First Minister Alex Salmond yesterday signed a statement of intent by women's organisations as part of the launch of a zero tolerance campaign on domestic violence.
He joined actress Elaine C Smith, Labour MSP Cathy Peattie, and his own party's Shirley-Anne Somerville at Holyrood for the launch of the campaign to stamp out violence against women and children.
Ms Peattie MSP said: "The 16 Days campaign highlights the impact of gender violence locally, nationally and internationally.
"As convener of the Scottish Parliament Cross Party Group, I find it enormously helpful that there are so many women and men prepared to campaign through meetings, marches and publicity events to keep politicians' attention focused on addressing these important issues."
She said the statement highlights the importance of securing political commitment to tackle the problem.
"We were one of the first countries to produce a national domestic abuse strategy. Scotland is highly regarded throughout the UK and internationally and I want to keep it that way.
"To do so, we need to ensure that our existing services are protected and extended, with long-term, sustainable funding."
Ms Somerville said: "The continued existence of violence against women and children is one of the biggest shames of so-called civilised society. The statement of intent sends a clear message that violence against women and children, in whatever form it manifests itself, will neither be ignored nor tolerated.
"I am delighted the government is pledging commitment to tackling this issue."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article