I am pleased to open the debate on behalf of Scottish Labour in the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence.

We welcome that the subject of the debate is men’s role in and responsibility for violence against women and girls. As Christina McKelvie rightly said, that is the key to reversing the horrendous picture of violence, including sexual violence, against women and girls, and sexual harassment of them.

In my speech, I want to address in detail Labour’s amendment on the inclusion of cybercrime and the role of social media. In closing, Pam Duncan-Glancy will address some of the wider points. I hope that ministers will understand that we were keen to support the Government’s position, but we lodged our amendment so that cybercrime could be debated specifically.

We are committed to working with the Scottish Government. Last week, we launched our own consultation paper called “How to change the future for women & girls”. We want to be part of the conversation.

In 2020, 31 years after inventing the worldwide web, Tim Berners-Lee declared:

“The web is not working for girls and women.”

By “not working”, he really means that wider smart technology is part of the problem.

That is because gender-based cyberviolence—in the form of sexual harassment, trolling, messages threatening rape and murder, or the leaking of private pictures and videos without consent—has become rampant in our society. Arguably, digital technology has changed the shape and nature of violence against women and girls in the 21st century.

As many members have said in previous debates in this Parliament, there is a burgeoning rape culture in schools across the UK. Teenagers are experiencing sexual harassment on a huge scale. The

Sunday Post found that three out of five girls have endured some form of sexual harassment. I am sure that we agree that boys need to be taught not to put pressure on girls and girls need to be empowered to say no.

I feel that, far from making progress, in some ways we might actually be losing the battle.