Look at it more closely and in more detail and this session today will help inform the inquiry as we take it forward. So can i first stop by thanking our Witnesses Today on behalf of the whole committee for taking time out of what i know are incredibly busy diaries for you to be here. I know that preparation required to be here is significant. So thank you. The usual practice is that we have questions from committee members. We have a lot of ground to cover. So i might use my chairs ability to move things on if need be. Just before we start with the first set of questions, could you say your name and the organization you represent. Im claire mcbegin, professor of law at darwin university. Scarlet harris. Mark hamilton, Police Chiefs counsel. Our first questions are from eddie. Good morning. When she visited the uk in 2014, the u. N. Special ob violence against women said a sexist culture. Do you think that statement can be justified . Who would like to start . I would suggest that walking into this room suggested thats based on some reason. And i speak for my own personal experience. I would say that everything about our culture is that we need to address that, identify it and pick it for everybodys health, the Cultural Health and i would agree but im sure its greater insight into it. Just before we move on, how do you think the impact of that is different for men and women . Of living in culture . I would say that women are at risk of Sexual Harassment, obviously, in todays session, i believe. The rates of rape and Domestic Abuse and street harassment absolutely appalling and unacceptable. There are impacts for boys, which is when usually high rates of depression, suicide, risky behavior, male to male violence. And they cannot be traced to a kind of performance of rigid interpretation of what it means to be a man. Which is toxic for those internally as men and for the women and girls in our lives. And from a policer spective commenting on the culture of the uk is tricky because we tend to base our evidence upon our understanding of crime or even unreported crime. What i would say is that the evolution in terms of crimes of Sexual Violence primarily as the when youre giving your answer, you will also have a perspective effectively as somebody who works in an organization. Its not just how the police interacts with society. Whats society like. I imagine there might be possibly some sexism there as well. I u mean, the Police Service has historically been predominantly men. It has associated with it a view that is a culture. Personally, my own experience, i would agree with that. But progress has been made to gender balance theres still a long way to go. Those things were across society. I did want the to say from a policing perspective that having 20 or 30 years ago started to positively address how women are treated in terms of Sexual Violence, Domestic Violence. The debate in place now is moving firmly towards how women are treated generally as victims within the system. Be it street harassment, be it verbal abuse, be it the attitude that is shown to them in casual encounters and the impact that has upon women. Not just as an individual, but women as a group in society. So were talking the issue of misogyny. Its never been moren present than now. Its a significant issue of consideration. Thats why we should address it. Therefore, i dont think the debate would be there if it wasnt a necessity to have it if women werent experiencing things in our community that shouldnt be happening. That there isnt a gender basis for that occurring. Anybody else want to add to that . I agree. Its a testament to the continued sexism in our society in all range of sectors. From whether its the workplace, education, violence against women, thats been mentioned. I think its right in that regard. I would agree. I suppose what i dont know is whether we are more of a boys club than other countries because other countries too. I think that patriarchy and sexism is common place across lots of countries. Just to pick up what others said, i think michael and mark spoke about violence against women and Sexual Harassment. But i think that Boys Club Culture and that sexism extends beyond that lots of things that this committee has looked at over recent years. Sexism faced by girls in schools. All of these things are all possibly linked or paint a picture of a society that isnt very fair for women. Do you think theres consensus in regard to a definition for sexism and Sexual Harassment both in terms of policy terms and the view that society takes generally. Sexual harassment i think is clearly defined in the law. I think whether the general publics understanding of that tallies with what the law says is a different question and there was polling in the light of various allegations from hollywood and lots of attention on the issue of Sexual Harassment. Polling about Public Perceptions of what Sexual Harassment was and it was not in line with what the law says Sexual Harassment is. Its quite worrying findings about perceptions. They were to be crimes or seen as thats part of everyday life. I think theres a mismatch between what the law says, what lottings of clear guidance from people say about what Sexual Harassment is. How its dwefined in law and ho people might understand Sexual Harassment. I u think theres no law that im aware that defines everyones behavior. Try continually to deal with e emerging things, but it never works. I do think that once progress has been made in dealing with areas of serious crime and enabling and respond iing the w they should be. Issues such as on street behavior that people feel should be established as part of the interacting of daily life have a damaging impact. So Sexual Harassment of a woman or a girl at a bus stop by a male might be some things that some women feel that have to accept that no one does. Theres reference before the debate is moving much more to identifying those issues in the same way as we would other. Types of incident or crime establishing if a crime has been credit or not. But even if a crime hasnt been committed shs the debate is similar to incidents. Should we be taking action of some variety to address the behavior before it escalates into a crime or also to try to restore some confidence to victim and allow them to feel what happened to them is being addressed by society. Is there evidence or what evidence is there that sexism or gender stereotyping are linked to Sexual Harassment and violence against women. Theres studies that wed suggest that displace a sexism attitudes be more likely to also start, which might be indicative of broader understanding of our culture or a sexist culture. Some of those studies are experimental in terms of psychologically profiling images. But theres some evidence about an association. To see for example, young peoples views of porn and displaying sexist attitudes and certain assumptions. Theres not correlations, but theres association there is. So i think we can look around us and suggest that in a sexual culture and sexualized sexism, there are links between that. The discrimination that women experienced in society. If i could just have this really interesting study if i could recommend to anybody. Sponsored by uni lever. Its an interesting read. Between 2015 and 2017, it asks them in a series of focused groups. I u think asks them how they would respond with 13 different questions about how they view women and how they view themselves about a range of issues and try to read the program. The one who is score the highest in the scoring system of this research are in this box. The rolls are most homophobic and most inclined to acts of physical aggression. The most masculine if we can say that. And perspective of six or seven tiemgs more likely to admit to Sexual Harassment or Sexual Assault. And six more times like already mic lie to be vien lent towards ma males. That draw really common themes that young men who see that they have to appear invulnerable. Sexual harassment and Sexual Assault or physical violence. But i would also much more likely to admit to suicidal ideauation, risky behavior on a regular basis and indulging in alcohol and Substance Abuse on a regular basis. Im not sure. Im not familiar with that. Its an international problem. It has a lot of work with the u. N. And it is by reducing what it refers to as gender inequality worldwide. It commissioned to study. They did indepth focus groups in well take a look at these. Not going to reduce harassment. A Significant Group caused a problem. I think its part of the picture. Its part of the series of actions if you might want to look at and addressing different aspects of sexism in society from a young age and through to the workplace and adulthood. There are interesting colations between male dominated workplaces and were making a distinction between sexism and Sexual Harassment. Some of the stuff really overlaps. So the display of pornography might be construed as Sexual Harassment in the workplace and sit in that sense. Making jokes of a sexual nature in the workplace, that person is sexist. So theres a link there. Hopefully were going to come to more questions, but this is an issue across all workplaces and its a wide spread issue. But i do think it can be particularly problematic for women working in maledominated workplaces. Where there are lot of men. How would you determine what consensus there is as to what should be prohibited . This would be acceptable or a person might think this is accept isable or this might not. I think its for the law it might be acceptable in difference. Any society running behind the view. I referred earlier to some polling done fairly recently to indicate, yes, a lot of people do not have a good understanding of what the law says in relation to Sexual Harassment. I think there is a expand more. There is an element of how behavior is received and interpreted by an individual as well as the intention of the perpetrator as it were. So it may well be that one person may u not consider something tab Sexual Harassment where someone else would. How that action or comment is received is very important. In the court of law and tribunal. It would be interesting to hear the view on that, but if you have any. The basic word for me is is unwanted harassment. Its any conduct thats unwanted. Theres an honous to understand their behavior is either wanted or not. What were trying to do is create an environment where people who receive unwanted behavior then have the strength and support to come forward and report it. Were seeing more and more of that. Its very basic. Thats the difference between what one person might accept because the behavior might be wanted. So no touching of any variety is lawful if its not wanted. There are new parameters to touch another person and theres no ifs, ands or buts about it. And thats where some people feel the parameters are different. But particularly in the workplace and it legislates for this type of behavior. Whether its understood its different. But any unwanted conduct is beyond pale. To take you back to sexism. My portfolio is hate. Its not primarily Sexual Harassment. And we talk a lot about prejudice and what causes prejudice. If you define sexism as a form of prejudice, there are a number of activities we feel are important to addressing that. One is actually an issue encouraging people to talk about it and report it. It gets out in the open. So its exposed to a conversation. Its also expose d to challenge. And another is this points of source be it an Education System and educating people about their behavior and challenge them about why they might think a certain way about it. It actually addressing it and theres the balance then between the last series and how you do that and how that can alienate or support the process. Leading by example is also a major issue for public life. Also into the media. What we say, how we behavior, particularly those of us who have a role in Public Service i think goes a long way to setting standards that people be abide by. Your leadership is b important. We have had a huge discussion about the hate crime is how the media reported and there needs to be open debate about these issues. There shouldnt be fear of the debate. In the debate what were appealing to be is respect for each other, understand that there are competing perspectives. Then trying to get consensus moving forward. And deal with it. Except try to isolate. Its quite a way to continue. It will never stop it all. But i do think that with the number of actions, we can reduce the incidents of it. But also we can increase peoples capacity to challenge it. So there is very clear definition of what constitutes Sexual Harassment in the equally act. There are a range of criminal laws, which overlap with that. But i do think in relation to the criminal law, its ad hoc and perhaps that adds to the fact they dont know what actions are a breach to the criminal law. On the converse, you have recent discussions about Sexual Harassment including upskirting. It shows most people that should be against a criminal law and most people are surprise d it isnt. But its not covered. So what i think is common across the civil and criminal law is a minimizing and a trivializing of Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence. So i think thats common across the board and that can be addressed by brder Prevention Strategies around attitudes towards gender stereotyping and that broad continue. Theres also a need to update some of our laws in this regard. Which might then help to bring people together to a common understanding of what constitutes Sexual Harassment and why its harmful. Thank you. Thank you very much. Its fascinating. What do you see in the evidence that the government is currently doing enough to tackle Sexual Harassment. Anyone can answer. Lets go left to right. I think there have been some important steps take b recently. I think that the law of expertise. So we have had measures in the last few years around sexual abuse. Revenge pornography. Is but i think we need to go further. We could be taking more action in that regard. More generally, i think theres a lot of work around prevention to be done. We have had an announcement about compulsory relationships, education, but if i were to wave my wand, it would be about resourcing that and making it compulsory to ensure the issues we talk about here are taught in those schools and are taught by experts because you know the job coming in doesnt do the same job as an expert who might achieve that. So i think there are steps being taken, but theres a lot more that could be done. Some of the work by this Committee Like the work on Sexual Violence and schools is a really good step in the right direction. And the moves in the right direction around sre i do think one area where the government could make a huge difference is in gathering data. So i have been reading since this has become a huge media issue in recent months that the research and this has been referred to a lot because it was the only research at the time and we had undertaken that because there was a huge gap in the data. And we understood polling with you which is robust. But it seems odd that that is the only source of data when the government is so good at measuring other things. I know for instance in australia the Government Funds to do a fiv fiveyear lead. To be really important and good to have a baseline with benchmarking and measuring whether there are changes in behavior over time. So thats something i would really like to see. This has been a flurry of privately commissioned polls and that is good and coming up with fairly similar types of statistics. But it would be good to have robust Government Data to refer to and give us a better picture at different sectors and age groups. Focusing on a potential for a hate offense, may 2014 the law of commission were commissioned to review the law and hate crime. And whether there should be ab expansion. The commission made a number of recommendations to review the scope of hate crime. The numbers of five categories. So theres an option there whether or not we wanted to do that, but theres an option there to consider review iing t five reported strands of hate crime. Would you suggest that . Alongside that, because of the reported strands, at the minute as we would describe it doesnt exist. So then we would be looking to if the place were going to take certain action it would be revisions. Soz theres review of strands. So come back to the next question. They have done some fantastic work. And were planning goods and papers through the committee and on to the consideration of the strand of hate crime. A number of constables are reporting and others are waiting to see what were working. Even if we decided we were going to report on this nationally and work at a assistant, there are complications. It doesnt fit entirely neatly at the minute. But then the question would be so what. We report on its one thing. But its whether or not the criminal Justice System wants to respond to. I think in all that has been said about whether the government is taking it seriously or not. Do you think when you say that people should go forward and report it and you expect it that people coming forward and rep