 Yn y cyfnod, yr ydych chi yn ymwneud o'r ddafod o 121469 diwrnod Siobhan Brown o 16 ddau ddigonfaenol a'r diwrnod o'r ddweud o gwneud, mae'n gweithio'n gweithio'n ddafod i'n meddwl i'r ddweud i'n gweithio'n ddweud, oedd ymdwneud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud, oedd mae'n gweithio'n ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud, oedd I will be enforced vigorously and I call on Siobhan Brown to speak to you and move the motion Minister up to 11 minutes please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. During the annual 16 days of activism against gender-based violence campaign, individuals and organisations worldwide call for the prevention and the elimination of violence against women and girls. I'm proud that this Parliament remains an active part of that worldwide call, but we should all be saddened that this is necessary in 2023. Whilst I welcome Scotland's and this Parliament's recognition of the 16 days campaign and a debate where this Parliament can unite in calling for continued action to tackle violence against women and girls, it is shocking that we still need to address this devastating issue and its harms to individuals and our society. No matter how far we have come as a society, there is still so much prevalence of abuse and violence against half of our population. Violence against women has a profound impact on women's and girls' lives with detriments to health, wellbeing, financial stability, the fulfilment of potential and ultimately for gender equality. Each year the 16 days campaign focuses on a specific theme. Scottish partners agreed the theme, Imagine a Scotland without violence against women. It is that vision that is at the heart of Equally Safe, Scotland's strategy to prevent and eradicate violence against women. Co-owned between the Scottish Government and COSLA, it sets out a vision of a strong and flourishing country where all individuals are equally safe and respected and where women and girls live free from all forms of violence and abuse and the attitudes that help to perpetuate it. I'm really pleased to see Councillor Maureen Chalmers, the COSLA community wellbeing spokesperson, and my co-chair on the Equally Safe Joint Strategic Board in the gallery today, and I know that we will all welcome her. Councillor Chalmers' presence reminds us of the necessity for visible leadership across all spheres of government and our institutions to address violence against women and girls and that leadership and action is absolutely necessary as we all know. The Equally Safe strategy provides a framework for action to prevent and eradicate all forms of violence against women and girls and over the past year we have worked with Councillor Chalmers and our Joint Strategic Board to gather views on how the strategy could be strengthened and reinvigorated as part of a refresh of this important strategy. Engagement with our partners across the sector provided an opportunity for us to reflect on recent societal changes and understand the key issues that we must address in order to prevent and eradicate violence against women and girls. I am grateful to everyone who has generously shared their experience to help create a strategy that we can look to with pride for its ambition. I want to recognise those who have worked in the specialist support organisations who have amassed a wealth of experience from supporting victim survivors over many years. Their insight and wisdom are valued by all of us and we will continue to work with these stakeholders as we develop our policy responses across the entirety of government. The strategy will be launched next week and it's not an end to itself but a continuation of our focus and practical work. We need to make progress advancing women's equality in a range of spaces, economic, civic, social and cultural. Presiding Officer, whilst there has been significant progress in policy and practices and responses to violence against women and there are more people who will call out behaviour in action we all know that women's lives continue to be constrained by the threat and experience of rape and sexual abuse, domestic abuse, stalking, sexual harassment and other forms of violence. Presiding Officer, women and girls still continue to feel that it is up to us to modify our behaviour in order to keep safe as we all know it's the men and it is predominantly and overwhelmingly men that carry out the violence, harassment and abuse and that to tackle and to end the violence it is the men that not just need to modify but to fully change their behaviour and attitudes. It is those responsible for their actions not the victims or those that are threatened who need to change and it's society who needs to change the systemic inequalities that can underpin that behaviour. It is women's inequality is both a cause and consequence of violence against women. Gender stereotypes and norms continue to limit women's access to opportunities to the labour market and economic resources which affects levels of economic independence. Eradicating violence against women will require us to tackle entrenched gender inequalities. That is why our refreshed equally safe strategy is placing even greater emphasis on primary prevention to help stop violence against women and girls before it occurs by tackling the root cause of the problem, gender inequality. This means focusing on the structures, systems, policies and assumptions that we all live within. It also means understanding the issue through data and that is why further work on supporting data is being progressed through the domestic abuse justice round-table process. Extensive engagement over the past year with a wide range of stakeholders in the public and the third sectors have told us just how important this is. Equally safe is the anchor for our approach which emphasises the importance of primary prevention of violence by tackling women's inequality, building the capability and capacity of mainstream and specialist services and ensuring a robust justice response to supporting survivors and holding the perpetrators to account for their actions and their choices. We also recognise how important it is to educate children and young people and challenge outdated stereotypes. We continue to take forward a range of actions in schools to address gender-based violence and sexual harassment. Rape Christ Scotland provides a national sexual violence prevention programme to all local authorities' secondary schools across Scotland. Our mentors in the violence prevention Scotland programme is working to tackle gender stereotyping and attitudes that condone violence against women and girls. As part of the equally safe refresh, we heard concerns relating to online and technology-enabled violence against women. While everyone recognises the positive benefits of digital communication, I recognise that it offers additional tools and channels for perpetrators to abuse. Our ever-growing reliance on social platforms can exacerbate the dangers that we're already familiar with. In response to these online dangers, we are progressing the development of evidence briefings on technology-facilitated violence against women and girls to inform our policy development. Furthermore, we are providing funding to organisations such as South West Grid for Learning Trust Ltd to raise awareness and understanding of intimate image abuse and to facilitate the delivery of practical support for people that are affected by it. We've also been told of concerns about the negative influence of pornography and of the need to work collaboratively to consider how this is driving the societal issues that lead to violence against women and girls. The refresh of Equally Safe enables us to adapt to these changes in the social and legislative landscape without altering the strategy's valued aims and projectives. Public policy can also be a powerful tool for creating a context that is hostile to violence against women and girls. That is why the Equally Safe in practice training modules on gender equality and violence against women are now available to Scottish Government civil servants. The modules were developed by Scottish Women's Aid and offer valuable insights to help officials, create policies and acknowledge the impact of violence against women on the lives of women and girls. In addition, Engender has been funded to explore primary prevention policy approaches and created a toolkit to enable policy makers to embed primary prevention in policy making. I have met survivors and many working with survivors. They have told me about the harms caused to individuals, their families and their communities, the challenges to get support, to be heard and being taken seriously. They have told me how the perpetrators continue to use systems and services to abuse. They have told us about the challenges they face as a result of the cost of living crisis. Black and minority ethnic women have explained about the specific challenges they face to get their voice heard and the need to better understand the violence and abuse they experience. It is within this context that the Scottish Government, alongside our partners in COSLA, will take forward a consideration of the funding and procurement recommendations of the independent strategic review of funding and commissioning of violence against women and girls services. We are committed to working with partners to ensure the sustainability of funding and a project board of key public sector and specialist stakeholders is being formed to oversee this work. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the chair and the advisory group for the breadth of work undertaken. 16 days is an opportunity to highlight the blight of violence against women and girls, but it is 365 days a year, each and every day and every year. It needs sustained action to address it. We must seek opportunities to work collaboratively and constructively wherever possible. We must continue working together with partners, with organisations, with society to stamp out violence and misogyny wherever we see it. It is vital that we keep our eyes on the prize of ending men's violence against women and girls. We must move forward with a shared understanding of the underlying causes and therefore what needs to change to end violence for good and ensure that the equally safe strategic approach continues to deliver the galvanising focus that it has had to date. In the gender recently noted that women who have experienced abuse found it, and I quote, difficult to imagine a world without abuse, and they lacked hope that prevention of men's abuse of women is possible. Isn't that depressing in the document of our society? However, as difficult it is, I do imagine a world where women and girls are free from violence from men, and I know that we all have the role to play in challenging everyday sexism, the systems, cultures and norms that perpetuate violence against women and girls. Let us continue to do that today and for the rest of 16 days and every day. Thank you, Presiding Officer. You need to move the motion. I move the motion, Presiding Officer. Thank you, Mr... I have warned the Chamber that there is no time in hand and the chair will intervene. So your peroration should start before the end of your speech, at the point at which you should have concluded it. I now call Sharon Dowie. Up to seven minutes, please, Ms Dowie. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'm pleased to open this debate for my party and I welcome the Parliament taking the chance to discuss this crucial issue during the international 16 days of activism against gender-based violence campaign. As the minister has noted, this year's theme is to imagine a Scotland without gender-based violence. The sad fact is we can only imagine that. We cannot see it at the moment and it is not anywhere close to reality. Violence against women is everywhere. It is ingrained into society. In a recent survey by NASUWT, the teachers union, finding revealed that while male teachers experience more threats of physical violence or abuse, women experience more actual physical violence and the frequency is substantially higher. This is not acceptable and we must take action to stop this increasing violence and abuse in our schools. The police record more than 170 incidents of domestic abuse every single day in Scotland. Almost 65,000 instances of domestic abuse were recorded in 2021-22. Attacks and abuse are common, not rare for women, and this needs to change. The Government motion today is right that we need a radical social change to prevent this violence. We agree with the motion and that there is a need for a system-wide approach. We support the motion's demand for collective responsibility for everyone in Scotland to take an active role in preventing violence against women. That being said, we do feel the Government can and should lead the way. It could make changes to the justice system so that it does a better job in preventing harm. We have also put forward a suggestion to improve it. My colleague Pam Goswell MSP has proposed a Domestic Abuse Prevention Bill that would make Scotland a world leader in tackling domestic abuse if enacted. There are many changes that could be made to the justice system to stop violence against women from occurring in the first place. We hope that the Government will take the spirit of their motion today forward and fully consider accepting and introducing the proposal. However, this is not only prevention where the Government can make a difference. When violence does occur, the system needs to be improved so that there are effective deterrents for future offences. So many acts of violence against women are repeat offences and more than half of all domestic abuse crimes fall into that category. We need to focus on changing women's behaviour to prevent further attacks on women. If there is no time and my speech is full, sorry for his points I want to make, if offenders believe the police don't have the resources to monitor or pursue them, that won't help women. If they think the punishments for crimes are fairly soft, that won't help women. What will help women is making sure they are supported on the road to justice. As it stands, the system often feels to victims and survivors as if it's working against them. Women feel that the system lets violent men continue to harass them in a number of different ways. They feel the court process and its aftermath can be exploited by violent and sexual offenders. I'm sure every single MSP will be able to say a constituent who contacted them because a violent man will not leave them or their family alone. Let me raise one family I've been working with since I was elected. As per their wishes, I've protected their anonymity. This family has been plagued by a violent man for years. Two years ago, in the same debate, I spoke about the experiences they had faced. To our shame, their troubles are on-going. From 2005 onwards, this man terrorised multiple families, including three of his own children. He has abused and assaulted mothers. He has abducted a child, but he received no jail time. His punishment was barely a slap in the wrist. He threw children along hallways, grabbed them by the throat and hair, dragged them upstairs by the ears. He was charged with six counts of child abuse, but was released on bail. He received non-contact orders, but quickly broke them, first as he had broken every non-contact order placed on him for over 15 years. So the family was forced to flee their home. Finally, it seemed that this woman and her family might be free of this individual, until she saw a divorce. This violent man decided to contest the divorce, but not only that, he now wants to access one of the children. This young child has recovered brilliantly from the hell that she was put through. Her family say that she thrives at school with glowing reports. She has little to no memory of this horrible man, but now he's trying to force himself back into this child and her mother's life. He's using the court system to try and gain access to her, forcing the family to relive the traumatic events to justify why he should not have any access. Despite the fact that this man played guilty to child abuse, despite the fact that he's been documented to have hit this little girl and her siblings, why is he allowed to get away with continuing to traumatise this girl, her mother and this family? Why is he not prevented from contesting the divorce in the first place? Why is there not an immediate block on his attempts to see his child? There is no good reason why this man should be allowed to continue harassing this family. He must be forced to leave them alone to allow them to move on. He shouldn't have the right to continue dragging them back to relive what he did. The Government may argue that everyone has rights and the legal processes have to be respected, but until the Government steps in to make changes that stop violent men like this from continuing to abuse women, what will happen? The same crimes, the same violence, the same abuse will happen year after year to women. We can keep coming to this Parliament and talking about it and that's welcome, but at some stage the reality needs to dawn on this Parliament that they need to act. It is 16 days of action not talking that we need. To conclude, anyone committing violence against women needs to be apprehended, brought to justice and punished. They need to be stopped in their tracks, not allowed to keep attacking, abusing and traumatising women. Only then will we see the change in society that women deserve. Imagine a Scotland without gender-based violence in need, as the motion says, and imagine a world without violence against women and girls. Scottish Labour are pleased to join with the Government today and support the motion. Sadly, sexual crimes in Scotland have increased by 8 per cent in the last four years and one woman is killed by her partner or ex-partner every six weeks. It is still the case that a quarter of women and girls in Scotland will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. We are indeed further away from our goals, unfortunately not nearer. It is clear that we need a significant shift in social and cultural norms as well as a legal reform framework, and it is clear that our work begins with talking to boys in school settings and if we are going to have any chance of breaking the cycle. I look forward to the refresh of the Equally Safe. We will get a chance to debate that next week. The last week, Scottish Labour launched its own report on how to tackle violence against women and girls. During our year consultation, which we conducted, we heard how prevalent misogyny is in our society, not surprisingly. We heard from some amazing women and organisations and I sincerely want to thank them for their involvement. We would also like to do on record our thanks to Scottish Government officials for attending our rentable discussions. I will not be a shock to any women to find that the report found that the justice system continues to fail women that more needs to be done to invest and diversify far-reaching services that support women and girls affected by sexual harassment and abuse. Educating boys and young men is key to long-term change. Getting men involved in our conversations from our young ages one way so that we can start to make serious steps towards tackling the epidemic of male violence. For too long, as ministers have already said, the onus has been placed on women and girls to regulate their behaviour to accommodate boys and men. Shannon Dewey referenced the report by the NSUWT, so I will not go over the points that Shannon has already made, but suffice to say that compared to male teachers, I am not in any way downplaying the extreme violence in our schools towards male teachers. The violence experienced by women in the last 12 months alone, one in five teachers, women teachers reported being hit or punched by pupils, some have been spat at or headbutted. Meanwhile, we have 64 per cent of girls and young women reporting that they have been sexually harassed at school over the last year. The online environment plays a huge part in teaching boys that this behaviour is okay, as we have discussed in these debates many times with social media influencers who use platforms to spread misogyny paving the way for a growing culture, a rape culture. It is precisely why we need a comprehensive cross-campus strategy, which includes lessons to educate boys and young men in the links between gender stereotypes and violence. How many more discussions can we have on women talking to women? We need more male role models to step up and challenge other men when they witness women and girls being harassed and abused, and it also applies to online environments in everyday life. As we know, it is also a global fight, and as the minister says, a UN day of action that seems to kick off 16 days of action is to invest to prevent violence against women and girls, and the need for prevention is increasingly clear. Human trafficking, female genital mutilation, child marriage, ruining the lives of hundreds of millions of girls across the world. Child marriage, for example, is rooted in gender inequality. It limits access to women and girls' health and education and their political participation. It limits the amount of control that they have over their own bodies and it increases their risk to gender-based violence. But these problems are happening here at home in our communities. One of the most striking cases in Scotland is that it's highest in Shregers began that 72 per cent of all trafficking victims are women and girls, often trafficked for sexual exploitation. In trying to address the issue, we're facing criminal gangs running in a global scale, and in 2023, a large number of these women trafficked to Scotland are found to be Albanian or Vietnamese, sometimes being held in a network spanning the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. I was told last week that police federation reception by one police officer that was an incident, not uncommon, where one person in London was directing men to residential properties in around Glasgow. In fact, some of the call centres have been operated in Glasgow itself. Human trafficking has been identified in all 32 local authorities in Scotland. So these groups are organised and they have a formal structure and it's important that we recognise how horrific this crime is and the youngest of these was just 13 years old. In conclusion, as I've said previously in this debate, I'll continue my own work on image-based abuses. I do believe that we need to have clearer law on men who abuse private images. The women's support project, which some people had a chance to talk to, an incredible project, talked about many incidents of this. It's important to note that a lot of these child and adult performers, while they consented at the time, are sadly halted by those images for the rest of their lives. Presiding Officer, once again it's really important to debate this important issue in Parliament and Scottish Labour are delighted to support this motion this evening. Thank you, Ms McNeill. I call Beatrice Wishart. Up to four minutes, Ms Wishart. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Scottish Liberal Democrats will today support the motion. I'd like to thank the many organisations that have been in contact prior to today's debate and the materials that they've provided in preparation. Those organisations work tirelessly to reduce gender inequality and gender-based violence. It's important that each year we are able to dedicate time and thought to this in the chamber. As a member of the cross-party group on men's violence against women and girls, I know how colleagues across the chamber spend large parts of their time involved in addressing this. In tackling misogyny and unchecked behaviour, we can break the link of casual sexism and its development into violence against women and girls. Ensure that, and I quote, every act of violence against women and girls, including sexual violence, is unequivocally condemned to be fully investigated with the utmost priority. The words of Seema Bahouse, the UN Under Secretary General, Executive Director of UN Women. Today also serves as a reminder of the patriarchy and misogyny that prevents women and girls in Afghanistan, Iran and other countries from being free to have an education. Presiding Officer, we are once again faced with daily images of the impact of conflict on communities. As with other times of hardship during conflict, women often act as shock absorbers. The impact felt hardest on women and children. It's crucial that women play a significant role in conflict resolution. The cost of living crisis has shone a light on that same shock absorber role of women here at home. Shetland's Compass Centre highlighted that women are more likely to do low-paid work, more likely to rely on public transport, which is much patchier in remote, rural and island areas, and are more likely to struggle with high childcare costs. Twice as dependent on social security than men and have less access to resources, assets like home ownership and occupational pensions. Women are disproportionately impacted by welfare reforms and waspia campaigners have waited too long to see redress from poorly communicated pension reforms. As the motion highlights this year's national theme is to imagine a Scotland without gender-based violence. That may seem like a daunting prospect when you read that in 2021-22 Police Scotland recorded 64,807 incidents of domestic abuse. In cases where gender was recorded 81 per cent of incidents involved a female victim and a male accused as in gender highlight. Our figures from the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey for 2021-22 released this week showing that perceptions of crime and safety reveal gender inequality too. While people are overall more likely to feel safe in their communities there are sharp differences among the population when this is broken down. 90 per cent of men felt safe walking along after dark while only 63 per cent of women agreed. Shetland's Comper Centre also raised the matter of island jury trials. Previously heard in Shetland on the Scottish mainland because of staffing challenges with the prisoner escort provider. Some of the trials that have been affected are for GBV-related crimes and it's having a serious impact on Shetland survivors and witnesses including professional witnesses who have to deal with travel logistics on top of everything else. The centralisation of access to justice for island survivors is unacceptable and must be addressed. Failure to do so will be a barrier to reporting and, ultimately, justice denied. It's a backward step that cannot become permanent. Thank you, Presiding Officer. We now move to the open debate. I call First Marie McNair to be followed by Pam Gosall up to four minutes. According to the Scottish Government's recorded crime figures there are 14,834 sexual crimes recorded in Scotland in the year ending June 2023. The police recorded 64,807 instances of domestic abuse in 2021-22. Four in five instances has a female victim survivor and male perpetrator. Those are extremely concerning figures but gender-based violence is not merely a statistic. There are women and girls behind every one of those figures. It's a harsh reality experience by our mothers, sisters, daughters and friends. It happens in the home and workplaces are outside in public spaces. It knows no bounds and has lasting and damaging impact upon the individual and wider society. Every woman, unfortunately, has her own experiences of sexual harassment, assault or violence and I know my colleagues across this chamber can agree to tackle this. It's time to change the narrative and ask why men are harassing, abusing or being violent, not the suggestion that women are doing wrong. The theme this year lets us imagine a Scotland without gender-based violence. This should not be difficult. The campaign calls on us as elected representatives to show what we are doing to eradicate such violence. We must invest in this for the future of our women and girls. The key to achieving this is primary prevention as highlighted by the charity Zero Tolerance. Secondary prevention, that is investing in support during or after violence occurs, is not enough and that's why I welcome the Scottish Government's misogyny bill which puts a real focus on protecting women and girls. We know that serious violent acts don't usually happen out of nowhere. Men don't just wake up and decide to commit heinous violent acts against a woman. We know that it's often an escalation of more low-level misogynistic views and behaviours and for too long there has been a societal tolerance of misogyny across Scotland making our women and girls feel unsafe, distressed and humiliated. That's why the bill is so important tackling the root cause catching this early before there's a chance of a serious crime to be committed. Could be revolutionary. While vital, that can only be part of the response to tackling harassment and violence against women. How do we stop young men for unboys perpetrating this misogynistic behaviour in the first place before this escalates? While various academic literature has pointed towards the link between traditional toxic views of masculinity and harassment and violence against women, on its own of course that would not be enough. Plenty of men adhere to traditional views of masculinity but would never commit such violent acts but is still vitally important to consider. It would help us to challenge harmful views of masculinity that condone violence against women and emphasise men's dominance. Across academic literature it's suggested that we must reshape those views of masculinity at a young age and this could be done in primary school more discussions about consent, use of language, healthy friendships and what it means to be a good man and not just what boys are expected to do. I've been interested to see further work in this area with inclusion of the discussions across the curriculum. Imagine a Scotland without gender-based violence should not be difficult it is achievable and a place to see what work is currently being done. We can always do more to call out those low-level misogynistic behaviours when we see it so it doesn't escalate into unthinkable. Thank you. I now call Pam Gosel to be followed by Michelle Thompson. I'm grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate which will mark the international day for elimination of violence against women and the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence that follow this. This is the third year in a row that I have contributed to this debate and I can't help but feel disappointed that this debate is still considered to be so necessary every year. But violence against women is still a fact of life and until it is stamped out in every part of the world it is the only right that the Parliament calls out this violence every year because while another year may have passed it is clear that change on this issue is no less needed. This year's national theme asks us to imagine a Scotland without gender-based violence. This is a reminder that the violence against women is not just something that happens far away in distant corners of the world. Every year affects women right here in Scotland. Last year there were seven domestic abuse related murders. There were nearly 500 charges of attempted murder and serious assault related to domestic abuse. There were nearly 1,800 charges reported to the Crown Office under the Domestic Abuse Act. We know that domestic abuse incidents are almost at record high. I was nearly 65,000 incidents reported to Police Scotland in 2021 to 2022 and over half of those were repeat offenders. Three years ago the Scottish Government promised to set up leavers fund for victims of domestic abuse and I therefore welcome last month's announcement of the new fund to leave which has been backed by £500,000 of funding. Too often women face a financial barrier when attempting to leave their abuser. I hope that funding will prove to be an effective of breaking this barrier down. As it stands, this pilot funding will be offered to those playing domestic abuse in five local authority areas. I hope that the full scheme which covers the whole of Scotland is able to follow soon. In last year's debate I was pleased to be able to speak about my domestic abuse prevention bill which at the time had just completed its consultation phase. This year I am pleased that my bill has now received cross-party support and it needs in order to process to the next stage in Parliament and it is now being drafted. More needs to be done to keep tabs on abusers who still pose a risk to potential victims. At our recent round table events in the Scottish Parliament I have had the opportunity to speak to a number of victims of domestic abuse. One issue that keeps raising up is why is the onus on the victim to speak whether they are at risk. A domestic abuse register would change this. It would place the onus firmly on the abuser to keep updating authorities such as a police so that victims can be kept safe. My bill has both expert and grass-roots support and I hope that the members from across the chamber will be able to consider my proposals with an open mind when they are introduced to the Parliament. In conclusion, the 16 day of actualism against gender-based violence is a reminder that each of us need to play our part on this issue. For my own part I hope that my domestic abuse prevention bill will be able to take Scotland one step closer to stamping out this appalling crime. But today we are all united in wanting to see real change on this issue. Real change means working together. It means backing the amazing domestic abuse organisations who do such great work in all our communities and ensuring we all continue to condemn violence against women and girls in all forms, at all times and at all places. I now call on Michelle Thompson to be followed by Roger Grant. I have a daughter. I brought her up to be ambitious, hardworking and feisty and I think I succeeded. Yet I see in her and her friends similar experiences in their life as occurred in mine. My reality has become her reality. How disappointing. Women as a sex class are under assault like never before. Disproportionally affected by Covid, disproportionately affected by a cost of living crisis, told by some men what it is to be a woman, bold changes are needed to mark significant change and this needs to start with the plans to criminalise prostitution. The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women is unequivocal. States must address trafficking and prostitution if they are to eliminate discrimination and violence against women. I know there is work under way here in the Scottish Government. I appreciate its complexity by adding my voice to those others who continue to press for ambitious change because as long as women are seen as a legal commodity to be bought by men there will be no significant shift in men's violence against women. The ability fundamental ffonsers a sense of male entitlement an ownership that permeates every aspect of our society. Logically the term men's demand for prostitution will ultimately need to be reframed as people's demand for prostitution. How offensive. What does the current data tell us? Police Scotland recorded sex crimes rose from over 13,000 in 2020-21 to 15,000 the following year a 15% rise in one year. The breakdown of the 2021-22 data shows that of all the sex crimes there were around 2,500 rapes or attempted rapes and over 5,000 cases of sexual assault with a remainder including different types of online sex crimes. We cannot just attribute this to the pandemic to the cost of living crisis etc. Although many types of crime have been declined sexual violence in Scotland has been the increase since 1974. 1974 take that in. We know there is an issue with reporting and the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey of 2019-2020 showed that only 22% of victims' survivors of rape reported to the police. But yet as much we glean new insights, bemoan gender-based violence and condemn violence against women and girls, the probability is that it will continue to rise unless radical action is taken. So in my short speech today I wanted to explore a new theme that of the threat of artificial intelligence. There has been an exponential growth in the generative capacity of AI and that extends to its use in pornographic imagery. The use of superimposing faces onto nudes or even depicting women as already nude is already prevalent. Sexual acts using these images in the form of so-called deep fake images are prevalent and Laura Bates the founder of Everyday Sexism writing in the Westminster Parliament House magazine only today estimates that 96% of deep fake images are estimated to be porn and women. The evidence tells us that it is women that are targeted and she also states that the Westminster online safety bill an entirely reserved matter running to some 260 pages doesn't mention women once. How can that be? So I'll finish with this comment Presiding Officer. We have a significant issue at the heart of our society and I take comfort today from my colleagues such as Ben Macpherson and Jim Fairlie who I know frequently call on men to play their part. The sense of entitlement from some men, it doesn't affect us so we don't need to care cannot be allowed to continue and I agree with Pam Gosall it's depressing to go into another debate where matters are getting worse rather than better. I now call Rhoda Grant to be followed by Ms Grant. Tackling violence against women is something we should be doing all year round but this debate provides us with the opportunity to take stock of where we have reached and it's sad that this year again we're hearing that rape crisis is having to employ a waiting list for people needing their support nobody should have to wait for the support of rape crisis but we also need to imagine a Scotland where rape crisis is no longer required we need to imagine a Scotland where violence against women does not happen and violence against women is a symptom of women's inequality in society so we need to change attitudes we need social change and we need to stop commodifying women we were promised legislation on commercial sexual exploitation and I would hope that the minister in summing up would let us know where they are with that because if we live in a Scotland where women are commodities we can't possibly be equal so we need equality with pay, with wealth and we need to stop women's poverty being exploited in exchange for food, clothes, drugs and alcohol and money in prostitution criminalisation needs to target those who are feeding this trade not those who are vulnerable unexploited in it we need routes out we need to make sure that those being exploited get the support they need they need to have jobs security and wealth and I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the women's support project celebrating their 40th anniversary supporting survivors of prostitution helping, healing, empowering and advocating for them and I hope they will continue to do that for many years to come other speakers have talked about trafficking of human beings and commercial sexual exploitation feeds that market like no other if there was no market there would be no trafficking so we need to look at things like saunas online pimping and so-called adult entertainment venues and we need to stop them being allowed to happen without any happen in Scotland without any intervention whatsoever the organisation for security and co-operation in Europe the OSCE and I would refer people to my register of membership interests and with regard to the OSCE but they have issued warnings that the threat posed to Ukrainian refugees by sex trafficker underlines the need for politicians across Europe to challenge this and they also state that the countries that do not challenge sex buying are actually experiencing much higher rates of trafficking it's obviously in those interests of those people who get wealth and power from trafficking but it's not just the people that are trafficked that come to harm it harms the whole of society with inequality the lack of opportunity violence against women so any woman in a society where women are for sale is fair game and those who are especially vulnerable such as refugees suffer the brunt of that in Sweden where they actually took action to impose the Nordic model not only did prostitution and trafficking decrease but actually the gender pay gap narrowed and caring responsibilities were shared more equally the whole of society became fairer the motion says imagine a Scotland without gender based violence well I can I'm an optimist and together we can make that a reality thank you thank you thank you thank you on the 25th November 1960 60 sisters Patria Minerva and Maria Teresa Mirabelle three political activists who actively opposed the cruelty and systematic violence of the Tragilow dictatorship in the Dominican Republic were club to death and dumped at the bottom of a cliff by Tragilow's secret police the Mirabelle sisters became symbols of the feminist resistance and in commemination of their deaths and the 25th November was declared the international day for the elimination of violence against women in Latin America in 1980 this international day was formally recognised by the United Nations in 1999 and today we are having a debate that asks us to imagine a Scotland free of gender based violence 63 years later and we're still asking ourselves to imagine it there will be lots to say about all the other things that have happened I'm going to focus my area of discussion today on the same areas I always do and that is the responsibility of men and boys in ending this scourge so what does it mean to imagine what does that actually look and feel like it might be looks like this that you don't have to walk with keys in your hand you don't need to have a safe word in a bar to bar staff not worrying about walking home alone not worrying about being to provocative in the way that you dress not going to public toilets and pairs not making sure you're talking to someone on the phone when you're walking in a park and staying on the phone until you get to your house not having to cross the street to avoid males coming the other way not feeling the grip of fear in the pit of your stomach because there are footsteps behind you in the street not being scared to voice an opinion in male company not feeling the fear challenging misogynistic groups of males not making sure that all the doors in your car are locked when you're coming to a junction not living in the parallel universe to the people who inhabit the same space as you do be it college, work, school, streets or even your home and never doubting that the people you interact with including and especially those who are there to protect you are safe and pose you no danger well a man doesn't need to imagine all of that because that is already our reality so we're asking this debate to ask women to imagine what it is to live in a gender free society we never or very rarely have to factor in the same issues that are the everyday norms for women and girls there are many factors already discussed as the causes of gender based violence like ingrained gender inequality but toxic masculinity is definitely one of the worst factors that we need to tackle individuals like Andrew Tate are allowed to spew bile and even methods of dehumanising and objectifying women and girls and giving lessons on how to manipulate and brutalise them with absolutely no consequences so perhaps we need to ask are we allowing people like Tate free speech are we actually enabling hate speech when does it cross the line or is free speech never hate speech depending on your perspective of the issue be it race, religious or misogynistic and these are the questions that we have to wrestle with and we should but whatever the law can or can't do each one of us males has an ability to play and can play a role in making our reality of all the freedoms that women don't have their reality as well and yet we are seeing grown numbers of incidents of that toxic dangerous masculinity in schools, colleges and across society so what are we males doing wrong or not doing enough of I'm happy to follow the white ribbon Scotland in zero tolerance that Ben Macpherson is going to talk about but as usual the women have beaten us to the starting line the young women's movement the creation of bold girls ken and our fair girls these are initiatives by young women and their peers about consent and knowing what consent is that's just one example of the stuff that's happening so I challenge their male peers where are the bold lads ken where are the our fierce laddies where's the first young group of men going to come from that will work alongside their female peers to make their imagined reality the same reality as yours but probably... that'll be all the realities thank you for the answer we don't have any time in hand at all I think as has previously been advised by the Presiding Officer I now call Maggie Chapman to be followed by Megan Galliford it's vitally important that every year we have this debate but there's a danger too in the familiarity of this annual ritual that we lose the anger of activism that we rest in a cosy consensus that we think about this for 16 days when we return to the status quo but the status quo for millions of women and girls is a place of pain and horror we cannot, we must not treat gender-based violence as a stand-alone issue divorced from the rest of what we do we need every year not just 16 but 365 days of activism and we need to use them well this year our national theme about gender-based violence is about our vision for this specific place while the UN focus invest to prevent violence against women and girls is about tangible action everywhere especially economic and financial measures and we need both the vision and the bold action and we need clarity about the breadth and depth of the work to be done there are fantastic initiatives happening during this year's campaign and we need to learn much about survival, support and the stories that individual women share it's crucial that we listen to these but we also need to hear and learn from feminist experts about the kind of structural and policy changes that can transform the lives, the safety and the freedoms of women and girls Professor Jacqui True in her award-winning book The Political Economy of Violence Against Women is a series of ideas of potential solution economic empowerment of women and men changing men through positive example I spoke about men this time last year how across a series of debates about violence against women only a handful of our male colleagues spoke at all and I'd encourage all my men colleagues to read the email sent to us all by Ben Macpherson this morning but this year I want to talk about Professor True's other focus because gender-based violence is an economic issue on many levels we know that poverty is both a cause and a consequence of violence with globalised economies that treat both women and men and the lands where they live as mere counters in a game of toxic capitalism we know that violence against women is not only a matter of physical acts perpetrated by one individual upon another but includes within the official UN definition exploitation I don't have time to I'm afraid we know that women face violence in the workplace and in the experience of migrating for work violence that is enabled and perpetrated through unjust and inhuman immigration and trade policies and we know that in the experience and aftermath of natural disaster climate catastrophe and armed conflict women and their children suffer the most including from deliberate violence so that imagined Scotland of this year's theme would have not just transformed attitudes and behaviour and end to acts of individual misogyny but transformed economic systems power structures global and environmental responsibilities if we are to take this vision seriously then every time we consider a policy we must ask ourselves what effect it will have will it act to increase the violence faced by women and girls and I'm grateful for the briefings from close the gap in gender and zero tolerance that set out some of the ways we can do this that means within our devolved powers looking not just at criminal justice but at the economy, at social security finance, education, health and the environment and it means speaking boldly about reserved policy areas especially defence, immigration and trade Sunday evening I, with hundreds of others walk through Dundee in safety and solidarity as part of this year's Reclaim the Night march our task here is to help Reclaim not just the night but the day and every day to come for the women and girls of Scotland and of the world beyond Thank you I now call Megan Gallacher to be followed by Ben Macpherson, Ms Gallacher Thank you, Presiding Officer we already know that the many existing dangers that women face in everyday life violence against women and girls is never acceptable but do we as women really understand the dangers that we face online violence against women and girls has escalated rapidly in recent years and these pose major threats to safety and wellbeing technology is not something to be feared we should embrace it but we need to be mindful as it constitutes a space where harm can be perpetrated women of artificial intelligence brings a new discussion about the protection and promotion of women's rights biased attitudes linked to gender roles and identities are programmed into social media platforms through automated decision making therefore algorithms and devices have the potential to spread and reinforce unwanted and harmful gender stereotypes particularly when it comes to younger men research by the open university found that 17% of women in Scotland have experienced online threats trolling unwanted sexual remarks in other forms of abuse the 2022 Girl's Guide and Girls Attitude Survey found that 80% of girls in young women between the ages of 7 and 21 have seen or experienced sexism online and this is an increase from the 68% in 2018 so there is a need for this Government to be proactive when it comes to tackling technology facilitated gender based violence that takes many sinister forms you've got extortion, image based abuse doxing, cyber bullying these are all examples where women can fall victim to gender based violence and from the same open university survey almost three quarters 73% of women in Scotland in more than half 55% of men want online violence to be made a crime but the part that she concerns all is that many women and girls do not realise that they are a victim before it's too late and sometimes those committing the crime are those that women and girls should trust ex teacher James Donahue was jailed for predatory crimes after threatening to young women into having sex with them he then posed as a modelling scout called Debsie and threatened to share unconsented filmed sexual content if the victims did not keep in contact with them or arranged to meet up even hijacked into a computer of one of his targets during the horrific sex distortion plot it was Donahue's own girlfriend who helped the police catch him in the act to get him to confess to what he'd done he was only handed an eight year prison sentence and it's not long enough in my view the predatory behaviour shown by this vile individual will have caused unimaginable harm to the young women involved but they are not alone the case shows the danger of access to filming devices and the rise of social media platforms should someone wish to use them to inflict unimaginable harm on women and girls therefore we do need to get ahead of the curve when it comes to AI because AI can impersonate and in the wrong hands can manipulate I welcome the Scottish Government's commitment to strengthen the AI ecosystem because we need to ensure that the right safeguards are in place and that we do invest in technology to ensure that women and girls cannot be exploited through this growing technology we have been unable to eradicate revenge porn or online abuse that women received as evidence by the statistics and last year alone 140 domestic abuse charges related to these offences and that's only the ones that have been reported underreporting of violence against women and girls has long been a concern and I would encourage anyone who has been a victim of these vile crimes to come forward and to speak out accurate data means we are better placed to understand and as technology advances so do the number of risks to vulnerable people today is about 16 days of activism against gender based violence everyone has a duty to ensure that we improve the lives of women and girls by doing everything we can to protect them from the advancements in new technology I now call Ben MacPherson to be followed by Paul O'Kane As together we talk about gender based violence here in Scotland and around the world this debate comes just days after the outpouring of grief and outrage we have seen on the streets of Italy following the death of Julia Cicicin a 22-year-old woman murdered by her former partner this awful case has also thrown light on reports that on average one woman is killed every three days in Italy in fact research by the UN on gender related killings of women and girls found that 89,000 women and girls were killed internationally in 2022 across the globe the highest yearly number of female homicides recorded in the past two decades despite a fall in homicide overall and sadly the general picture here in Scotland is similar with 2021 22 homicide figures reflecting the shocking and shameful reality and while I know good partnership work is underway here in Scotland through the multi-agency task force dedicated to saving the lives of women and children we must be clear gender based violence affects us all but men's violence is a men's issue and all men must do more to tackle and prevent it gender inequality is both a cause and a consequence of male violence against women and it is if destructive attitudes towards women go unchallenged by men in the home, in the workplace, in schools in the gym, in the pub, whatever and wherever they occur if attitudes don't change we will never achieve the structural and cultural shift needed to eradicate the scourge in our society the work of specialist organisations such as Zero Tolerance White Ribbon and She Scotland is invaluable in documenting the lived experience of victim survivors and ensuring it is placed at the heart of decision making this is why I pledge my support to campaigns for investment in effective primary prevention and to mainstream gender within all Scottish policy moreover male politicians, parliamentarians have a responsibility and a duty to challenge and positively influence the behaviour of other men and boys and to bring about change and instigate allyship MSPs must ask ourselves how our work affects women and girls and vitally, actively reflect on our own behaviours beliefs and actions to show the collective leadership that is so needed on this issue for some time I've thought it would be helpful to have a specific set of actions to help guide us and so I've been working in collaboration with expertise in gendered power dynamics to develop 16 tangible actions that male MSPs in particular and others can take to help tackle and prevent violence against women and girls we all have a meaningful role to play to create the change that's needed to tackle the multiple drivers of men's violence and to build a Scotland where violence against women and girls is not tolerated and no longer takes place those 16 actions include engaging with local sports clubs in the media in terms of the ways they promote gender equality as well as with local authority colleagues and other government agencies on their work to improve the safety of our streets and public places in addition the findings of Zero Tolerances Future Tales report identify the specific needs of marginalised women and girls from minority ethnic communities and the importance of taking intersectional approach I would implore members to read this report and thank all the women that took part in the project for their bravery in sharing their incredibly insightful and powerful stories Presiding Officer, gender-based violence of course doesn't just happen during the 16 days of activism and work to end it must take place all year round we can all commit to doing more and saying more the need for action and to amplify the voices of victim survivors and the changes they are calling for has rarely been so important or more urgently required. Men and boys in particular need to do more. Imagine a Scotland where we don't have gender-based violence it's a theme of today's debate so all men and boys be part of making that happen. I call Paul O'Kane to be followed by Bob Dorris Mr O'Kane Thank you Deputy Presiding Officer and I'm pleased to follow Ben Macpherson and indeed I will start where Ben Macpherson left off which is in this critical debate today it's important to note from the outset that whilst we mark 16 days of activism, our activism against gender-based violence must be every single day in every single year we've heard a number of very rich speeches so far this afternoon and I hope that I will continue in that regard but at the outset I would like to pay tribute to many colleagues in the chamber who over many many years have campaigned tirelessly and worked very deeply on these issues and in particular I want to pay tribute to my own front bench to Paul McNeill and Katie Clark for their work and indeed for their work on the Scottish Labour party consultation and report that was published at Scottish Labour women's conference this weekend on how we tackle and end violence against women and girls and the report lays bare some of the challenges faced by women and girls and sets out some of the ways we can go about addressing those issues and once again I want to thank them and anyone who contributed to that work for all of their effort like many of my male colleagues who have spoken this afternoon I'm clear in my mind that the burden for ending violence against women and girls cannot fall upon women and girls only women and girls actively campaign and work tirelessly to raise these issues often having to call out perpetrators violence against them and having to share their own stories it is important that we show them respect and we stand in solidarity and offer our support to them but so too we must be absolutely clear about the role that men must play in taking action to tackle violence against women and girls when I read the report prepared by Scottish Labour I read a quote that actually I think stood out for me as being critical to this it said from a respondent it is men who are missing in the conversations focusing on tackling violence against women and girls it is men who need the courage to call it out to call out bad behaviour when they see their male peers engaging in it men must be responsible for our actions and ensuring that we are not engaging in or perpetrating behaviour that normalises gender based violence men must be responsible for calling out their friends and colleagues and being an active bystander when they see other men engaging in misogyny and frequently violent behaviour what all of the numbers that we hear today and all of the statistics in terms of the crime figures and in terms of the reporting demonstrate to me is that we must get much more serious about educating young boys about misogyny based violence and we must do that much earlier. We need to ensure that schools have resources and confidence to tackle this behaviour wherever it manifests to educate both children and staff and ensure that female staff and students feel safe enough to report and challenge types of behaviour and it is why I have been proud and pleased throughout my career both in the council and in this place to support organisations like White Rib and Scotland and the work that they do to ensure that the root causes of violence against women and girls namely harmful and dominant misogyny is effectively challenged. We need to change long established attitudes and behaviours to carry out a preventative approach to stop violence against women and girls from occurring in the first place rather than trying to deal with its consequences. I will close where I began to remind people that taking action on violence against women and girls does not end at the close of these 16 days of activism. It has to be an on-going effort and it has to be men who examine our own behaviours, listen to the experience of women and girls and challenge actions of the men around us and only with that level of effort will we change the experiences for women and girls. Thank you Mr Cain and I call Bob Doris. I welcome this debate on international 16 days of activism against gender based violence campaign. Some of this year's campaign is imagined a Scotland without gender based violence. That vision is important but it is our deeds and our actions that count. We all have a responsibility act to do all we can and we have heard today already particularly men in our society. As the motion recognises addressing gender based violence was far wider than public policy makers it requires social change and changing attitudes across society more generally. Without that societal structures we have no place including within public policy and we compound issues around gender based violence. Public policy must set the tone and it must lead. I was privileged to invite a Glasgow based service financially included to the Scottish Parliament today. The service is a project between GMAP and the Glasgow violence against women partnership. It is the only one of its kind in Scotland. I want to thank Amber, Amy, Robin and Rosemary for financially included and I am pleased they have been able to listen to the debate here. As they told me earlier today financially included focus on economic and financial abuse and economic impact of gender based violence. I heard a significant meaningful impact of the work they do and the very real positive difference they have made to the lives of women who have endured gender based violence. The small team of four, a project manager a training and network officer and two welfare rights advisers who specialise in advising survivors of gender based violence. They use trauma informed approaches. They make a real difference. To date they have supported 296 women with specialist trauma informed welfare rights and debt advice. They have also trained 71 staff within the wider advice sector in Glasgow to spot, ask and provide support to victims of economic abuse. And they have secured 857,000 pounds in financial gains for clients, be that benefit gain or debt right off. Significantly they have also identified and supported seven women subject to gender based violence who were losing out on welfare support due to the heinous two child benefits cap. Those women were supported to complete the third child exception application to get the financial support there entitled to. I cannot believe as a society they must do that. The UK two child cap is in itself institutionalised economic abuse. It must go, no ifs, no buts, no excuses. The economic abuse of women may be invisible to some but it can be devastating to the women involved. I heard examples of women being pressurised by exploiting of an abusive partner into taking on unsustainable and unaffordable debt. And many other debts being accrued in years and council tax as a direct result of economic abuse. The specialist support and work of the financially included team identify such economic abuse and supports women who have endured it. It fits strategically very well with the recently announced £500,000 fund to leave. Financially included is funded by the Scottish Government's Delivery Equally Safe Fund and will run until at least May, sorry, March 2025. I very much hope that any review of the funding for organisations to deal with the consequences of gender-based violence will embed funding for projects financially included for the longer term and will also help to develop similar models of support elsewhere in Scotland. Of course we all want to eradicate gender-based violence but in the meantime we cannot be naive we must ensure that there is meaningful appropriate extensive trauma and forum support such as those offered by financially included team and others and that it is accessible to those women who need it. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Thank you Mr Doris. We now move to closing speeches and I call on Katie Clark to close on behalf of Scottish Labour up to six minutes please Mr Clark. I am pleased to close this debate on behalf of Scottish Labour and that there has been such a great degree of cross-party agreement. The minister highlighted the need for leadership across all parts of government and I look forward to seeing the strategy which she said would be launched next week. Time is short today and I hope this Parliament gets the opportunity to scrutinise that document. Clearly violence against women and girls is not just a Scottish issue and understanding why it exists relates to the fundamental power relationships which continue to exist between men and women and as many members have said attitudes need to change. There have been many improvements in women's position in society and indeed many women have won a significant degree of financial independence compared to previous generations. Mary McNair and Pam Gosall spoke about the number of violent and sexual crimes against women in Scotland and the highlights that while some things have changed we still face significant challenges. Mary McNair also spoke about the historic tolerance of violence towards women and I think most of us will have stories relating to previous generations relating to that. Pauli McNeill spoke about the horrors of human trafficking now in Scotland and the huge amount of work that needs to be done with boys and girls in particular. Beatrice Wishaw spoke about women's dependence on social security Michelle Thompson spoke about the need for bold and ambitious changes and indeed the rise in reported rapes. We have had many contributions that have highlighted the range and the scales of the challenge that we face. Sharon Dowey spoke about the significant problems with violence against women's staff and referred to the NASUWT report this week which highlighted the rising levels of violence against women teachers in schools. We also know that there are significant increases in violence against other working women in schools predominantly in support roles such as classroom assistants. There are also other significant issues in other educational settings and much work needs to be done in both higher education and further education which we did not focus on so much today. The statement however we did get today on behaviour in Scottish schools research is timely and it is clear that we need a cross campus strategy in schools to tackle and address sexism and misogyny and the voices of girls as well as women workers need to be heard strongly in developing that strategy. Jim Fairly and Pauline McNeill spoke about men's responsibility and it is clear that changing male attitudes and work with boys and young men has been central to this debate today and is vital to the societal change that we need. A recent R&T survey showed that one in three women's staff on ScotRail said they had been sexually harassed over the last year but 80% did not report those incidents and that highlights the challenges we also face on public transport and the need that it is safe for women to use public transport and trade unions have campaigned on safety issues and work in other parts for example the Unite hospitality campaign for safe travel home for hospitality workers. Rape Crisis Scotland made clear in their briefing that we know that a six month extension to the emergency funding for some centres received during the pandemic and which has been continued has stopped 28 Rape Crisis workers' jobs being lost. When I visited East and Bartonshire women's aid recently they said that their funding from the council have been frozen for many years effective real terms cuts year on year in what our front line services for women who are being subjected to abuse and given the cuts in council funding that is not unusual. The range of the challenges that we face are very significant and I think we need to reflect both on the UN theme that we know has been referred to I think by Maggie Chapman which is about preventing violence against women and girls and uniting and investing to stop violence against world but also the motion that is before us today which highlights the vision of a Scotland where violence against women and girls become a matter for the past. Presiding Officer I'm pleased to close this debate Scottish Labour is pleased to support the motion today we want to work across party on this basis very welcome that this Parliament is so united on this issue and that we're able to have a debate in the way that we have and that hope from that that we can seriously put together a strategy that really makes violence against women and girls something that is part of our past. Thank you. I now call in Russell Finlay to close on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives up to seven minutes please Mr Finlay. I'm pleased to say that our party supports the Scottish Government motion on this year's 16 days of activism against gender-based violence and we've heard a broad range of powerful and compelling contributions from across the chamber. Sharon Dowie highlighted the case of a female victim whose suffering has been made worse by a justice system which is supposed to protect her. Pam Gosall spoke about the incredible work she is doing to protect women by bringing forward a domestic abuse register while Megan Gallacher and Michelle Thompson spoke about gender-based crime in the digital space. Katie Clark and Pauline McNeill spoke about the sickening acts of violence being inflicted on female teachers while Maggie Chapman rightly said that we need 365 days of action not just 16 and my male colleagues talked about the need for men to address our own behaviour and to challenge others here to that. Now today I only intend to speak about one woman Brown. Esther's friends say that she was generous of spirit with a heart of gold. She dedicated her life to helping others. On 28 May 2021, aged 67, she opened the front door of her Glasgow flat. Jason Graham either tricked or forced his way inside. He punched, kicked and stamped on Esther's head and body. He used a wooden chair leg as a weapon. He raped her and he murdered her. Her body lay undiscovered for four days. He was a registered sex offender supposedly under the supervision of a multi-agency public protection arrangement, a serial criminal with a long, depraved history of targeting innocent women young and old. A significant case review into Esther's murder was published this April. The contents of these 60 pages are jaw-dropping. It would take all afternoon to explain the breathtaking incompetence at every level of a system that is supposed to protect the public from sex offenders. Page after page of failings. A system which seems to spawn perpetual meetings that achieve nothing. Armies of obscure public agencies that appear to be collectively dysfunctional and casually complacent. No simple record keeping. No effective communication. A broken system from top to bottom. Criminal justice social work. The police. The prison service. The NHS. This report dams them. It also generates many more questions than it answers. We learn that Jason Graham has a history of strangling women. Yet, when he first strangled a teenager, he was not prosecuted. The report says that the case was called in court, then mysteriously vanished. How and why did this happen? You will not find the answers in here. When he strangled a second teenager two years later, what happened to him? What sentence did he receive? You won't find the answers in here. And just a year later he inflicted a sustained attack on a 50-year-old woman in her own home. He punched, bit, kicked, strangled and raped her. At long last, having amassed many other criminal convictions, Graham was finally put behind bars. He was jailed for seven years and six months, but due to automatic early release, he was back out after less than five. An earlier parole bid was refused because he had not taken part in a prison programme for sex offenders. Yet, when he was automatically released, he had still not done so. Set free with nothing being done to address his offending. How on earth could this be allowed to happen? Again, you will not find the answers in here. The report also tells us that after his release, he was subject to a curfew. But not once did anyone turn up at his home at night to see if he was there. He was entrusted to adhere to his curfew. The report calls this self-reporting, I call it naive and negligent. We also learned that his curfew was eased around Christmas time. What a thoughtful gift for a predatory sex offender. But what about the safety of the women in Glasgow? Who decided that any of this was appropriate and why? Again, you will not find the answers in this report. The report says that Graham should have been issued with an iconic tag to monitor his whereabouts. But it does not say why this did not happen. The report does not contain a single word about media reports that Graham was living in the community under an assumed name. Why not? Where is the curiosity? Had Graham been put behind bars for his earlier attacks on women, would Esther Brown still be alive? According to the report, the answer is no. It states that her murder and I quote could not have been predicted or prevented. Really. Well, I am sorry but I disagree as do Esther's friends. This report exposes a catalogue of mind-blowing incompetence. But it fails to go that extra vital step and ask critical follow-up questions. It's like a page turner novel in which the last page of every chapter has been torn out. It is sanitised. It is willfully incurious. It smacks of protectionism. Omissions are glaring. Fundamentally this is about accountability or rather a lack of accountability. This seems to have been allowed to become the non within many of Scotland's self-satisfied and self-serving public agencies. Esther Brown should be alive today. Graham's actions were predictable. Esther's murder was preventable. She deserved better. The women of Scotland deserved better. God helped the next women targeted by a registered sex offender of which there are almost 6,000 across Scotland. Unless the Government acts, we will be here again. Another murder woman, another review, another report, more lessons to be learned, no accountability and repeat. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Finlay. I now call on Minister Emma Roddick to close the debate on behalf of the Scottish Government. Ms Roddick, if you could take us to decision time at five o'clock, that would be helpful. Thank you. I want to reiterate what I hope has been heard loud and clear throughout this debate from across the chamber. The responsibility for ending violence against women and girls lies with the perpetrators of the violence, usually men, not the targets. Like many women in this room, many women in society, I am a survivor of gender-based violence and while I completely resist any suggestion to change who I am to cater to the egos and expectations of abusive men, it is an experience that changes you. We know that the impact of these acts goes way beyond the immediate and obvious. Every time that violence against women and girls happens or is condoned, safety for all of us is lessened. Discrimination and other prejudices are strengthened and we all suffer. I commend Michelle Thompson and others who have used their platform to share their experiences and tried to stop it happening to others. I will be honest, I really struggle to imagine a Scotland without gender-based violence because the ripple effect would be so wide-ranging. What would this Parliament look like? How many women that public life has missed out on would be making change, making history and to be honest, I don't even know how different I would be in that country. That is how vast and deep the impact is. As Rhoda Grant said, we need social change. She asked me to respond on the issue of commercial sexual exploitation and mentioned in particular the likes of sex for rent, which I think is exactly the type of activity that is obviously exploitative and horrific and violent. I know that my colleague's focus remains on delivery of the commitment to develop a framework to challenge men's demand for prostitution and we will see that implemented over the next year and tested and full which could then lead to further change. Extensive work has gone on across the Scottish Government over the last few years to identify areas that we can make improvements to support survivors and prevent the violence from happening in the first place. As an example, the best start grant was changed last year to ensure that individuals fleeing domestic abuse with children will get the higher rate of support usually available for a first child recognising that, though they may have had the items they need to look after children before, these may have been by necessity left behind. The grant was also importantly extended to families who took on responsibility of children when those children were already over 12 months old and to individuals granted refugee status, humanitarian protection or leave under the Afghanistan or Ukraine resettlement schemes where their other children were born before the arrival to the UK. Recognising that a human rights culture can be an extremely strong part of wider efforts to change attitudes I'd also like to remind members that we're in the process of preparing a human rights bill which will incorporate into Scots law as far as possible within devolved competence for international human rights treaties including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The process of incorporation will, I hope, provide an excellent opportunity to raise awareness both of what everyone's rights are and empowering them to seek help when those rights are not being realised but also educating people on the fact that many groups, including women are still suffering often invisible discrimination in modern Scotland. That becomes even more important as we consider the intersectional nature of gender inequalities. We know that disabled women as minorities, LGBTQI women face multiple inequalities and barriers to access for support. Understanding that is key if our efforts to tackle those inequalities are going to be successful. Just this morning I heard from Gypsy Traveller women about how racism and dehumanising attitudes towards them and their culture seems to further stoke and even excuse misogyny and violence against them particularly online. That brings me to a point highlighted by Megan Gallacher and others. People born just a few years after some members in this chamber spent their teens facing that prospect of having videos, as Michelle Thompson said, sexual deepfakes created of them causing untold damage to their self-confidence but also in the case of girls at school or from particular faith or racialised minority communities that loss of community when people aren't sure whether the videos are real or not. Only by understanding those specific and complicated barriers from people who we all represent in our roles here can we be allies in tackling them. On that point I was very glad to receive a copy of Ben Macpherson's 16 suggestions. I'm already making sure to meet them all myself and I hope that colleagues in all parties will do similarly. What Ben has done here is really embody the point of equally safe. We know that the inequalities we're discussing here run deep. So deep that people often reinforce them without even realising. It takes real reflection and acknowledgement of responsibility at an individual level to recognise and reverse this, something that was discussed at Close the Gaps Equally Safe at Work event yesterday. Workplaces may genuinely think they have good practice, but now they'll have to show it and might in the process realise that they're not as on top of things as they thought. If we all in this chamber follow Ben's lead and really reflect on our roles and commit ourselves to doing things like proactively calling out dangerous behaviours we could make important change and maybe even spot things we didn't pick up on before. It was quite surreal to hear Jim Fairlie, a man, describe the violence in our everyday steps that we take to protect each other and ourselves because it was spot on and he's done the job of considering how it feels to be a woman or girl and feel unsafe and he was right to describe what men have as a power. There is the type of power relayed by an unequal society, the type that's too often abused but there's also the power he talked about the power to change things, to call out pals and realise that men listen to men. I've had male friends pretend to be my boyfriend or brother or uncle in a bar to get rid of an aggressive man please notice things, as Jim has call people out, protect women don't leave it all to us. Presiding Officer, I do believe that together we can work to make a Scotland where nobody has that job of imagining what the country would be like without gender-based violence we can eradicate it but we need to work together. Thank you. Thank you minister. That concludes the debate on 16 days of activism against gender-based violence and it is now time to move on to the next item of business. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 11478 in the name of George Adam on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau setting out a business programme. I call on the minister to move the motion. Thank you Presiding Officer and moved. The next item of business is consideration of business motions 11479 and 11480 on stage 1 timetables for bills. I ask any member who would wish to speak against the motions to press the request-to-speak button. I call on George Adam minister on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau to move the motions. And both move, Presiding Officer. The next item of business is consideration of business motions 11479 and 11480 in the name of George Adam minister on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau to move motions 11481 to 11483 on approval of SSIs and 11486. I ask any member who would wish to press the request-to-speak button to press the request-to-speak button to press the request-to-speak button on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau to move the motions. I ask any member who would wish to press the request-to-speak button to press the request-to-speak button to press the request-to-speak button to press the request-to-speak button to press the request-to-speak button to press the request-to-speak button to press the request-to-speak button to press the request-to-speak button to press the request-to-speak button to press the request-to-speak button to press the request-to-speak button to press the request-to-speak button to press the request-to-speak button to press the request-to-speak button to press the request-to-speak button ac ydydd yn cwmhwyl. Fysg y cwestiwn, rydyn ni'n cyfnodd gyda'r cyfnodd cyfnodd a 4 ysgolion ddiolch iawn o'r ddwylliant Llywodraeth. Fe'n ddwylliant, mae'n cwestiwn i'r ddwylliant 11481 wedi 11483 o'r ddwylliant Llywodraeth i'r ddwylliant Llywodraeth i'r ddwylliant 11484 o'r ddwylliant i'r ddwylliant Jorj Adam yn ddwylliant Llywodraeth i'r ddwylliant Llywodraeth. Rydyn ni'n cwmwyl? The motions are there for agreed, and that concludes decision time, and there will be a short pause before we move on to members' business.