Items tagged “vaw”

Engender response to the Scottish Government Consultation on the Digital Strategy for Scotland

Women face myriad barriers to digital access, including possessing fewer digital skills and less digital confidence than men and being more likely to have insufficient resources to afford digital equipment. Where women and girls do have digital access, experiences of online misogynistic harassment and abuse severely impact freedom to make full and equal use of online spaces.

Engender therefore welcomes this opportunity to respond to the Scottish Government Consultation on the Digital Strategy for Scotland. Our view is that digital inclusion can and should encompass action to address the gendered barriers and inequalities that exist for internet non-users and users alike. A strategy that mainstreams these gendered issues will contribute to the advancement of women’s equality and rights

Date of publication: December 2020.

Engender response to the Scottish Government Equally Safe consultation on challenging men’s demand for prostitution, working to reduce the harms associated with prostitution, and helping women to exit

We welcome the opportunity to respond to this consultation by Scottish Government and particularly its explicit recognition of prostitution as a gendered phenomenon, which is rooted in women’s inequality. In November 2020, the UN’s CEDAW Committee published a general recommendation relating to Article 6 of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). In it, it recommends that states focus on the four root causes of sexual exploitation in women and girls: 1.Systematic gender-based discrimination; 2. Conflict and humanitarian emergencies; 3. Discrimination in migration and asylum regimes; and 4.Demand that fosters exploitation.
In line with Engender’s expertise, our response to this consultation focuses principally on the first of these root causes, which maps onto the primary prevention approach set out in Equally Safe.

Date of publication: December 2020.