I had some correspondence with my local MSP in 2021 when the original Scottish Government’s Hate Crime and Public Order Bill was being voted on. I had asked them to vote against passing it as women had been excluded from it, and expressed how disappointed I was. I’m going to cut and paste a large part of their reply to me here.
My question is: have the Scottish Government come up with an effective anti- Misogyny Law in the meantime? I seem to remember something about it but can’t for the life of me remember what stage things have reached? I’ve left off the name of the MSP and have name-changed for anonymity. I am going to write to them again but thought I’d come on here and bring myself up to date first.
Excerpt:
‘I am sorry that you feel the Bill does not protect women and their hard-fought rights. I’m afraid I have to disagree. I am committed to ending violence against women and have been the Co-Convenor of the Parliamentary Cross-Party Group for the last three years.
My work to eliminate hate crime against women, domestic abuse and gender-based violence can be seen through the Official Record of the Scottish Parliament.
The Government’s decision not to include sex as a protected characteristic in the Bill was based on several factors, not least of which was advice from respected women’s organisations who had grave concerns that doing this would have unintended consequences detrimental to women. Also, measures to protect women through legislation have so far not worked to tackle systemic misogyny.
The fact that the Government has set up a Misogyny Working Group, to be led by Helena Kennedy QC, to look at what bolder measures can be taken and to widen the discussion on how to keep women safe is testament to how seriously we view this. Contrary to being ignored, women are being prioritised in our attempt to end misogyny and violence against women. If the Working Group recommend a sex aggravator be added to the Bill, among other measures, that can happen quickly. The Group will make their recommendations within one year. I look forward to the outcome of their work which I believe will recommend some ground-breaking measures to protect women.
Please be assured I do appreciate your concerns, but I hope my explanation above will go some way to alleviating them.’
END OF EXCERPT
Where is the Scottish Government at with this now? I seem to remember some disappointment on here with Helena Kennedy. This MSP is saying that sex can be quickly added as an aggravator to this Bill - but this Bill is being universally criticised and ridiculed so would there be any point? This letter was from 3 years ago and my MSP had already been on a committee discussing this for 3 years at that point. So, 6 years on, anyone know what’s happening or happened?