– in the Scottish Parliament at on 23 January 2019.
7. To ask the Scottish Government how its policy on dealing with hate crime is informed by the expertise of women’s organisations. (S5O-02805)
There is a clear need for action to be taken to tackle gender-based prejudice and misogyny, and we are currently seeking views on how best to tackle that in Scotland as part of our consultation on hate crime legislation. As we worked to develop the proposals in our consultation, we engaged with a number of women’s organisations including—and this is not an exclusive list—Engender, Rape Crisis Scotland, Zero Tolerance and Scottish Women’s Aid.
As the member no doubt knows, the consultation was launched on 14 November 2018 and will run until 24 February. It provides a range of organisations and groups, as well as members of the public, with an opportunity to share their views and inform what is included in the new hate crime legislation, and I encourage everybody with an interest to respond.
I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer and certainly welcome the consultation. Can he give some detail on how the Government is engaging with women’s groups, especially in rural parts of the country where women might be quite isolated and might not necessarily be members of a particular grouping?
The member makes a hugely important point. As part of the hate crime consultation, we are holding a host of events right across the country, including in some remote and rural areas. In March, the Minister for Older People and Equalities and I will be meeting Engender and a number of other women’s organisations, and I will certainly be speaking to them about this issue. If they feel that there is a deficiency in engaging with women in remote and rural areas, I will be more than happy to see how we can address it, if it exists. However, the premise of the member’s question—that there are issues that specifically affect women in rural and remote areas—is undoubtedly right, and anything more that I as cabinet secretary can do about that, I will certainly look to do.