problem is but how we can best eradicate it. That is a good place to be in to deliver change. Our debate closes as 16 days of activity begin and there are countless organisations up and down this country championing and supporting the programme of work. All of them deserve our recognition and our thanks, and I think that across the chamber today we have expressed that. Organisations such as Scottish Women's Aid and Rape Crisis Scotland are making a huge difference to challenging violence and driving the agenda. Across Scotland, local women's aids and rape crisis centres are making a real difference to women and children at risk of or experiencing violence and abuse. Zero tolerance is making a real contribution to tackling the outdated attitudes and gender stereotypes. Bodies such as in gender and close the gap are helping to advance gender equality in Scotland every hour of every day. I have been impressed by how often the research by girl guiding Scotland has been quoted informing the debate in a way that is incredibly helpful for all of us. We are trying as a government to show strong leadership, matching that with record levels of funding and strengthening the law, but we are working in partnership. Since the First Minister's election just over a year ago, we have seen a narrative of increased sophistication. As my minister said earlier, the prevention and eradication of violence against women and girls is at the heart of her personal and political agenda. We also have to be progressive in tackling gender inequality. The fact is that women do not enjoy equality to men in today's society. Eliminating the gender pay gap, ending segregation and employment, encouraging more women into senior positions and through partnership for change, encouraging 50-50 gender balance on boards by 2020. I am engaging with local government on the on-going scandal of equal pay, highlighted so ably by Christina McKelvie, 47 years on from Dagonham and 45 years on from the Equal Pay Act. We are also increasing opportunities for political representation. We have a gender balance cabinet, one of a few countries to have done so. All of those areas make a significant contribution to the equally safe objectives around primary prevention, which, as I said before, is what every single speaker seems to have put at the heart of their contribution. That approach is always going to be underpinned by a gender analysis, one that has drawn favourable comment internationally and has placed Scotland as a leader in this area. The commitment of this Government is strong and enduring, and today we have also repeated the message of the Parliament with one voice that we must ensure that women and girls in Scotland are free from violence and work together to achieve that. Thank you, minister. That concludes the debate on violence against women's 16 days of activism. There are two questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first question is amendment 14930.1, in the name of Elaine Murray, which seeks to amend motion 14930 in the name of Margaret Burgess, on violence against women, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The amendment is therefore agreed to. The next question is at motion 14930, in the name of Margaret Burgess, as amended. On violence against women be agreed to, are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. That concludes decision time. We are now moving to members' business.