A re-elected SNP government will take forward the actions in Equally Safe. We will establish a new multi-year £100 million funding stream over the next three years to support frontline services and focus on prevention of violence against women and girls from school onwards. We will ring fence part of these funds for frontline support services, to add to those provided by local authorities, so that no survivor of abuse or violence is forced to wait to get the help they need, at the time they need it, in their local area. We will invest a further £5 million this year to support frontline organisations to deal with outstanding demand that has built up during the pandemic. We will ensure access for all young people to evidencebased prevention education on consent and healthy relationships and fund work in our schools, colleges and universities. We will also increase the work undertaken to change attitudes of offenders, for example by ensuring that the Caledonian Project is available nationwide. The vast majority of people who access support are women, but men also need access to services. We will fund resources for services that support men who are victims of rape and domestic abuse, and we will establish a national strategy on ending intimate and sexual violence against men and boys, which will sit in parallel with and complement the work of Equally Safe. To help women and girls be safe on the streets we will work with stakeholders on how to better educate men about the impact of their behaviour. We will explore ways to improve the design of communities, such as Space Safety Audits, to make women not just feel safer, but be safer. Protecting the anonymity of all people who report sexual crimes is of critical importance and we believe this protection must be strengthened in Scotland. We will enshrine the right to lifelong anonymity for complainers of sexual crimes in Scots law and consider where we have to go further, including giving serious consideration to the recommendations from Lady Dorrian’s review to deliver a justice system in which survivors of sexual crimes can have confidence in. We have set up a Working Group on Misogyny and Criminal Justice to independently consider how the Scottish criminal justice system can better deal with misogyny, and if the group recommends a stand-alone
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criminal offence of misogynistic harassment we will act swiftly on its advice. We took forward Scotland’s first national consultation on prostitution. We will develop a model for Scotland to tackle this form of violence against women and girls, and consider how aspects of international approaches which seek to challenge men’s demand for prostitution would best be applied in Scotland. In addition to a focus on challenging men’s attitudes towards the purchase of sex, we will engage with those with direct or lived experience to shape services and design measures which will protect them from harm and provide the support they need, including helping them exit prostitution.
Support for victims Victims’ rights should be at the very heart of the criminal justice system. We set up the Victims Taskforce to improve support, advice and information for victims of crime and remain committed to supporting its work over the next parliament. We will appoint a Victims’ Commissioner to provide an independent voice for victims and witnesses, and we will review the provision of victim services. We will develop a new funding regime for victim support organisations and introduce a justice-specific knowledge and skills framework for trauma informed practice. The ‘Bairns’ Hoose’ Involvement in the justice system can be especially difficult and upsetting for children. We want to ensure that the journey from disclosure to recovery respects the rights and wellbeing of children and young people. Instead of having to go to multiple different services in multiple locations, all the care and support a child and their family needs will be delivered under one roof - at the Barnahus, or ‘Bairns’ Hoose’. We will ensure that every child victim/witness will have access to a Bairns’ Hoose by 2025. Restorative Justice We believe that restorative justice should be available to all who wish to use it, at a time that is appropriate to the circumstances and individuals involved. If reelected, we will ensure that restorative justice services are widely available across Scotland by 2023.