Thank you, and thank you for the question. The first point is that fundamentally we believe that as long as there is a statutory aggravation model, woman need to be protected, which can be done by adding the category of sex. An issue in recent conversations around transgender identity and women’s sex-based rights is the feeling that if there is no mirror aggravation for sex, women are left exposed.
What some women have described in conversations has been deemed to be hateful and has in some instances been reported as hate crime, but there is no equivalent protection for women. That is important in terms of the contested nature of what constitutes hate, which is a big conversation. I do not want to get stuck on the issue of the stickers, but it is pertinent here.
I am not sure what evidence there is that a stand-alone misogynistic offence would mitigate or reduce the harms that have been identified. The simple fact is that the conversation on this issue has been going on for a very long time. The need for an offence was first identified 17 years ago. Twelve years ago, people from the same organisations were giving the same evidence at committee, and nothing has moved on.
Even if the suggestion is not a perfect solution, it gets things started and gets the ball rolling, and it might well be that a stand-alone working group could come up with something far better, but there is a genuine risk that we will be here in another 12 years with nothing having been proposed or an unworkable proposal.
I note that Lord Bracadale did not think that there are any gaps in relation to offences that need to be covered. A lot of the objections that people have to the aggravation model are objections in general to hate crime using an aggravation model.
Among the issues that keep coming back are data and training. At the moment, there is neither the facility nor the capacity to collect data, and there is no will to collect it.
In the Nottingham trial that started in 2016, misogyny was listed as a hate crime and it was identified that there are issues around understanding of hate crime. Another issue was the definition of misogyny, which was felt to be elitist and academic, and was poorly understood. A lot of the women who were interviewed as part of the research felt that something clearer would have been more appropriate; terminology is critical. Sex as an aggravation is understandable and can be rolled out, and we can consider sexist abuse.
Another thing that came through clearly from the Nottingham trial was that there were pretty universal levels of support. Although it could have been better publicised and better education and a multi-agency approach were needed, victims felt that they had had better support from the police because some of the motivating factors were clearly understood.
In previous panels, witnesses have talked about the need for education and training, and that goes along with starting the ball rolling on legislation such as this. I know that Engender has picked up on the lack of policies around sexist bullying in school, but policies are in place for other forms of bullying. It all needs to be considered in a suite of legislation.
I understand the issue around the domestic abuse aggravator. We try to consult as widely as we can. We have a lot of people in our network from various organisations but, unfortunately, the situation being what it is, a lot of people are nervous about putting their name to anything, although I have some testimony from people in the domestic violence sector about current approaches.
The women whom we speak to feel that there needs to be consultation and that heed needs to be paid to ordinary women’s voices, but I agree that some people feel that that ignores some of the wider harms to women. I understand that. The matter could be covered by a working group that might look broadly at the issues.
One of the most compelling arguments was fed back to us from one of the networks that deal with abuse survivors, which felt that they have not been consulted; they said that
“We are shocked that given the prevalence of violence against women and in the time of the #MeToo movement and ‘The rapist is you!’ movement, we are still being denied the protections we so vitally need. We feel leaving us out will create a hierarchy of oppression, with us at the bottom and as the only oppressed group not included. It will also go against CEDAW. When gender identity is included but not sex, it puts our lives at risk by limiting our access to female-only safe spaces.”
They went on to say that they want guaranteed protection now, not possible protection in months or years that may never come to fruition.
Knowing as we do that hate crime is on the cards and that the Scottish Government wants to legislate in that area, we believe that it is very important that women are not ignored.
10:30
Another important point is that a sex aggravation is a decision for MSPs as elected representatives; we concur with the Faculty of Advocates on that. The issue came up in a previous debate on the bill, and a number of MSPs—especially women MSPs—said that they strongly wanted to be able to discuss it. If sex is left out of the bill at this stage, MSPs will be denied the opportunity to explore that aspect. It is vital that the matter goes back to our elected representatives, rather than going to a working group of individuals who have been selected by ministers.