Hello and welcome to this session on Budgeting and Financing of Elections. My name is Erik Ausblunt, I'm a Programme Officer here at International Idea and today I'm joined by Rumbizai Kandoa Sika Nundu, the head of our Idea Political Participation and Representation team. Rumbizai, before we begin, I was wondering if you could just say a little bit about your professional background. Thanks, Erik, and good morning everyone. My work is mostly on political participation and representation broadly with a particular focus on gender equality and women's empowerment, political parties processes, especially the intra-party democracy processes, and also strengthening of political parties broadly as institutions that can support democracy building. And there's a very big and important component in that respect on political financing or money in politics, how political financing plays a major role in the work that political parties have to do, in the work that institutions for building and supporting democracy such as electoral management bodies have to do. So my background is a combination of all those factors and of course the parliamentary strengthening aspect. I have a strong background on working with parliaments across the world, but mostly with a very huge focus. I've had a huge focus in Africa. Thank you. So first question. Yes. Could you please describe the global trends on political finance for political parties and candidates for elections? Erik, from the work that we are doing under political participation and representation, and this is really knowledge-based informed by the political finance database that we are developing, which currently has about 180 countries. It's very clear that the global trends around the issue of political financing are on, let me call them, four main aspects, public funding. What countries are doing to ensure that political parties receive public funding of access to resources. There's also the component of private funding because there are also several corporate organizations and even individual persons that are also contributing to the financing of political parties. So that's the other aspect of private funding. But with all of that, there's a very strong trend that is growing on the issues of reporting to what extent political parties as entities that can support democracy building, are they being regulated to report on the money, the access, the resources that they receive and the sources where the money is coming from and also how they spend it on what aspects. And then the fourth component and trend to reinforce all of that is the oversight. The entities and oversight bodies that are being put in place in different countries across the world to perform an oversight function on the reporting that is done by political parties with regards to the finance that they have and how they use that finance. So if we put it all together, essentially what we are seeing is international idea and what we are collecting to provide information, knowledge-based information to different actors and boundary partners and stakeholders that we work with is about trends related to public funding, what is happening in that component. Private funding, issues and frameworks for reporting and the oversight entities and bodies around the issues of political financing. And maybe I might also just give you like an illustrative example from the 180 countries that we have currently on the political finance database you find that 71% of those countries they provide direct political financing to political parties. So that's actually quite a good number out of 180, 71% of the countries they provide public funding to political parties. So it shows also that political parties are remaining as central entities for democracy development and multi-party politics. But why is public funding so important for political parties in Canada? I think it's very clear that it's important in several respects. One of them of course is to ensure that political parties if we seriously regard them as institutions, remember the workers idea that we do we focus on institutions and processes. And if political parties are strongly regarded as institutions that can support democracy building they need to have resources to conduct their work and they are mandate effectively especially given the fact that we say political parties in spite of their challenges and this is not to say that they are very effective in terms of their mandates but in spite of their challenges they still remain like the recognized entities that is able to bring together voices and interests and aspirations of different segments of people in different countries or societies. So for that reason it's important to facilitate or at least allow some measure of elements of resources to be made available to political parties. But it also it is important in terms of also regulation because if it's open and there are no direct regulatory measures on political financing you will actually find that that's where we probably end up with the risk of the illicit flow of money into politics which is and can be a big threat to democracy. But also it also limits even the ability of other actors of other maybe emerging political parties or emerging political movements or platforms or interest groups to engage in politics in a sustainable way if there is no support in any form to political parties to be able to conduct their work just as much as we have now because you see most of our countries they have regulations about the establishment of political parties So this goes hand in hand with the recognition that political parties have a significant role, play a significant contribution, bring and perform a significant contribution in democracy building just as much as we see our countries with different regulatory frameworks for the establishment of our electoral management bodies to manage and administer elections and even the establishment and existence of civil society organizations to provide platforms for engagement and interaction So it's also similar with regards to political parties even though of course there are sensitivities on the fact that they deal with ideological and political issues but that's what democracy is all about the diversity of views and spaces for people to express their views You talked about reporting before, now how can reporting be maintained by political parties and candidates, maybe you have a few examples Yeah, if we look at the issue of reporting several countries putting in place there's a mixture of the mechanisms for reporting in some countries in fact if we look at our political finance database I think at least about 69% of the countries that we have there's the reporting which is done through the electoral management body because in some countries the resources that are allocated or the finance, the funding that is provided to political parties is channeled through an electoral management body let's say for instance I'm thinking of Cape Verde they are the ones who receive the money that goes to the political parties and of course there's a criteria which is something also very detailed but all of those things are available in our funding of political parties and the electoral campaigns publication and that criteria stipulates how much a political party gets and then of course it then provides the timing in terms of like when political parties are supposed to submit their financial reports like for instance in Rwanda do they submit to the Ombudsperson's office do they submit to the electoral management body but then it goes also to the auditor general to go through and review the reports so there's a combination of reporting mechanisms and also the timing in several of the countries we've seen that they require the political parties to submit their financial reports for whatever resources that they've received like within a year of either maybe after an election or after every annual year before they can receive another dispassment so there are various combinations and in some countries for instance it's even a parliamentary committee the specialized parliamentary committee can be set up to look at the financial reports that are received from political parties so there are a combination of these mechanisms for reporting and also the timing but in most of the cases that we are seeing political parties are required to provide annual reports on their expenditures and reporting but having said that Eric the effectiveness and of course the extent to which this actually happens in practice it's also diffused because the frameworks are there the laws for that are there and even the entities and institutions that should have the oversight and receive the reports are there but it doesn't necessarily mean that it happens as effectively as it is put down on paper just to say I thought I can read that you might want to get to that aspect so last question then why do you think that political finance issues are so crucial for a democracy goal? there are so issues of political finance are so crucial Eric because for me one of the aspects that we see is the element of trying to level the playing field because money matters for democracy democracy costs money but at the same time if it's not effectively regulated I think it can be very chaotic and this is where sometimes people get the sense that democracy is for rich people or a certain class it becomes like a class issue because the ordinary citizens or the ordinary people they cannot automatically even visualize or see themselves being able to have the aspirations and the ability to present themselves as candidates for election for elective positions of power and decision making so because of the cost that is also attached to electoral processes political campaigns and democracy broadly political finance becomes very key in terms of how it is managed as a key component of democracy first of all to basically allow for leveling of the playing field so that there is no undue influence and flow of illicit money into politics and into electoral campaigns another aspect that remains very key which we are pursuing is international idea is leveling of the playing field not just between different political groupings but also between women and men which is why is international idea we are investing a lot in the work that we are doing on gender targeted public funding for political parties the extent to which political parties can be required and expected to allocate some of the resources for gender mainstreaming and to clarify that gender is not synonymous with women but for empowering both women and men in terms of their perspectives in terms of their attitudes towards the political participation and representation of both women and men in positions of power and decision making at all levels and this is so much in line with the SDG-5 and the targets that we are set and also so much in line with SDG-16 which idea we are pushing on inclusive institutions that are accountable that are also transparency and have integrity so the area of political finance is very key because it really has a strong influence on the integrity of democracy and electoral processes and the outcome of elections because without any regulatory frameworks and a close eye and tracking on the aspect of political financing the integrity of democracy can be undermined because essentially this is where you see a lot of incidences and occurrences about buying because taking advantage of people's economic status and poverty and even a lot of complaints that access to information on electoral processes be it access to information on voter registration who is able to access a voter registration point access to information on civic and voter education who is able to do that and access processes in order for them to be implemented effectively they need political financing so political financing electoral financing processes they are very much interlinked because what you invest in terms of financing politics has an impact on the outcome of elections and electoral processes so this is why the issue of political financing is very central not just for levelling the playing field but more for allowing citizens to engage and being able to engage even if they don't have big money because democracy and elections can not just be about people who have money but what about others who are also marginalized or disadvantaged in certain ways economically and otherwise parties may have an important role in voter and civic education precisely thank you very much thank you Eric thank you the audience for watching


Famous YouTubers Rhett and Link recently shared that they used to be Christian missionaries, but ended up leaving the faith. I'm a Christian, and let's talk about that. So if you don't know who Rhett and Link are, Rhett and Link are from one of the Carolinas, I can't remember at this point. But they ended up making YouTube videos. When YouTube began, one of the OG YouTubers, they moved to Los Angeles, where they continue to make YouTube videos, accumulating millions and millions and millions of followers, subscribers. I'm on YouTube, I should know this, subscribers. And yeah, so they just make this YouTube show, actually it's the most viewed, most viewed daily YouTube show, Good Mythical Morning, which I'm currently subscribed to and watch frequently. These guys are YouTube famous. They've written a number of New York Times bestselling books. They have multiple YouTube premium series. Now to bring in some of my story here, I began watching them when my brother first introduced me to them. I think when I was like 12 or 13, maybe even younger than that, but he brought one of their comedy YouTube music videos to me and he showed it to me and I was like, oh my goodness, these guys are so funny. And so I just continue to watch them for over 10 years, like until now. And throughout watching them, not so much in the comedy music videos that they used to do early on, but now in the Daily Show, Good Mythical Morning, I could tell that there was some, I don't know, they used Christian language, like Christian ease every once in a while. Stuff, they bring up stuff or say stuff that usually a regular person wouldn't really know about. You'd have to be connected to Christianity in some way to know. So that got me thinking. I guess I kind of assumed they were born in the Carolinas. Okay, it's the Bible Belt, maybe they grew up in church, but ended up kind of pushing it away early on. Well, something crazy happened. Just a month ago, I saw something pop up in my podcast feed and I subscribed to their podcast, Ear Biscuits. And the title was something like The Lost Year. So I clicked on it and I began to listen. And it was basically telling the story of them growing up in church, how they ultimately signed on to become missionaries for crew, like a Christian university, like organization at a university. And they were sharing the gospel with people. And this was a really fundamental part of their lives, even through adulthood. In that first podcast, one of the guys, Rhett, explained what he meant by evangelical Christians, because that's what they called themselves back then. That's what they were. They would identify as back then. And so he explained the gospel. And at some points, I'm like, okay, this guy is explaining the gospel really, really well. Usually you hear people that leave the faith, that have a misunderstanding about what the gospel is all about. But on the surface, yo, these guys really understand what the Christian message is. To us, being an evangelical Christian meant that we believe that the Bible was the word of God. Meaning the creator of the universe chose to communicate the breath of his wisdom through a book that he inspired people to write. It's called the Bible, the Old Testament and the New Testament. And in the Bible, you learn about Jesus, who is the Son of God. And he is the only way that you can have a right relationship with God. And then one day end up being in heaven. And what that essentially means is that if you don't go to Jesus, if you don't believe in Jesus, if Jesus has not forgiven you of your sins, then you basically face judgment of your sins. And when you die, you're going to face God's judgment. That's called hell. There was one episode, I think it was episode three. It was called Rhett's Spiritual Deconstruction. And he shared a lot about his search for truth. It was always about the truth for him. So even when he was, you know, he would consider himself a Christian, it was, okay, you know, what's true here in the Bible? I gotta dig out this truth, learn from this and continue to move on. He was one of those guys that I would really call a thinker. But ultimately he came to the conclusion that evolution was true. And he began to, you know, integrate that into the Bible, into his Christian belief structure. Ultimately, he found that the Bible and evolution were irreconcilable. So he had to follow what he believed was the truth in order to say true to his heart and his and what he thought was right. He shared a lot of examples of why the different evolutionary beliefs or perspectives of why evolution is true. I'm not gonna get into all that. You can go to Answers in Genesis. And as he even said this, because he's familiar with these different resources, they have a lot more on that. But I was just interested in this truth because I think we all as humans, we're born with this innate sense that we need to find the truth. What is true? What is right? What is wrong? What is true? What is false? But then I began to just really think a little bit more about his world view, this idea that we're all evolved from primordial ooze. We're all stardust in a sense. And we weren't created with innate worth or meaning or purpose. No, we're just evolved animals. So my question is, is if we're all evolved animals, right? We're all just stardusts. We're all just primordial ooze. We're all just like a chemical reaction. Then what is our foundation for truth, reason, logic? I like the way Douglas Wilson puts it. If there is no God, then all that exists is time and chance acting on matter. If this is true, then the difference between your thoughts and mind correspond to the difference between shaking up a bottle of Mountain Dew and a bottle of Dr. Pepper. You simply fizz atheistically, and I fizz theistically. This means that you do not hold to atheism because it is true, but rather because of a series of chemical reactions. Morality, tragedy, and sorrow are equally evanescent. They are all empty sensations created by the chemical reactions of the brain in turn created by too much pizza the night before. If there is no God, then all abstractions are chemical epiphenomena like swamp gas over fetid water. This means that we have no reason for assigning truth or falsity to the chemical fizz we call reasoning or right or wrong to the irrational reaction we call morality. The sad thing to me is that even though Rhett has left the faith, he still lives like a Christian in the sense that he's still looking for truth. He's still trying to find out what is true, what is false, what is right, and what is wrong. He's still looking for that, but in his worldview, those things don't have any foundational basis. If we're just stardust or primordial ooze or evolved animals, there's no truth in that worldview. There's no objective standard that we can even look at. No, it's all subjective and it's all just based on opinion. Now, in part four, Link, the other guy, he mentioned his struggles with moving to LA as somewhat of a Christian. He was still having doubts and still bringing up some of the things that Rhett did about evolution and trying to reconcile that with the Bible because he was having doubts about the Bible. But even as he moved to LA, he began to interact with people from what I'm going to call the LGBTQ, however many things they got now, the community, right? That community. And so he began interacting with them and he was working with them and he loved them and they were his friends.  And so these people are engaging in a sinful lifestyle. And how can I reconcile that with my love for them? Like, I love these people, I work with these people. How can I believe something? The Bible that says these people are doing something wrong. And Rhett echoed this as well because it's this tension. What do we believe? Do we believe the Bible and what it says about these deeds and acts and behaviors? Or do we side with just completely accepting the behaviors of our co-workers and friends and that kind of thing? And so this kind of got me thinking too because this is not an unusual situation, right? Like in your life maybe you have friends that are, you know, they would say they're part of LGBTQ community or maybe, you know, you have a friend that's sleeping with his girlfriend or whatever. Just whatever it is when you have loved ones in your life that are living counter to the Bible, you have a decision to make. And a lot of that decision is based on where your foundation lies.  Then you probably most likely are going to side with just accepting whatever your friends are doing or dependent like regardless of the behavior because you don't want to have conflict and you just want to accept them. But if our foundation is grounded in God's Word because of God's, you know, transformation of us from the inside out because we love God and we want to honor him, our worldview is different. Our worldview sees these people like we are broken people who need to be loved but also need ultimate forgiveness and reconciliation to God. And that is our motive and that doesn't mean we hate those people. Doesn't mean we're not friends with those people. No, it means that we have a different perspective of their life. We see them as the broken people that we are too. But they need that forgiveness, reconciliation and redemption, that justification that can only come through Christ. You know, as I said, I've been watching these guys forever and I'm going to continue to watch them. I think they're hilarious. You know, they feel like close friends. I don't think I've watched any YouTuber as long as I've watched them. And so honestly, at this point, I'm just kind of sad. Like I relate to at the end of episode four, Rhett was talking about how a Christian listening to this might feel. And he was like, well, if I were in their shoes, I would feel sad. And he's right on the money. I do feel sad. You know, the message I guess I want to get across and something that I was thinking about as I was watching this podcast was it's not about information, it's about transformation, right? Because we can have all the information in the world. Like these guys were able to say the gospel and share the gospel on their podcast in a very like correct way, correct theological way. Like they were very solid theologically in terms of what their perspective was, at least on the outside. But you can have all the information in the world about the gospel, about Jesus. And yet if there's no transformation that happens by the power of the Holy Spirit in your lives, you remain unchanged. I'm sure these guys try to be good people on the outside, but if there's no inner transformation by the Holy Spirit, look all the information in the world, all the facts, all the like all the arguments, it's not going to change you. You know, something that I related to deeply was when Link talked about when as he was growing up, he always and onto like being an adult as well, he talked about how he felt this deep, you know, like God was disappointed in him, the shame, this guilt that he wasn't able to shake every time he prayed to God. He just felt like, God, you know, I'm sorry. Like I'm not closer to you. Like I want to be, you know, good, but I can't. And if he was feeling the shame, this guilt, because he wasn't where he thought he should be in terms of his relationship with God. And what kind of broke my heart is when he talked about leaving the faith. He talked about this freedom that came over him, this idea that, oh, look, I'm kind of autonomous now that I don't have to feel this guilt or shame or try to measure up to this, this standard. And as I was thinking about this, you know, as I said, I relate to this deeply. I was thinking about my own walk and from a Christian's point of view and what I've read and what I'm learning is that true freedom is not about just like, yeah, you feel this guilt, you feel the shame, you feel like God's disappointed in you. It's not about just breaking free from all of that, casting God aside, denying God and just going your own way to not feel that bondage anymore. No, true freedom comes as a result of God's grace and rest within us. You see, even as Christians, right, we are forgiven. We are forgiven. So we don't need to have that guilt or shame anymore. God's not disappoint us anymore as Christians, right? Because Jesus took all that shame and guilt on himself. But as Christians, and I relate to Lincoln this way that, look, we still feel that guilt and shame because we're not where we think we should be. But what are we supposed to fall back on? What are we supposed to dwell in? We're supposed to dwell in God's grace for us. God has said, I've forgiven you. I've called you my own.  I love you. You can rest. God has called us into this eternal rest, not just in heaven. Now, now, and it comes as a result of his grace, we don't need to continue to strive or feel guilt or shame because we're not where we should be. Because that's not what we're striving for. We're striving to glorify God, love God, enjoy God, and serve others. And obviously, we're not going to measure up to where we want to or get anywhere near perfection, right? But it's about living within that eternal grace and rest that God has called us into as a result of his love for us, his sacrifice for us, our justification. And now, we're moving into this realm of sanctification. The sanctification is when we move closer. We're moving closer to be more like Christ every day.  This is not a prison that God wants you to be in. This is a prison that he wants to free you from. This guilt, the shame, the sense that he's disappointed in us. No, once we're Christians, man, we're free. It's not as a result of just becoming autonomous, casting God aside and going our own way. No, that's not freedom at all because we're bondage. We're in bondage to our own sin. That's slavery. That's slavery when we're just going away from God. We're rebelling against him and we're going towards our own destruction because we follow our nature. And the Bible says that our nature is sinful. We have the sinful nature. But God, when he saves us, he transforms us into a new creation. We have a new nature. And it just brings me back to that idea of it's not about information. It's about transformation. And look, Brent and Link, if you guys are still watching this video, if you're watching it all, I don't know if I've said this already, but I love you guys. I really do.  I think it's awesome. And I think your work, a lot of it, not all of it, but a lot of it, is a reflection of God. Is a reflection of who God is and the way God laughs at comedy and the way that God loves creativity. I think you guys show that, but I think you need to come. I don't think you were Christians, but you know the stuff. My prayer is that not that you'd get more information, but that you'd begin a transformation and that you'd use all those skills that you have, that you're already showing the creativity of God and the comedy of God in a lot of what you do, but that you would now intentionally reflect him in your lives. And you would pivot that towards sharing him with others. That's my prayer. Thanks so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video, got something from it, you can give it a like, subscribe to the channel because I'm making new videos every single week. You can follow me on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube obviously, because you're here. We got a Facebook as well. And like I said, if you want to support us on Patreon, head on over to patreon.com slash daily underscore disciple for one time gifts. I have a PayPal down below that you can check out daily disciple slash partner. Thanks so much for watching guys, and I'll see you next time. God bless.


We got ourselves a really messed-up green screen here. It got some cherry pie on it and we're gonna and I'm gonna use the Steam cleaner I have over here To clean it off. This is another reason why I have a nice So I'll turn the green screen effect off As you could see here, and I don't have all my lights on but this steam cleaner really works well on the green screen They're njroute22.com here and here you can see a video of us steam cleaning this This green screen from this ridiculous cherry pie stain. I'm not going to explain how I got the cherry pie Stain on there, but it got on there. So let's just deal with it I Really think a steam cleaner is one of them one of the things that that everybody should have as one of their like Truly I go to Devices in their house We're gonna be doing more videos about the steam cleaner and all the things you can clean with them but I was ready to like throw this this hundred and sixty dollar Elgato green screen out and I said screw that. I'm gonna try and steam clean and it actually worked. I have to probably steam clean it one more time but It's the best thing ever. It's like hot boiling steam water is is one of the best ways to clean everything. So that's it Stay tuned for more. Okay Right, I haven't let it dry it, but I think you could see that the green screen is good. We'll turn turn it back on And turn it off. So I think we're all good to go See you next video hit the like and subscribe please get a steam cleaner. It's worth the investment


I'm very excited, because I'm the first. I hope it will go away, OK. I work at Ort Israel, a school network with over 200 institutions. We operate public schools. One out of every 10 students in secondary schools in Israel attends our schools. We serve all religions and ethnic groups, and we focused on science and technology. You can see the amount of schools all around Israel over here. This is a list of competencies required by the Israeli Ministry of Education for Model C, part of the matriculation examination in English as second language. These competencies are grouped into five main categories, general, dictionary, writing, vocabulary, and high-order thinking skills. I chose one of these competencies, vocabulary, with which to present the process of setting up competencies in model course. Now, the concept of competency-based language teaching, or CBLT, is to mold the course around competencies rather on subject knowledge. This is not a new idea. Yet the application in model is relatively new. I must say, I myself was involved in two projects, one in a PBL project named a STEAM, and the other one was in English. And this is what I'm showing you now. Model C is part of the matriculation exam in English, as second language for medium-level 10th grade students. This course was designed to be taught in class, not at home, individually with the teacher's assistance. Pedagogically, it's focused on providing personalized learning plans. Didactically, it utilized active learning in the form of interactive video, immediate feedback, and gamification in the form of using quizlet, badges, and reflecting progress. The course is built on using the grid course format and has 10 sections. As mentioned before, I will focus on vocabulary competencies, and I will use the first section, the story of the bagel, to show how it's done. What you see here is the mapping of the competencies which I've done on a spreadsheet. The framework tagged each section with a list of competencies. The result was this competency map, which enabled the teacher to assign the sections as needed. The competency matrix enabled the course designer and the teacher to add additional learning assignment in order to add or enhance competencies that are lacking, as the map shows. This is something that is missing in the report of the competency in Moodle. Now, the first section, the story of the bagel, is struck like the rest of the 10 sections. Each section begins with a short paragraph from the text, accompanied with an interactive video built on H5P. Falling are a quiz and quizlet activity, which are only part of the various activity learning components available in every section. Breakdown of course competencies in this screen, you can see here the quiz broken down into the course competencies. What I chose is specifically the vocabulary to show you. The list is quite long and you can see only part of it. Now in the teacher report, based on the competency tagging, the teacher can get a competency report of each student. On the left side, there's a student who hasn't done yet his learning and there's nothing to show you about his competency. On the right, on the other hand, I can see that Oris Shapiro, one of the students, has completed the new words V1 in competencies. Designing a learning plan, according to the competencies, went on and made a learning plan. The teacher can identify weakness or lack of competency among students and add assignment accordingly. As each activity has a unique competency list, the teacher can set either an individual learning plan or a whole class learning plan according to the learning needs. What you can see, I can edit that and put more or less competence as needed. Here's an example of student's learning plan in format of that enabled editing. So I can, as I said before, add or remove a competency in his learning plan. And this is student's report. Notice that the progress bar on the top, reflecting the relatively progress of one student. And below that is a detailed report of the student's progress by competencies. Now, I would like to summarize and give some conclusion and open to question and discussion. We can design course and assign learning plans based on competency required for individual or cohort of learners. Tagging competency expands Moodle's capability for personal learning. And this is one thing that is most important for us nowadays. Once created, a Moodle competency metric support will enable the course designer to cover all required competencies. And CBLT enabled an analysis of the competency in a given learning plan versus design a course based on subject knowledge. Thank you. Another thing that I would like to bring up for you, you're most welcome to go into the site with this QR code and use the username and password of student's MC to explore Model C and the gamification and competencies. Thank you. Questions? If you've got any questions, I've got one, but I'll ask you in a minute. My trusty assistant here, Mark, will run around with the microphone. How is it to work with UI, UX of these competencies? Challenging. Challenging, yes. I think this is something we need some improvements. I have it. I'm using it. It looks familiar, but it's busy doing something. Sorry. What was the question? I was talking about the competencies framework, all the UI. How do you set it up? It's a little bit challenging. I think, well, yes it is. When I was in Canada recently, a group team there have worked on a new interface, which looks very promising. So it was originally developed by the University of Montreal together with us. It was always intended as just let's get the basic framework in and let people design plug-ins. So this time it's actually happening. So I hope we can get that in soon. We have an open source coordinator. Talk to him. I would like to add, in the field it's very needed. In the K-12 level, what is lacking here is the option for the teacher to set up a learning plan, which is very important. At the moment, only an admin can do that. You can actually tweak the permissions to get teachers to do that, but I agree. I agree with you from the point of view of teachers in courses. Yeah, I had a question about the students. And what kind of feedback have you got from them as to do they really appreciate having this learning plan and the competence? Do they like seeing their progress in that way? OK, the course hasn't been taught yet in the field with students. At the moment, we are presenting it to teachers. For them, it's quite natural to go this path. But I'm not sure about the students. I'm doing another one, as I said before, in a PBL where I took a different set of components, competencies. And again, we haven't got feedback yet from the students. And I noticed you said H5P, which I know is very popular. But also you're using Moodle Quiz 2. Is there a reason why you like H5P and why you're not only using Moodle Quiz? Or why the two? Do you think they have different possibilities? The H5P was more for the gamification of this course. At the beginning, there's a text that students need to read. And what I wanted to do was to bring a short video about the text, so to engage them more in reading and interacting with the content. During the text, during the video that you can go on and see, this is the video that you see over here, the students have to answer certain questions. So it's more for the gamification rather than the competencies. The competencies were in different activities, mostly in the quiz. Hi, can you tell us, is there any possibility to create competencies for students with special needs? I believe so. It depends on, well, it was very important to me to use a set of competencies which are given by the Ministry of Education. And I believe there is some set of competencies for students with special needs. So yes. And I would say that you should go with the learning plan and associate a specific competency in a learning plan and give them to a specific cohort of students with special needs. I was just interested, what question types you're using in your Moodle quiz. Are you just using the standard ones or have you found any nice plugins that you like? All kinds of questions. It's not only about the type of the question which is drag and drop and multiply choice questions and so on. It's the question itself, the way it's written, what the students need to do, and the variety is enormous. You should go on and just see it. You will see in Model C the use of Hebrew beside the English. I don't think it will bother you. In some question might. I just wanted to point out, actually, I'm definitely going to have a look. Yeah, that talking about competencies and setting up competencies, on Moodle.net we have a whole area where you can share any competency frameworks that you've got or you can download and get some. And we've got these, what is it, CEFR, Competency Framework for Languages as well, which is very useful, talking about second language learning. It was quite easy to find competency in English, compared to math, for example. Right, thank you very much, Indy.


We are striving to forge our union with purpose to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gaze not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first. We must first put our differences aside because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It's the past we step into and how we repair it. We've seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it, would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. And this effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith we trust for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption. We found the power to author a new chapter to offer hope. If we merge mercy with might and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children's birthright. So let us leave behind a country better than one we were left with. Every breath from my bronze pounded chest we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. Every known nook of our nation in every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful. When they come, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it, for there was always light if only we're brave enough to see it, if only we're brave enough to be it.


This was a good storage practice at one time, right? People use these to create redundancy. You know redundancy is a big part of storage.  It's gone. So redundancy is one of the things that's talked about a lot. And I think that's probably the one that most researchers are pretty comfortable following. We're used to making copies of our data in different places. It might be on multiple CDs. You might back up to the cloud. You might back up to an external hard drive and take that external hard drive with you. I found in talking to researchers that a lot of people will drop a file and email and email it to themselves. And so they've created redundancy this way. You know, that kind of storage is at least good compared to single, you know, I guess single storage options, but it's still not good enough. You know, you definitely want to get, you definitely want to use more more of a managed storage approach, I guess you would say. So this might have been good at one point for someone, but not many computers come with the hardware required to read this now. And so I've actually had, since I've been here, only a year. I've had just members of the public come into the library and ask, hey, does anyone know where I can hack, you know, where I can plug this disk into a machine so that I can see what I had on here? And and so they've been directed to me, because I'm collecting some hardware that can be used to render these and we have a lot of these in archives and we're trying to extract data from them. But it's important to keep in mind that, you know, a lot of these CDs, a lot of these storage, you know, going back to floppy disks, zip disks, even CDs and DVDs are really just tomorrow's floppy disks and they're on the verge of being obsoleted now. Desktop machines are starting to ship without CD and DVD drives. People use tablets. Everything is moving to the cloud. And so, you know, any kind of fixed media, as far as storage goes, has its dangers and redundancy can help. But redundancy might not solve all the problems too. So what we really recommend as librarians and archivists is using managed storage. So this is storage that has, you know, constant backup. With this kind of storage, with archival storage, you can do other things. You can you can check files for fixity. So digital objects do degrade naturally on their own. Over time, there's something called bit rot and they lose bytes, you know. And so you can see this in some old digital photograph files where you'll you'll open them up. And if one bit flips, you know, from a one to a zero, that could have tremendous impact on the quality of the image. And you can see visible degradation. So one of the ways that we try to work against that is when we put stuff in managed storage, and if we can wrap around that managed storage, certain policies that that check those files constantly and look for bit rot and compare them, you know, to previous checks, previous audits of an entire directory. Well, then we can start to see, OK, you know, here's one that something has changed. And so then we can back it up from previous version and restore it. So there's definite benefits to taking a managed storage approach. And I realize that some of these things might be on, you know, what some researchers are able to do. But I think this is really where libraries and archives can can help researchers with that kind of appropriate storage.


Rwyf gwneud â bod yn digwydd â ddiweddau Covid-19 rydych chi i wneud, mae ddim yn gweithio, ac mae'r cyfrifiad eff Stromers yn cyd-gweithio gyda'r gyfrifiad yw byddem ar y terfwyelt a'r cyfrifiad yw'r cyfrifiad Hyllidol. Yr ucherydd ffordd y byddiwch cyfan y fan hyfforddi tr�wysbeth maen nhw Llawrfyn, 1-6-1-2, bydd i adnw'r yfynod i wych i ailennod ond mae'r model ffordd i Scottland, mae'r ddechrau i meddwl i prosidio'r cyr Treffwydol yn Scotland. Shared to put those members who wish to participate. Press the request-to-speak button, would allow the number of members to join us online. The meeting of Zoom and the members is set, so please proceed forward. I will call Eleanor Whitham to open the debate for around seven minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am delighted to have secured the crucial debate on the urgent need to reform our laws on prostitution and thank colleagues from across the chamber for their support. I would also like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the Minister Ashúrigh for her strong leadership and unswerving commitment on this issue. Prostitution is violence against women. As a former women's aid worker and homelessness worker, I have supported often very young women who were trafficked from Ayrshire to Glasgow and subjected to the most traumatic sexual exploitation.  The Scottish Government rightly recognises that this is equally safe, our national strategy to eradicate violence against women and girls. The Government is to be congratulated for its pledge made in this Parliament through the programme for government to challenge men's demand for prostitution in Scotland. Reducing men's demand while supporting women to exit and recover after sexual exploitation must be the overriding objective of public policy on prostitution. It is clear, however, that this policy objective can't be achieved without legislative reform. That's because Scotland's prostitution laws are outdated and unjust.  Online pimping is legal, while women exploited through prostitution can themselves face criminal sanctions for soliciting. We recognise that prostitution is violence against women, but our laws do not, and the consequences are all too real. Firstly, demand for prostitution is being enabled rather than deterred. Only 4 per cent of men in Scotland have paid for sex in the last five years, according to latest figures, and it is demand from this minority of men that is driving the brutal prostitution trade in Scotland and the trafficking of women into it. Men who pay for sex are making a choice. They are not helplessly responding to uncontrollable sexual urges. Their choice to seek out and pay a person to perform sex acts on them is influenced by a range of factors, including the very small risk of criminal sanction. In 2018, as studied by the University of Leicester, asked over 1,200 sex buyers, would you change your behaviour if a law was introduced that made it a crime to pay for sex? Over half of the respondents said that they would definitely, probably or possibly, change their behaviour. Yet right now, unless a man solicits a woman and a public place, there is no risk of criminal sanction for paying for sex in Scotland. A sex buyer knows that if he preparates this form of violence against women, the criminal justice system will be a passive bystander. Another intolerable consequence of our outdated prostitution laws is that commercial pimping websites operate openly and legally, and they are fueling sex trafficking across this country. Those highly lucrative websites make their money by hosting advertisements for prostitution. They are, in effect, the red-like district of the internet. Men wanted to sexually exploit women can anonymously and freely peruse ads on those sites, selecting women from an online catalogue, according to their own location and preferences, and order them as easily as a takeaway.  They make the grotesque business of trafficking women into prostitution and advertising them to sex buyers substantially easier and quicker by centralising demand on a very small number of online platforms. Despite prostitution being recognised in our national strategy as a form of gender-based violence, our prostitution laws can make it harder for women to leave the sex trade and recover. Sanctioning and punishing women for their own exploitation is wholly counter to the policy objective of supporting women to exit. Those women can face enormous barriers to exiting and rebuilding their life—practical, physical, psychological, including the effects of trauma. Injury sustained can be horrific and mental scars long-lasting. Financial difficulties and coercion by pimps and abusive partners and having a criminal record for soliciting also put blockers on the road to recovery. As a society, we should offer victim support and not sanctions. Diane Martin, a Scottish survivor of prostitution and trafficking who was awarded a CBE for her tireless work supporting women to exit and recovery from sexual exploitation, has said, I want to be part of a Scotland that completely rejects the idea that women and girls can be for sale, treated as commodities by men who believe that this is their right and entitlement. I agree. I am delighted to support the campaign that Diane is now chairing to end this entitlement, the campaign, A Model for Scotland. It is an alliance of survivors, organisations and front-line services calling for a new progressive legal model to combat commercial sexual exploitation in Scotland. A model for Scotland must do the following, decriminalise victims of sexual exploitation, provide comprehensive support in exiting services for victims, wipe previous convictions for soliciting from victims' criminal records, criminalise paying for sex and prohibit online pimping. By shifting the burden of criminality off victims and on to those who perpetrate and profit from this abuse, those reforms would bring Scotland in line with the approach taken in countries such as Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Israel and France. Spain will also accept to join the growing list. With the Spanish Prime Minister declaring earlier this month that we will advance by abolishing prostitution, which enslaves women. Two decades after Sweden shifted the burden of criminality in 1999, research reveals that, since the approach was introduced, public attitudes on paying for sex have transformed. Traffickers are being deterred and demand for prostitution has dropped. The most recent research on prevalence found that, from the base sex buyer figure in 1999 of 12.7 per cent, that only 7.5 per cent of men now pay for sex and of those, only 0.8 per cent had paid for sex in the previous 12 months. The smallest proportion recorded in two decades and the lowest in Europe. Evidence from the United States also highlights the effectiveness of action against pimping websites. In 2018, those websites were criminalised in the US and analysis of the impact of the legislation one year later revealed that prostitution advertising market had been significantly disrupted and demand had dropped. Commenting on the legislation, Valiant Richie, special representative and coordinator for the combatant trafficking and the organisation of security and cooperation in Europe told members of this Parliament, that bill passed and the market declined 80 per cent in 72 hours. I am not aware of any anti-trafficking legislation anywhere in the history of the world that has had such an impact on the market in such a short period of time. The Scottish Government has pledged to challenge men's demand for prostitution and support women to exit. It is now time to deliver on that pledge. We need a model for Scotland that shifts the burden of criminality of victims and on to those who perpetrate and profit from sexual exploitation. It will be a model that Scotland can be proud of and its adoption will make mark a historic step forward in the battle for equality between women and men. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate today. I congratulate and thank Eleanor Whitman on securing the debate. That is a complex issue that does not have one simple answer. Indeed, there are many different views and opinions on how to address the matter of prostitution in our society. I think that we need to be clear that criminalising the people who sell sex has not worked and will not work in the future. We need to undertake a review of the laws surrounding this issue, not only to protect vulnerable women, but also to prevent further violence against them. Those selling sex should be able to seek help and support to exit prostitution without fear and without the risk of facing criminal proceedings against them. No one should face the consequences of the law for trying to get out of the sex industry, and we must ensure that the legislation brought forward by this Parliament provides that safe passage for anyone who wants to exit. Prostitution, whether by force or by circumstance, can only be overcome by having a more equal society. Access to adequate income, adequate living standards and an ability to provide for oneself and one's family is fundamental to ensuring that there are other options to prostitution. No one should ever need to sell their bodies to feed their children and heat their homes. We must also challenge the attitude of men with regards to the purchase of sex. There are countries internationally who have different systems, countries who are seeking to educate men while not criminalising the sex workers, and we should be seeking to work with those countries to find a system that works for the people of Scotland. We should be working with those who have lived and have direct experience of prostitution to ensure that Scotland has a system that works for them and with them to protect them from harm. The public consultation, which reported back in July, was an important first step on the journey to improving the legislation around sex work. Women are being exposed to extreme risk every day within the sex industry, while male buyers continue to remain unchallenged and their actions go without consequence. We need a Scottish system that seeks to recognise the outstanding gender inequalities in our society, to provide everyone with an adequate income to live on and support those wishing to exit the sex industry. I urge this Parliament to think out the box and let's find the solutions that benefits and protects so that, in future, no one is forced for whatever reason to be part of the sex industry. Jamie Greene, to be followed by John Mason again in four minutes. It is a great privilege to be able to participate in the debate that the members brought forward. Let's start with the basics. This is a man problem, not a woman's problem. I am happy to say that violence against women and girls, specifically, is no place in modern Scottish culture. We talk a lot about it in this Parliament and the work that the chamber does and the committees do. Here is an opportunity to maybe move that conversation from just words into action. We have recently worked on the cross-party basis on the historic legislation, the redress bill that the previous Parliament worked on seeking to wrong some of the rights in the past. I know that we have a good track record as Parliamentarians of working together on issues like this. I think that we can take a similar collaborative approach with today's debate. I would also like to thank those involved in the various campaigns that have helped to provide us with briefings today, including a model for Scotland, speak-out survivors, rape crisis Scotland and UK feminists. I have all been in touch with me in the past few days. I am pleased to have had calls with some of them individually, no least in my role as a member of the criminal justice committee and also as party spokesperson. Those campaigners are seeking to move away from the status quo. They are being loud and clear with us as lawmakers that they want to see the law in Scotland change. I move away from prosecuting the sale of sex and replacing it with criminalising the purchase of a model commonly and often known as the Nordic model to some extent. However, it is also a very different model that we currently have in Scotland as to some of our friends and neighbours, for example the Republic of Ireland, Iceland and even Canada, who take a very different approach. However, whatever we do and whatever changes we make to the law, it must be informed by those with lived experience. Their stories have been eye-opening and upsetting.  I found one account particularly distressing in the briefings that we received and I want to quote from it because it puts it into context. I became involved in prostitution in my early 20s courtesy of my then boyfriend. Now I use the word pimp, she said. I often threw up in anticipation and couldn't have done it sober. I then went on to develop PTSD, flashbacks and nightmares. I simply sold myself to fund my habit. It was a vicious cycle. As the member has already mentioned in the opening comment, some 3.6 per cent of men in the UK are reported to have paid for sex at some point in the last five years. That is down from 12.7 per cent in 1996, which is a huge improvement in a long way forward, but it is still 3.6 per cent of men. That is a lot of people. It still allows for serious organised crimes to exploit that on an industrial scale. When I lived in London, I had first-hand encounters with survivors of male prostitution in the LGBT community, and there were many charities around to support them. The underlying trigger for that often was drug addiction and homelessness and desperation for cash. I would like to commend the work of the LGBT Foundation and the men's room in Manchester who have been doing great work on that. We know that irrespective of whether you are a man or a woman, the trafficking, the mental and physical abuse, the trauma, the psychological and the physical, it is something that we need to do something about. Of course, as times change, so does the law. The old-fashioned ideas of what constitutes prostitution, of postcards and phone boxes and women walking the streets are outdated because they have been replaced by digital and new and modern ways of allowing the activity to flourish. Much of it has moved online, and we know that examples where there has been a crackdown, for example in the US through the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, it has, to an extent, worked. However, we all know realistically that for every one website or app or community group that you shut down, surely another one will pop up just as quickly because the scale of the revenues involved in organised crime and gangs is insane. Opinion is divided. I want to put that on the record in today's debate. We did get representation from Dr Anastasia Ryan of the SIP's Workers Advocacy Project on Brella Lline, who is against the Nordic model, and she says that when you criminalise the purchase of sex, all you do is drive the industry further underground. I know that that is not a universal view and perhaps a controversial one for some, but it does make it clear that whatever we do next, anyone who has a voice and a view on that must be afforded the opportunity to share it, and we must listen. In closing, I would like to welcome comments that the minister has previously made on the issue. We are making progress, and I know that there is a desire to work on a cross-party basis to make it happen. Those benches will work constructively on any proposals that are brought forward, and I know that there is an upside in this Parliament to address this issue and get this right, because Scotland has the opportunity here to be world leading in that respect. Thank you, Mr Greene. I now call on John Mason to be followed by Rhoda Grant. Four minutes, please, Mr Mason. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and thank you to Elena Whitsam for bringing this debate. There seem to be a few member's debates this week where male MSPs might be feeling wary about taking part, but I'll certainly give it a go. I very much agree with Jamie Greene when he said that this is a men's issue. In summary, I agree very much with the motion concerning commercial sexual exploitation. Next to no action has been taken against men over the years, despite the fact that it is almost always men who are purchasing and abusing, and if anyone has been subject to criminal charges, it has been the victims who are normally women, but, of course, it can occasionally be men as well. The argument always comes up that some women are choosing sex work as a valid career choice, and I recognise that, as we have sought to encourage increased equality for women over the years, it might be a natural reaction for some to see this issue as one of increased choices for women, so there should be no criminalisation for anyone. I am not denying that some women may be making free choices to sell sex. However, it seems clear that the norm is that women are the victims and are subject to physical, sexual and mental abuse. If anyone has seen the film I, Daniel Blake, it deals very powerfully with the failings of the DWP and the need for food banks, but it also sees a woman who has been failed by the system, who is not eating so that her kids can have food and who ends up by extreme financial pressures being driven into prostitution. That was not her choice or something that she wanted to do, but she was forced into this by a lack of support, and I would suggest that this is a much more typical situation. It might be a partner coercing someone, it might be a drug habit, it might be the result of trafficking from another country, but whichever way you look at it, that woman in dire need is the victim and should be protected by our systems and our law. I think that I first became aware of all that when I was a Glasgow councillor between 1998 and 2008. Roots out of prostitution was pretty high in the agenda and I attended a number of meetings where we heard about the Nordic model and how other countries were criminalising the purchase of sex. Women were clearly the victims in the vast majority of cases, with only a tiny minority actually freely choosing to sell sex. I would just pay tribute to Labour councillor Jim Coleman, others in Glasgow City Council and Strathclyde police, as they were at that time, all of whom were convinced that this was the right line to take. As it is coming to the Scottish Parliament and again hearing from survivors of prostitution, it has become much clearer to me that women and some men are the victims of this while the abusers are almost always men. There were some good briefings for today's debate and I thank the Encompass Network, Care and others. Encompass in particular makes the point that, while not every woman in the sex trade has been trafficked, almost all trafficked women in the EU or Europe are in the sex trade. Scotland has done well and this Parliament has been strong in challenging human trafficking and modern slavery, so surely now is the time to continue that good work by passing legislation to criminalise the purchase of sex. I thank Elena Whitham, Rhoda Grant and the minister for putting their heads above the parapet on what has not always been a popular issue. Hopefully the tide is now turning, as it has done elsewhere, and we can see real progress very soon. I thank Elena Whitham for securing this very important debate. We must criminalise online pimping and paying for sex while decriminalising victims and providing them with holistic support. I want to confront some of the myths that are being pedalled to urge policy makers to do nothing. Take the claim that criminalising paying for sex would simply make the problem worse because it would drive it underground. Prostitution relies on men being able to locate women to exploit and therefore if these men can locate women then so can support services and so can the police. The underground myth is illogical. Then there is the claim that criminalising paying for sex would make it more dangerous because women would have less time to assess a potential sex buyer. Firstly, the claim makes no sense in the case of street prostitution where sex buyers are already criminalised. What the claim also suggests is that it is possible for a woman to assess how dangerous a man is simply by looking at him, but she cannot. That was all too tragically illustrated by the case of Steve Wright, who murdered five women in Ipswich.  One woman described him as an average normal punter. Alan Canton will be the chief superintendent who reformed policing of prostitution in Ipswich following the murders that he recently wrote. Too many still accept that, as a society, we should be a bystander to this form of violence against women because of threats of what men will do if we try to stop them. It is straight out of the perpetrator's playbook, he says. What unites the myths circulated to opposing criminalising online pimping and paying for sex is the same underlying message. Do not intervene, do not try and prevent it, just accept it, be a bystander. It is time for this Parliament to stop being a bystander. Vested interests will oppose any attempt to shift the burden of criminality of the victim and on to the perpetrators because it would undermine their ability to profit from sexual exploitation. There will also be groups that lobby for their interests. Take the global network of sex work projects based in Edinburgh. For years this group has led an international campaign to remove all criminal laws relating to prostitution and oppose attempts to criminalise paying for sex. In 2015, the vice president was exposed as a sex trafficker and jailed for 15 years. The organisation continues to lobby the Scottish Government not to criminalise paying for sex. Then there is Umbrella Lane, once again based in Scotland, that is regularly quoted in the media, opposing calls to shift the burden of criminality of victims and on to those who perpetrate and profit from sexual exploitation. What is not mentioned is that Umbrella Lane has previously accepted funding from Viva Street, one of the UK's biggest pimping websites, a site on which victims of trafficking have been repeatedly advertised, which stands to lose substantial profits if Scotland outlaws its operations. Escort Scotland, another pimping website, also told the cross-party group on commercial sexual exploitation that it had provided funding to Umbrella Lane. No doubt those involved will try and frame this as an act of corporate social responsibility. However, let's be absolutely clear about what is happening here. Those commercial pimping operations are funding groups that lobby in their interests. It is time for us as a Parliament to come together and stand against the vested interests of the sex industry and to stop being bystanders. Presiding Officer, it is time for a legal model to end commercial exploitation in Scotland. Thank you, Ms Gant and I call Evelyn Tweed to be followed by Mercedes Villalba, four minutes, Ms Tweed. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thank you to Eleanor Whitham for bringing this important debate today. I welcome our Parliament looking at reform of prostitution in Scotland. It is unacceptable that, in 2021, there is still so much to do to tackle violence against women and girls. Let's be clear that prostitution is an extreme form of violence primarily against women, but that is something that society, not just government, needs to address. Attitudes need to change. The old trope that prostitution is the oldest profession reflects the subordinate position women have always held in society and their exploitation by men. Women and girls are forced into prostitution through inequality and not choice. As the Scottish Government's consultation notes, many women engage in prostitution because of poverty and difficulty entering employment. Addressing poverty and improving the social welfare system is undoubtedly a core part of any attempt to lessen men's ability to coercibly control women engaged in prostitution. Disadvantages experienced by women and girls are societal issues that cannot be addressed. Our nation prides itself on being fair and progressive, so while we have very important conversations about how to reform our prostitution laws, we must not lose sight of the bigger picture, that this is also about the overall effort to improve the lives of women. Whenever prostitution is discussed, the role played by the client is disregarded, protected and minimised. The current prostitution law fails to deter the perpetrators of this form of gender-based violence, nor does it hold them to account. In some communities in Forth Valley, on-street prostitution is practically non-existent, but off-street prostitution is reported. Properties, often short-term lets, will be reported by concerned residents as showing suspicious activity. Forth Valley Police will carry out what they call shaw visits, which stands for support, health and wellbeing, where they offer support and assistance to any women, women that they think could be being coerced or pressurised into prostitution or be a victim of sex trafficking. The phrase hiding in plain sight is often used. The highly lucrative pimping websites that operate openly in Scotland have been found to not only facilitate but to incentivise sex trafficking. We in this Parliament must show leadership and commitment to the women of this country that we will address every contributing factor that is making this world unfair, unsafe and unjust for women. We can learn from the Nordic model, which essentially makes the act of buying sexy legal and shift sanctions on to the buyers, primarily men, and New Zealand's decriminalisation approach. Our focus must be on finding a model that seeks to protect women, their safety and offers an exit, which promotes their rights while also tackling inequality at the root cause. At the heart of that, we must listen to women with lived experience, and I very much agree with Jamie Greene's comments in that regard. We must also work on challenging men and boys' attitudes and behaviours towards women. The culture of violence against women starts with the sexual comments that go unchallenged. The groping that is laughed off. The constant harassment that means that women can't enjoy a simple night out in peace. We have a duty to imagine and build a world without prostitution, to transform society and see real equality between men and women. I thank Elena Whitham for bringing forward the motion for debate today. The motion rightly highlights the central injustice that is facing sex workers under the current legal framework. Sex workers currently face criminal sanctions for soliciting under section 4GC of the Civic Government Scotland Act. The threat of criminal sanctions can deter many sex workers from seeking support, including to leave sex work altogether. That is an untenable position, which is why we must remove the burden of criminality from sex workers. To explain why, I would like to highlight some of the consequences of a criminalisation approach.  Concerns about the link between criminalisation and poor health among sex workers are shared by international bodies, including the World Health Organization and UN AIDS. In fact, the World Health Organization found that female sex workers were up to 30 times more likely to be living with HIV than other women of reproductive age. Human Rights Watch has found that criminalisation makes sex workers more prone to violence, including assault and rape. That is because criminalisation stigmatises sex workers, reducing their likelihood to seek help from the police and increasing their use of unsafe locations for work. Human Rights Watch surveyed South African sex workers who revealed that they were less likely to report crimes to the police because of the illegality of sex work. That, in turn, left them open to suffering from violence, which they then did not report to the police. However, we can break this vicious cycle through a decriminalisation approach. Decriminalisation does not mean that we abolish laws protecting sex workers from exploitation, human trafficking and violence.  Decriminalisation is supported by a broad range of organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women. However, it is also an approach that is increasingly backed by evidence from international bodies, including the World Health Organization and UN agencies. In fact, the World Health Organization estimates that decriminalisation could lead to a nearly 50% reduction in new HIV infections in sex workers over 10 years. However, decriminalisation alone is not enough. We must also tackle the underlying material issues that often drive people into sex work in the first place. For some, it is a lack of employment or education opportunities. For others, it is rising living costs, including rent, food and heating. Some sex workers have chronic conditions or disabilities and turn to sex work because of inadequate social security provision. Until there is a concerted effort to improve material conditions, we will continue to see people turning to sex work.  Evidence shows that it will not reduce violence against sex workers, and the criminalisation approach serves as a barrier to sex workers accessing essential services such as healthcare. We need a new approach, which is why I believe that we should pursue a decriminalisation approach. To conclude, I would like to share a workers testimony that I received. Kim is an Edinburgh-based migrant worker, and in response to the proposal to criminalise buyers, they said this. We are just out of a whole year of Covid, which showed that taking our clients away does not magically deliver us into a new life free from exploitation, but rather makes us poor and hungry and heavily dependent on the few clients that are left. Thank you very much indeed, Ms Vi Alba. I now call on Gillian Martin, and you've got four minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I, too, want to thank Elena Witham for securing this important debate today. For the many years of campaigning on our issue and our motion that she delivered speech was palpable. I also want to pay tribute to the important work that was done in the last sessions of the cross-party group on commercial sexual exploitation, led by Rhoda Grant, MSP, my good friend Ruth Maguire MSP. Ruth Maguire would, of course, be speaking in this debate, if she were here. When she comes back, I have no doubt that she will get wired straight into resuming her work on this subject. It's work that challenges often very powerful people and places the safety of some of the most marginalised women at its heart. In no small part, the CPG's work has led to proposed law reforms in this area.  Those who profit are most often organised crime organisations, and as Rhoda Grant detailed in her speech, her insinuation into superficially benign lobby groups is pernicious. Ads on pimping sites might look like they are from the women, but they are more likely posted by their pimps. The report, as you would expect, is a challenging read that pulls back the curtain on some of the worst crimes against women that are happening right under our noses in Scotland. I am in firm agreement with Rhoda Grant when she says in the introduction to the report that we need to tackle the exploiters and protect and empower those who exploit them. The women exploited, those who are pimped out, should not be sanctioned by the law for soliciting. That means repealing section 46 of the Civic Government Act. Criminalising women for soliciting is not helping women whom many of us consider to be victims. We should be going after those who exploit those women. I agree with the recommendation of the report, which says that we should be introducing laws that sanction those who enable and profit from the prostitution of another person, just like they have done in the countries that Elena Whitham mentioned. In 2018, the Home Office estimated that the length of time a trafficked individual is held by those who run their lives is nine months. During that time, they estimate an average of 795 counts of rape and assault in that time. That type of modern slavery is most prevalent in countries that have loosened laws on buying and profiting from prostitution or the so-called legalising of prostitution. Germany springs to mind, where expert studies have shown that, by normalising prostitution, the state has contributed to the enormous increase in demand and the influx of trafficked women from Eastern Europe, in particular, earning barely enough money to cover their enforced rental of brothel rooms that have been likened to an existence similar to that of a battery hen, never seeing daylight. I urge the chamber to read the speech of Dr Ingeborg Kraus to the Italian Parliament on the impact of German law changes in 2002, and, with the greatest respect, Mercedes Villalba, talking about the decriminalisation of the buyer, would contribute to something akin to what has happened in Germany. As I said in the member's debate in the subject in the last session, the myth of prostitution is a career choice that is helping only those who exploit women. Another myth perpetrated by those organisations is that prostitution makes sex work safer, as women do not have to walk the streets. It is a myth that punters are vetted. In fact, they take any agency away from women. Access to their bodies is controlled by their pimps, who market them in any way that they see fit, with the exploited women having no say in what they are forced to do or the men to do it with. Our focus must be on protecting the exploited women, and that means criminalising traffickers and those who perpetrate the exploitation of women. I applaud the calls to extend that to the buyers, who, in my view, are just as guilty of exploitation as those who traffic and pimp. I thank Elena Whitham for raising that motion. It is fitting that we are discussing this important issue ahead of the annual UN 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, which is taking place later on this month. I thought that Elena gave an excellent speech on this, and one sentence stood out particularly from her contribution. That was the one where she said that sanctioning and criminalising women for their own exploitation is a very important point that she made there. I was pleased to attend the Alliance's launch in September, and I am grateful to them for providing a platform to discuss what model is right for Scotland and to challenge men's demand for prostitution and to keep those who sell safe and ensure that support remains an integral part of the design. I thank everyone who contributed to the debate this evening. I think that there were some powerful points made by Rhoda Grant in her contribution, and it was a really excellent speech that I thought was given this evening by Gillian Martin as well. I am committed to working across the chamber and with stakeholders on tackling prostitution within the context of how women and girls should be viewed in an equal society. Our current programme for government commits to this action, and we have now begun work to develop our own model for Scotland that will effectively tackle and challenge men's demand for prostitution. The Scottish model will be underpinned by principles that are in line with our aspirations to embed equality and human rights in Scotland and support our efforts to tackle men's violence against women. It will meet our international obligations, including our commitments to incorporate the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women into Scots law. Our key aim is to reduce stigma and criminalisation experienced by women and encourage better access to integrated and specialised services. A number of respondents also noted the need for support for women to be involved, to be holistic and person-centred. That was in the consultation that the Government ran recently, and to be able to address the multiple underlying needs of many women. As such, we have committed to engaging with those who have direct or lived experience in order to shape those services and design measures that will protect them from harm and provide them with the support that they need, including helping them to exit prostitution if they so wish. I note that that was a point that was raised by a couple of speakers tonight. It was raised by Jamie Greene, and it was also raised by Jackie Dunbar. By the end of this month, we will be seeking experts to better understand the current support service provision and the needs of service users who are engaged or have lived experience of prostitution in Scotland to better inform the future service design. We are also going to be convening a short-life working group with key stakeholders on the development of the fundamental principles of a model for Scotland. Arrangements to begin this engagement are already in hand, and we hope to hold the first meeting of this group in the next few weeks. I understand the desire for more information on what the shape of the criminal aspects of our model might take, but everyone will understand that we must take time to get this right. The model must operate effectively to hold those who buy sex to account, but it must also operate as a deterrent to purchasing sex, because I believe that this behaviour has no place in a modern Scotland. I appreciate the words that I mentioned today, but the minister will also accept that there has been a range of views expressed in the chamber today, and probably outwith as well. The legislation takes time, we know that, but let's not beat about the bush. On the way home from the Parliament this evening, I will walk past three so-called saunas in Edinburgh city centre. We all know what is going on behind closed doors. Is there anything that the Government can do now to address the issue? We are constantly working to address the issue. In fact, I had a recent meeting with Police Scotland about six weeks ago, and I raised that exact issue with them. I am hoping that they will be able to come back to me and give me a little bit more information on what Police Scotland's approach might be. To inform our approach, we are undertaking a programme of work to look at international successes that have challenged men's demand for prostitution, and we want to build on that experience of what has gone before and understand how we can apply that in Scotland. It is vital to ensure that any changes that are brought forward in law are balanced with the necessary package of measures that will ensure that women are supported and that their needs are met by services that are available. Diane Martin has been working in this area for 20 years, and she said that I want to see the sex buyer law introduced because it is the demand that fuels the exploitation that is the sex industry. I want it to be near impossible for organised crime, pimps and punters to operate here. I want to be the kind of society that rejects the idea that people are for sale, and I would agree with Diane Martin on that. Prostitution cannot be considered in isolation. There are many aspects that we need to look at, including online advertising, which was mentioned by a number of speakers this evening. I note the excellent work that was done by the CPG on things such as substance misuse, human trafficking and increased economic hardship, which might make women more at risk of prostitution. We are alive to all those issues, and we will be working on those. When I talk to people about that, I think that people wonder why there is this emphasis on challenging demand and why there is this emphasis on prostitution. Aren't there other more important things that we could be doing? That is maybe because, for a lot of people, it is quite hidden. It is not right out in the open, maybe confronting people with the reality of what it really is. It is often times quite in the shadows. Even when it is in the shadows, I believe that prostitution harms the individual, and I believe that it impacts on society's view of all women. After all, the misogynistic attitudes of sex buyers are now well documented. How women are viewed, how women are treated and also men's violence against women, those things are all connected. My vision is of a Scotland where all women and girls are treated with respect. Not one where abuse, violence and trafficking is something that we are turning a blind eye to. A few years ago, I met a young woman, so she had been prostituted. By the time I met her, she had exited and she was telling me about her studies. She was finishing study and I was about to embark on her career in one of the professions. She had entered prostitution when she was quite young, and she was still a girl. She told me that something really had to be done about the punters, because they are the ones that are driving this, she said. Then she looked at me and said, actually, I'm really surprised that you're here. I didn't think that the Government cared about people like me. Well, we do. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Thank you, Minister. That concludes the debate, and I close this meeting.


Now, here's another psychotic abnormality called obsoclonus. This is characterized by rapid, brief, random, conjugate saccads. They're chaotic. In this patient's example, it's caused by brainstem and cephalitis. It can also be seen as a perineoplastic effect and can be seen due to drug toxicity. These are not voluntary saccads. Look at these random, chaotic, conjugate saccads. There's no control over these movements. Sometimes they're brought out very easily by rapid refixation movements. This is a poorly characterized disorder but is thought to be related to dysfunction of the pause cells. Now, whether that's in the brainstem or the cerebellum has not been worked out well. Sometimes ocular flutter, which is a rapid, two-and-fro movement of the eyes, can be superimposed on obsoclonus. Sometimes hard to tell the difference. Here again, I think you can easily see these random, conjugate, somewhat chaotic, saccadic movements. And that's the characterization of obsoclonus. Again, in the differential, think infection, toxicity, tumor. What you can see here is when asking the patient to shift gaze, it seems to bring out this flurry of obsoclonic movements. In children, for example, one of the perineoplastic effects is neuroblastoma, the so-called dancing eyes, dancing feet syndrome. You can see that this patient has some cerebellar trouble as well, mainly truncal ataxia, titubation, very unsteady. This was all the result of presumed viral encephalitis, particularly affecting the brainstem and posterior fossa structures. Now we're going to demonstrate that the lateral cerebellar hemispheric function is not really too bad. Fingered outstretched finger testing is slightly unsteady, but certainly not as impaired as midline cerebellar function. She does that fairly quickly.


Hey weirdos, it's Darren and I just thought I'd kind of share something that happened yesterday. I bought tickets for for Bob's Seager in concert because I knew my bride was a huge huge fan So we drove two hours to Moline, Illinois. That's where he's performing at the I wireless center got there Got some dinner or we actually ordered dinner. It never did arrive But we got there and then just before we decided to head into to the into the venue Somehow the the the conversation came up of you have the tickets and she didn't and neither did I Here they are They were on the kitchen table the entire time Two hours drive to get there Very long two-hour drive back So I'm buying tickets to ZZ Top for October. Hopefully that'll make up for it. I have such a doofus


21 March is Harmony Day. It's a day when we celebrate our differences and recognise what unites us as Australians. It's a day when orange becomes the team colour and says, Together we will achieve great things. It's a day when we all show more than just respect for each other. It's a day when we not only feel the Harmony, we can see and hear it. Above all, it's a day when we celebrate that everyone belongs. To download free products to celebrate Harmony Day or to register your event, go to the website Harmony Day Everyone Belongs.