The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women 2025
This day of commemoration, inaugurated by the United Nations in 1960 following the political assassination of the three Mirabal sisters in the Dominican Republic on the orders of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, has been observed worldwide every year since then, but the toll of abuse and murder never seems to reduce. In 2023, approximately 85,000 women and girls were killed intentionally, with 60% of the murders committed by intimate partners or family members.
Africa had the highest rates of intimate partner and family-related femicides, followed by the Americas and Oceania. Murders in Europe and the Americas mostly involved intimate partner killings, respectively 64% and 58%.
The Grim Toll of Murdered Women
In the past year, as in every year, 2 to 3 women a week in the UK are killed by men, with many being domestic victims. Over the lifetime of this Holyrood parliament, 39 women in Scotland have died violently at the hands of men, almost all by men they knew, with campaigners saying the Scottish government’s Equally Safe Programme has been a ‘complete failure’. This Thursday, 27th November at 11am, women will hold a vigil outside Holyrood, organised by Conservative MSP Pam Gosal and Women’s Rights Network Scotland director Mary Howden. They are calling for a new national strategy involving among other things programmes for perpetrators and education in schools, but what is never tackled is increasingly easy access to porn, which shows women subjected to violence and sexual degradation, always making sure they are smiling as they are abused. Is it any wonder some men think violent sex is acceptable?
One particularly shocking murder involved the murder of Claire Inglis aged 28, killed by her violent partner, who was repeatedly bailed to her address despite concerns over his violence. Her parents are still calling for a Fatal Accident Inquiry.
Would there be an outcry if it was men being killed in such numbers? Probably, but women are instead told to ‘keep themselves safe’, not wear the ‘wrong’ clothes, not walk alone at night, and on and on. You’re still free, you understand, but you must just sit at home.
Mixed News for Women in Supreme Court Rulings:
(1)For Women Scotland
We celebrated in April when For Women Scotland won its five-year long case against the Scottish government in the UK Supreme Court to define what a woman was. We hadn’t ever thought that the courts would need to get involved in defining who was entitled to single sex spaces for women, but we did, and when we did, we got a ruling that in the Equality Act 2010 the terms ‘man’, ‘woman’ and sex’ refer to biological sex.
But since then, although the Scottish government has supposedly accepted the ruling, their response has been half-hearted to say the least. They have changed the composition of public boards (which was the subject of the appeal) and access to toilets at the Holyrood parliament to align with biological sex. The Scottish government then backed down when FWS sued them over self-ID in schools and trans people in custody.
Schools were told by the government to provide separate toilets for boys and girls, but Police Scotland still allow male rapists to be treated as women in custody, and the Scottish Prison Service allows trans-identifying males in female prisons if they are not deemed an unacceptable risk of harm to the women. But men are not to be excluded on how risky they are to women, but because they are men.
The government has not issued a compliance order to other bodies under its control, like NHS Scotland, Education, Social Work and crucially prisons. John Swinney wrings his hands and says it is too complex. Male prisoners can still be imprisoned with female prisoners, if they identify as women. That must be the worst infringement of all, considering that if imprisoned, there is literally no escape for the women affected. Deputy Director of Equalities at the Scottish Government, Catherine McMeekan, said they are ‘encouraging’ the prison service to consider the changes they need to make. How about ordering them instead?
Even worse, trade unions have made it clear they have no intention of complying with the Supreme Court ruling, despite the fact that 70% of their members are female.
(2)Evidence in Rape Trials ‘Too Restrictive’
Following an appeal by two men convicted of sexual offences, the Supreme Court has said that laws designed to protect rape victims in court were being applied in too restrictive a way in Scotland and risked breaching Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to a fair trial) by not allowing the defence to present evidence which could challenge the prosecution’s case. The Supreme Court cannot change common law, and lawyers could take the attitude of ‘we’re just going on as we always have’, or they could ask for guidance, and it is unclear as yet what they will do.
It is feared that there will be a deluge of appeals on the basis of this decision, and uncertainty about cases currently going through the courts. Ironically, the Supreme Court then refused the appeals, saying that in these cases their right to a fair trial was not infringed.
Section 274 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 allows the exclusion of a victim’s sexual history or character, with some narrow exemptions made under Section 275 of the same Act IF the evidence is relevant AND it outweighs the intrusion into the victim’s privacy and dignity. To be clear, it is important that men are not unjustly accused, and that evidence should not be excluded when it is relevant, but doesn’t section 275 of the CPSA exist just for that purpose? As it is, fewer than half of sexual assault cases brought to court result in a conviction.
It is hard not to conclude that women are just not valued by society as much as men.
Julia Pannell
25th November 2025