S2M-2059 Violence Against Women

Scottish Parliament

Thursday 25 November 2004

[THE PRESIDING OFFICER opened the meeting at 09:30]

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Violence Against Women

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Trish Godman): The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-2059, in the name of Malcolm Chisholm, on violence against women, and one amendment to that motion.

15:00

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15:34

Stewart Stevenson (Banff and Buchan) (SNP): To talk of violence against women is not to deny the existence of violence against others. Indeed, failure to highlight violence against women—which makes up the largest part of the various discriminatory forms of violence—would be failure to support all victims of violence by showing indifference to the largest affected group. I say that as a man.

Violence against women is hardly new. The new king of a tribe of lions goes through a series of actions on taking over power in that group. There is the massacre of the young to destroy the previous gene stock, the fertilisation of the females to introduce his gene stock and, of course, the on-going suppression of the females in the group. In many ways, that is how humans have behaved over successive invasions: the Vikings, Genghis Khan and Hitler's Nazis followed the same course. In most of Scotland and much of the world we now know better. However, in significant areas of the world the culture has changed little from that of Genghis Khan—the model of the tribe of lions continues. That is why is important to make reference to a wider picture.

Modern technology has provided us with new ways of introducing our impressionable young people to distorting influences and views of the society in which they will take part. Computer games focus disproportionately on violence as entertainment. Violence admired and engaged with at second hand is the first step towards real engagement with violence. In many instances, violence is the response of the weak and inarticulate to those whom they see as even weaker and more subservient than they. Too often, women are seen as the weakest in our society. Many women—thankfully, a declining number—share that vision.

The 2000 Scottish crime survey had some interesting things to say. For example, it demonstrated that twice as many women as men experienced incidents of domestic violence each week. That reinforces the importance of talking about women. However, in this context we are talking about violence, rather than crime. Forty-three per cent of incidents recorded by the police did not lead to the recording of an offence or a conviction. Many more incidents are not even recorded, because victims have comparatively low confidence that what they say will be taken seriously. They are victims each week of repeated violence and cannot see a way out of the cycle of despair. At the high-tariff end of the problem, to which Donald Gorrie referred, a tiny minority of prosecutions and rape charges lead to someone being banged up and locked away from the target of their violence.

I will comment on a couple of points that have been made. I say to Donald Gorrie and the Executive that there is one measure that has been tried against kerb crawling that does not need legislation. We might encourage the police, simply in the interests of good public order, to supervise tightly areas in which kerb crawling is likely to be an issue, to photograph the vehicles that are involved and to make the appropriate inquiries at the homes of the perpetrators. Social pressure is as effective as pressure directly from the criminal justice system. It has been applied elsewhere and appears to work.

Essentially, this debate focuses on women as victims. We must provide adequate support after the event and ensure that such events happen much less often. The numbers tell us why. I refer to the types of violent crime experienced by men and women in 1999. Among male victims, 38 per cent of violent crimes were committed by a stranger, 42 per cent were committed by an acquaintance and 5 per cent were domestic. However, for women, 64 per cent of violent crimes—two out of three—were domestic. Therefore, we can tell that those are abusive situations that are based on a relationship, whatever it may be. It is violence against women because they are women and it is the least acceptable kind of violence.

The good news is that the report also tells us that in the lower age groups, particularly the 25 to 44 group, we are seeing much more reporting than in older age groups. That is a good sign that women may be standing up for themselves, which is part of the problem, but only a tiny part. I support my colleague's amendment.

15:40