Preventing and ending violence against women is not a problem for women to face alone. As men, it is our responsibility to ensure that they don’t have to deal with the horrors our gender too frequently inflicts on them.

The White Ribbon All Party Parliamentary Group, which I co-chair, stresses the positive role that men can play by helping to challenge the sexist attitudes and behaviours that far too many men still hold. This is crucially important because if we can eliminate sexist behaviour at an early age and engender a deeper sense of respect, we can help prevent some of them from turning to more devastating gender-based violence when they grow up. But there’s something else we could all do too – campaign for the ratification of the Istanbul Convention (IC), one of the most important pieces of legislation for the protection of women and girls in British political history.

It’s been just under a year since I first wrote to the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, urging her to ratify the convention, which would commit the Government to take all necessary steps to prevent violence, protect women experiencing violence and prosecute perpetrators. This letter, which was co-signed by more than 10 organisations, urged the Government to introduce a series of preventative polices which would allow us to take effective action against the violence that 1 in 4 women face in their lifetimes. Unfortunately, we received a standard response to that letter and we’ve continued to receive disappointing replies from the Government after every call that we’ve made to them on this issue. Last week, more than 60 MPs signed an open letter to the Prime Minister pleading with her to fast-track the convention as a matter of increasing urgency. Still, we are met with nothing but silence.

I was therefore delighted when my SNP colleague Eilidh Whiteford MP decided to use her all too rare opportunity to put forward a Private Members’ Bill this Friday (16 December) to introduce legislation to timetable the advancement of the convention David Cameron committed to seeing through in 2012. If the bill is finally passed, this would mean that by law the Government would have to ensure the adequate funding of women’s services, fast-track a stronger, survivor-focused prosecution of perpetrators and an implement a targeted strategy prevent of rape and domestic violence from happening in the first place. We need 100 MPs through the doors to vote on it on a day when many would usually be celebrating the last day in the Parliamentary calendar before the Christmas break back home in their constituencies.

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