I spoke in the Scottish Parliament in the debate about violence against women and girls. The statistics are stark and concerning: the number of sexual crimes reported to Police Scotland, including rape and attempted rape, have gone up by 114% over the past 10 years. In 2019, only 43% of all attempted rape cases lead to conviction and at least 40% of all sexual crimes recorded in 2019-20 related to a victim aged under 18.
I strongly believe that these statistics must be viewed within the context of wider gender inequality. We need a justice system that specifically tackles misogynistic behaviour and I argued that our laws should recognise the power relationships that exist between men and women. In the short term, I will also continue to call for an evaluation of specialist domestic violence courts, as trialled in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and how they worked for victims and survivors so we can look to potentially rolling them out across the country.