Our stance
93% of young people consulted agreed with this statement.
What do MSYPs want to see?
- Primary intervention through embedding gender equal education in schools.
- Safer public spaces and transport, designed with girls and young women in mind.
- Supportive and safe workplaces.
- An intersectional approach to policy and decision-making.
- Increased support for victims of violence and abuse.
- Make misogyny a hate crime.
What action has SYP taken so far?
The SYP Manifesto 2026-2032, ‘Dear Scotland’s Future‘, set out two policies focused on ending gender-based violence and protecting victims and survivors.
“To protect girls and young women from gender-based violence, misogyny should be a hate crime in Scotland”.
78% of young people consulted agreed with this statement.
“The length of time between reporting sexual assault crimes and prosecution should be reduced, so victims are able to access justice without significant delay”.
90% of young people consulted agreed with this statement.
MSYPs were invited to participate in the Scottish Government’s recent public facing campaign on tackling digitally facilitated violence, as a result of their consistent calls for more youth involvement in the Government’s advocacy work on this issue. MSYPs worked with other stakeholders to review the proposed campaign content and feedback on what would work for young people and how to engage them in the campaign.
SYP is represented through the Equally Safe Joint Strategic Board, which aims to drive change through its oversight and study of the implementation of the aims and priorities of the Equally Safe strategy. Through this, MSYPs can represent the voices of young people on the impact and delivery of Equally Safe, bringing young people’s experiences and ideas to the centre of decisions that impact them.
During SYP’s Executive and Cabinet Takeover programme for 2024-2026, MSYPs spoke to decision-makers about what gender mainstreaming would look like in practice within the Government’s policy making process, how distinct hate crime legislation for misogyny would protect young people throughout Scotland, and the importance of continuing to engage young people on the implementation of gender-based violence strategies. In October 2025, SYP responded to the Scottish Government’s consultation ‘to add “sex” as a characteristic to the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021’. You can read our response here.
In November 2024, MSYPs coordinated a youth-led debate in the Scottish Parliament – as part of SYP82 – to answer two central questions in tackling gender-based violence:
- How can we tackle the root causes of gender-based violence and create a Scotland free from gender-based violence and misogynistic behaviour by 2049?
- How can we ensure that the approaches taken to end gender-based violence and misogynistic behaviour in Scotland are informed by and responsive to the views and experiences of people from different communities across Scotland?
This debate fed directly into a Parliamentary debate, led by the Minister for Equalities Kaukab Stewart MSP, on how Government can engage more young people in tackling and ending violence against women and girls.
Over the last two years, members of the Campaign Planning Group regularly met with former Director General for Communities, Louise Macdonald, to discuss progress in the campaign for both SYP and the Scottish Government. At these meetings, MSYPs talked about the possibility of engaging in the Government’s upcoming Gender Strategy (upcoming as of 2025) and embedding youth voice in governance structures.
Previously, MSYPs participated in a research project for The Scottish Government on gender inequality in education. This report covered issues such as gender stereotyping, girls’ safety in school and how teachers act and behave differently with female students.
The current situation in Scotland
Gender-based violence is prevalent across the world, including in Scotland. Looking at sexual crime, at least 37% of the 15,049 Sexual crimes recorded in 2021-22 by the police were related to a victim under the age of 18. For those with experience of serious sexual assault, the first (or only) incident occurred between the ages of 16 and 20 for more than half (55%). Generally, there is an underreporting of these crimes and in 2020-21 there were 2,176 cases reported to the police, but only 152 prosecutions and just 78 convictions. All of these statistics paint a picture of how widespread violence is, including for young people, and how the legal system is failing victims.
The Equally Safe strategy in Scotland aims to end the violence facing women and girls in Scotland and achieve greater gender equality. In addition, new legislation called the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform Act was passed at the end of 2025 to try to improve the experience of victims and witnesses in the justice system.
However, young people still tell us about their experiences of misogyny in their communities and wider society.
Our next steps
The 2024-2026 campaigns are coming to an end, following two years of great campaigning and advocacy from MSYPs. The Campaign Planning Groups will wrap up all the campaign work, pulling together all the findings, consultation with young people and successes over the last two years and set out some recommendations for the legacy work that will follow.
SYP will continue to advocate for unique legislation making Misogyny a Hate Crime and for there to be even more support and services provided to victims and survivors of sexual assault and gender-based violence. MSYPs will continue to engage with decision-makers on this issue and sit on decision-making bodies to ensure young people’s voices and experiences are centered on all issues impacting them.
Resources
Our campaign will be focused on gender-based violence. Violence against women and girls is one part of gender-based violence and and a conversation that continues deserve specific attention and to be tackled.
Want to learn more about gender-based violence? Check out these resources from some of the organisations working to both tackle violence against women and girls and to bring about equality in Scotland:
- The Young Women’s Movement’s ‘The Rise Report’ on relationships and domestic abuse.
- Zero Tolerance statistics on men’s violence against women and girls.
- Engender’s webpage on the role of primary prevention in preventing violence against women and girls.
