First Minister Humza Yousaf meets Prime Minister of Iceland, Katrín Jakobsdóttir in New York

First Minister Humza Yousaf discussed opportunities for collaboration on tackling gender-based violence with Prime Minister of Iceland, Katrín Jakobsdóttir in New York today.

First Minister Humza Yousaf said: “It was pleasure to speak with Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir about opportunities for collaboration on tackling gender-based violence and promoting gender equality both domestically and internationally. When it comes to tackling violence and improving the lives of women and girls, it is crucial that we continue to learn from initiatives introduced by other countries, such as Iceland.

“Scotland is making great strides in challenging violence against women and promoting gender equality through our groundbreaking Equally Safe strategy.  We recently announced our commitment to bring forward legislation to criminalise misogynistic conduct. Our gold standard domestic abuse laws criminalise psychological domestic abuse and coercive and controlling behaviour as well as physical abuse, giving more powers to police and courts to punish perpetrators and protect people, the majority of whom are women, from harm.

“I was pleased to tell the Prime Minister about how we have been inspired by the Icelandic Barnahus model, which provides holistic child-centred support to child victims of sexual abuse. This will deliver support to child victims and witnesses of harm and abuse and will also transform the way we deliver justice, care and recovery for children who have experienced trauma.

“I look forward to our continued collaboration between Scotland and Iceland on issues like this, and we will continue to take inspiration from countries such as Iceland wherever it can make a difference.”