To our supporters, I would like to share with you the latest speech given by MSP Rhoda Grant in Parliament on the 27th November 2019, as you will see below and you can follow the link to hear it.  There has been false news in the press recently.  I want to express to everyone reading this and to all women who have suffered physical and sexual abuse by men that NO means NO.  I strongly encourage women and men to come forward within the workplace and out with the workplace that are abused either physically or sexually.  We encourage women and men to come forward and speak out that are being bullied, harassed and victimised by their employer and /or colleagues.  There should be no detriment to you for speaking out.  I want to strongly encourage you to report any wrong doing that you witness in your place of work, challenge the offender and write it down to keep record of the date, time and who was present when the incident happened.  I have spoken to a lot of people around the world and they have shared their stories.  A lot of people who work and have worked for the Scottish Government and other places of employment have written to me and shared their stories.  It is disgraceful that over a decade of abuse has been swept under the carpet.  I do not suffer fools gladly and those responsible should be held accountable.  DeeAnn Speaks is a campaign to help encourage the First Minister to sit down with her and hear what she has to say.  It is a campaign to help other victims and survivors to speak out about what was done to them.  It is a campaign to stop inappropriate behaviours within their place of work.  It is a campaign to help stop the psychological damage that is done and has affected your life.  Help us to say NO to bullying in the workplace and help us to say NO to it being covered up once and for all.

Please read MSP Rhoda Grant's speech or see the attachment to hear her speech.  A huge thank you to MSP Rhoda Grant for her continuing support.

Rhoda's speech in the Scottish Parliament debate
Gender-based violence
27 November 2019

I thank Rona Mackay for securing the debate, and I join her in paying tribute to all the organisations that work tirelessly to combat violence against women.
The Parliament has rightly given a degree of priority to tackling violence against women, but there is still much to do.
This year’s theme is “Orange the World: Generation Equality Stands Against Rape” and the focus is therefore on rape.
We have an incredibly low rate of rape convictions, with lengthy waiting lists for support.
I support Rape Crisis Scotland’s crowdfunding campaign to provide services.
On a typical day in Scotland, there are 1,000 people waiting for support, while services face cuts in funding.
I encourage people to join that crowdfunding campaign.
I wish to speak about other issues, too.
In Scotland, we recognise that prostitution constitutes violence against women, but it is still legal to buy women in Scotland.
We know that the civil courts are aiding and abetting domestic abuse by allowing children to be weaponised, but still we do not act on that.
Each of those issues could take up the whole of our debating time today, so I urge the Scottish Government to make time to debate the matter and to plot a way forward to end violence against women in Scotland once and for all.
In its briefing, Close the Gap points out the impact of violence against women in the workplace.
It is interesting to note that the figures for reporting rape and sexual assault correlate very closely with the number of women reporting sexual harassment and violence in the workplace.
Only 22 per cent of survivors report rape and sexual assault to the police, and 80 per cent of those who experience sexual harassment in the workplace do not report it.
I was alarmed to read the Zero Tolerance briefing, which told us that Police Scotland has stopped disaggregating rape by gender.
Why on earth has that happened?
That must be changed.
How can we measure violence against women if we do not have any statistics to do so?
The underlying reasons for the non-reporting of rape or sexual assault are the same: the fear of not being believed and the fear of being blamed.
There is also, sadly, an acceptance of men’s behaviour towards women.
That is starkly shown in the case of my constituent DeeAnn Fitzpatrick, who was taped to a chair and gagged with parcel tape in a Scottish Government office.
Imagine how that feels: the fear and the indignity, not to mention the physical hurt.
Yet, she is the one who is being disciplined, not the perpetrators of the attack.
So, “Boys will be boys.”
No: it should be, “Boys will be held accountable for their actions.”
Could that behaviour ever be acceptable?
Apparently so, in a Scottish Government office. If that is the Scottish Government leading the way, we have a very long way to go.
In Scotland, prostitution is also acceptable.
There is no penalty for buying another human being.
That creates the notion that women are for sale, so it is not surprising that men take that view across the board.
If one woman is available for sale, all women are made less equal.
If you pay a woman money, then it is supposedly okay to rape her.
Yes—that it is what it is, because you cannot buy consent.
In these desperate times, more and more women are being forced into prostitution.
We can dress it up any way we like and we can sanitise it as survival sex, sugar daddies or free accommodation in exchange for sex, but it is all the same.
It is exploitative and corrosive, both to the women involved and to the whole of the female population.
In countries where buying sex is illegal, women experience less sexual violence and greater equality, and the gender pay gap closes, too.
It is only when women are truly equal that we will see an end to violence against women, and we need to fight against inequality everywhere we see it.