Holyrood parties urged to reveal how many sexual harassment reports dealt with
Scotland's political parties have been challenged to reveal how many reports of sexual harassment at Holyrood have been dealt with as a leading lawyer criticised the abject silence'' from the authorities on the issue.
Aamer Anwar claimed that women ranging from MSPs to interns had complained of sexual abuse or harassment in the Scottish Parliament.
He added the perpetrators would probably have been placed on the sex offenders' register if they had behaved in a similar way outside of Holyrood.
After women working at Westminster complained they had been the victims of harassment and inappropriate behaviour, the human rights lawyer said females at the Scottish Parliament had also been affected.
Mr Anwar said I've spoken to people, everybody from interns to also MSPs who have experienced sexual abuse.
It is a catalogue of abuse, everything from cyber stalking to touching up to inappropriate behaviour to actual physical assault, and nothing has been done about it, there is a lack of confidence in the procedures.''
Referring to the allegations at Westminster and those made against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, he added: Everybody in the Scottish Parliament has spoken out about Weinstein and Westminster, but there has been pretty much abject silence on this issue.''
The lawyer said he had been hearing stories about women working in Scottish politics experiencing abuse and harassment for as long as I can remember''.
He stated: It's nothing new, for years women have been speaking out about misogyny within politics within Scotland and it exists.
A lot of the behaviour if it happened in a public street, if it happened in a pub, in a restaurant, these individuals would be arrested, they would be prosecuted and they would probably appear on the sex offenders' register.
Yet for some reason these people, because they are politicians, male politicians, they think they can get away with this behaviour.''
He said there had been a spike'' in the number of women coming forward following the allegations made against movie mogul Weinstein.
Mr Anwar added: I would ask all the political parties, if you have robust procedures please tell us how many individuals have actually been dealt with for sexual harassment. I suspect the answer is zero.
There is no point in having reporting procedures and processes if you can't do anything about it.''
Kirsty Blackman, the SNP's deputy Westminster leader, said: I think it's really important for us as political leaders, or leaders within our parties, to make sure that we create that confidence, in order to create an environment where women can report these things we need to be demonstrably taking action where these reports come to us and I think that is where there has been a failing in the system up to now.''
Labour's inequalities spokeswoman Monica Lennon said more needed to be done to make it easier for people to speak out.
She said: It really is important that political leaders in all the parties and the parliamentary authorities make it really clear that we have a zero tolerance to this.''
The MSP added: I know women have been encouraged to come forward, it's easy to say that to women but what I would like to hear from all the parties and parliament this week is exactly what people could expect and what support would be available, because it's not always clear what the procedures are and who do you speak to.
It's easy to say to people 'come forward, you'll get support', but people are not really seeing that culture change happening.''