‘The idea that change their

attitudes when they rear their heads.

“As chair of the All- Party Parliamentary Group on White Ribbon I’ve seen the brilliant work White Ribbon Scotland have been doing in spreading the word and reaching out to work with local agencies and across the country.

“But they can’t do that work alone – they need support from the public and from men in particular for their work and the idea that it is males who need to change the way they behave with women and their attitudes towards each gender.

“This is not a women’s problem – it is a blight on all of us society, and men are responsible both for their own actions and for challenging the actions of those around them who perpetrate the abuse and harassment women and girls have been expected to tolerate on a daily basis.

“It’s up to all of us to step up and root out the kinds of behaviour that have received bigger publicity over the last week, but which women and girls have been expected to put up with all their lives.”

According to the Office for National Statistics ( ONS), 1.5 million women were subjected to violence by their husbands, boyfriends, or ex-spouses in the UK last year.

Between March 2019 to March 2020, 207 women were killed at the hands of men in England, Scotland, and Wales; on average, a woman is killed by a man every three days in the UK.

According to a study carried out by UN Women in January this year, 97 per cent of women in the UK have experienced sexual harassment in public places.

In Renfrewshire, the Paisleybased Women’s Aid recorded a 60 per cent surge in referrals from women in the area who were experiencing abuse while at home during lockdown.

Recent Police Scotland figures revealed there were 1,302 reports of domestic abuse between April and October last year.

Mhairi Black, MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, says figures such as these highlight that the issue is something affecting women everywhere.

She said: “Thousands of women have yet again come forward to share the lengths they have to go