Women's Coalition

Engender have joined Scottish Women's Aid, Rape Crisis Scotland, The Women's Support Project and Zero Tolerance to form the Women's Coalition.  The coalition will campaign on issues surrounding Violence against women and children and the first campaign the coaliton worked on together was to support  Zero Tolerance in their re-launch of the Statement of Intent, which called on the Scottish Government to reaffirm their committment to ending violence against women in Scotland.

Statement of Intent 2007

Our pictures show the First Minister, Alex Salmond signing the Statement on behalf of the Government.  This was part of the press launch which was hosted by Elaine C Smith.  MSP's Cathy Peattie and Shirley-Ann Somerville also spoke at the event and many MSPs signed the Statement on the day.

LtoR: Janette De Haan (WSP), Sandy Brindley (Rape Crisis Scotland), Elaine C Smith, Alex Salmond, Lily Greenan (Scottish Women's Aid) and Niki Kandirikirira (Engender)

The campaign launched in september 2007 and comprised four main activities:

• Parliamentary Motion
Put forward by Shirley-Ann Somerville MSP  –

S3M-548 Shirley-Anne Somerville (Lothians) (SNP) : Women's Coalition Statement of Intent 2007— That the Parliament affirms its commitment to ending violence against women by endorsing the Women’s Coalition Statement of Intent 2007; calls on the Scottish Government to adopt a broad definition of violence against women, which makes the link between domestic abuse, rape and commercial sexual exploitation, and to continue provision of funding to violence against women projects in order to ensure the continuation of essential services to women and children experiencing violence, and further calls on the Scottish Government to continue to develop strategic work on violence against women, guided by the multi-agency National Group to Address Violence Against Women and enabled by the Violence Against Women Team within the Equality Unit at the Scottish Government, and to commit to changing public attitudes and behaviours through education initiatives and public awareness campaigns, alongside ensuring effective legal protection for women and children experiencing violence.
Supported by: Bashir Ahmad, Malcolm Chisholm, Rob Gibson, Christine Grahame, Bill Kidd, Christina McKelvie, Cathy Peattie, Elaine Smith, Jackie Baillie, Angela Constance, Roseanna Cunningham, Bob Doris, Kenneth Gibson, Marlyn Glen, Ken Macintosh, Stuart McMillan, Pauline McNeill, Hugh O'Donnell, Dave Thompson, Dr Bill Wilson, Dr Alasdair Allan, Keith Brown, Rhoda Grant, Joe FitzPatrick, Sandra White, Jamie Hepburn, Gil Paterson, Aileen Campbell, Robin Harper, George Foulkes, Andrew Welsh, Mike Pringle, Alison McInnes, John Park
Lodged on 26 September 2007; current

• MSPs invited to sign Statement of Intent document
MSPs who have signed the Statement and returned it to Zero Tolerance can be found at: http://www.zerotolerance.org.uk/news/article.php?id=66

• Organisations invited to sign Statement of Intent document
Frontline women’s services and other organisations including trade unions, CoSLA, local government and children’s services have been invited to pledge their support to the Statement of Intent campaign. Organisations that have signed up to the Statement can be found at: http://www.zerotolerance.org.uk/news/article.php?id=65  

• Press Launch of Statement
To be held in Parliament on December 6th 2007 to celebrate Government’s commitment to tackling violence against women over the coming four years. The press launch will also be an opportunity for MSPs who have not already signed the Statement to do so in person. The First Minister has indicated he will be signing the Statement of Intent at this event.  Read about the press launch here