Sexual Harassment and Violence in Schools

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I am delighted to be able to join you for this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am usually away up the road as well, so I am very glad to be here for this very important debate on this very important report. I pay tribute to the wonderful members of the Committee, not least the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), for putting the report together, and pursuing the issues and the evidence we need to ensure that action is taken.

The Scottish Parliament Equalities and Human Rights Committee, under the chairmanship of Christina McKelvie, produced a similar report, published in July, on prejudice-based bullying and the harassment of children and young people in schools. It is, I suppose, not remarkable that the report addressed a lot of similar issues. What I took from both reports was the issue of the prevention of misogynistic behaviour, which is not just a matter for girls or for boys. The whole school community should be involved in considering the issues that drive sexism in society. As many Members have said, this is about not just schools, but how universities and society as a whole deal with these issues.

It is important that sex education is available to everybody and is consistent across all schools, so that everybody can receive the same message and has a proper space in which to learn. I pay tribute to the Time for Inclusive Education—TIE—campaign in Scotland, which is pushing very hard to get LGBTI+ education into schools. As the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) mentioned, this area can be a huge source of bullying. We need to ensure that everyone feels safe and protected, and is able to conduct their education without fear of bullying and harassment.

Rape Crisis Scotland, in its evidence to the Scottish Committee, talked about the focus schools often have on girls’ behaviour—how girls are supposed to dress or act in a particular way, and how they should not feel pressurised to engage in sexting and so on—when it should be the other way around. They should not be pressured or made to feel that what they wear has anything to do with other people’s behaviour towards them.

It might be useful for this Parliament if I highlight the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016, which came into force in July. It makes it a criminal offence, with a sentence of up to five years’ imprisonment, to disclose, or threaten to disclose, an intimate photograph or film. That is quite a deterrent. There has been a huge public information campaign in Scotland around it, under the banner of “Not yours to share”, highlighting the fact that such images are not yours to share. They are intimate images and should not be shared, and people should not be pressured to have them taken in the first place if they do not want to.

As there is for many of the other issues raised in this debate, there is a gap in the data on this problem. Engender, the wonderful women’s organisation in Scotland, has highlighted the data gaps in reporting and where the problem is. There is almost certainly under-reporting of sexual harassment in schools as in life, because it is normalised—it becomes a joke, part of the banter. If this week has taught us anything, and I hope it has, it is that we must believe women and we must not trivialise this sort of behaviour, because that is the start of a dangerous slope.

In Scotland, teachers have been at the forefront of campaigning. I commend the report by the Educational Institute of Scotland “Get it Right for Girls”, which challenges misogynistic behaviour in schools—everything from physical attacks down to the language used in schools. Saying things are “girly” or telling people to “man up” perpetuates stereotypes. The EIS also challenges objectification of women and the roles of women in society. We have an awful lot of work to do on that.

I think about that sort of thing quite a lot, because I have a seven-year-old and a wee girl who turns four next week. I am very conscious of what they learn in school and nursery. When my son was in nursery, all the kids were asked to think about what job they wanted to do when they grew up, and they made a video. The boys wanted to be ambulance drivers and soldiers—very active roles. All the wee girls in that class—all of them—wanted to be a dancer or a singer. There is nothing wrong with being a dancer or a singer, but why were they choosing those at the age of three, rather than to be an ambulance driver or anything else? Why were they so stereotyped into those roles at the age of three? We need to think about that.

Consent also starts at a very young age—we can think about that with children too using something as simple as tickling. If you are tickling a child and they say, “Stop,” you stop. That is teaching consent to very young children. They understand that. We can build in resilience from a young age and teach children that if they want something to stop, they tell the person doing it to stop, and that happens.

I could say many, many more things, but I am happy to conclude at that. I encourage the Government to look at other places and to act, because as all hon. Members have said this afternoon, we cannot wait any longer for action. Every day that every child goes to school in this country, they face this problem. That is not acceptable anymore. We need to act.