Addressing Gender-Based Violence

Landmark Legislation to Protect Women & Girls

It is unacceptable that in the second decade of the 21st century, there is still so much to do to tackle violence against women and girls. The SNP remains committed to eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls. Our vision is of a strong and flourishing Scotland where all individuals are equally safe and respected, and where women and girls live free from all forms of violence and abuse, as well as the attitudes that perpetuate it.

To this end, the SNP Scottish Government introduced Equally Safe, our strategy to combat all forms of violence against women and girls, which was backed by £21.6 million of government funding in 2025/26. More than 100 grassroots organisations across Scotland working to tackle violence against women and girls - including Angus Women's Aid - shared in a funding uplift of £2.4 million.

Critically, the SNP introduced the world leading world-leading Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act - legislation that makes psychological domestic abuse and controlling behaviour a crime, broadening the definition beyond physical violence. 

More recently the landmark Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Act, passed by the Parliament in September, included provisions to establish a specialist Sexual Offences Court to enable complainers to give their best evidence while minimising the potential for re-traumatisation. In the same vein, it will also serve to protect the dignity of victims of sexual offences through an automatic lifelong right of anonymity.

Moreover, the same legislation strengthens protection for victims through reforms to Non Harassment Orders and other protective orders, and creates a legal right for victims in rape and serious sexual offences cases to access transcripts of the court proceedings free of charge. And The Scottish Government has already announced plans to commission, as a priority, research into how 'rape myths' – false, stereotyped and prejudicial beliefs about sexual assaults – may affect verdicts.

In January, separate regulations were laid in Parliament that will make it easier for victims of domestic abuse to remain safely in their homes with the tenancy in their name. For the first time social landlords, rather than the victims themselves, will be allowed to take legal action to end an abuser’s tenancy - bringing Part 2 of the Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Act 2021 into force - while MSPs have also backed new requirements for colleges and universities to tackle gender-based violence as a condition of the funding they receive from the Scottish Funding Council.

Scotland’s first confidential helpline for victims and survivors of economic abuse has additionally been launched by Financially Included, an organisation that supports women to recover from a controlling and often hidden form of gender-based violence - part of a new economic abuse pilot project supported by Scottish Government funding. But, importantly, the SNP in government has also focussed on prevention.

Educational initiatives have included the Equally Safe at School Programme, delivered by Rape Crisis Scotland, while Education Scotland is also funded to coordinate the Mentors in Violence Prevention programme in secondary schools. The Caledonian System - a court-mandated programme which works with offenders - was introduced in Scotland in 2011 by the SNP and takes a ‘whole systems’ approach to tackling domestic abuse perpetrated by men. Tackling violence against women and girls in all its forms will remain a priority for the SNP.