15/09/2016 Scotland 2016

With one in five new students reporting sexual harassment

in their first week of term, universities take steps

Sexual harassment and abuse on campus.

Is enough being done to keep students safe?

Scottish and UK Brexit ministers meet for the first

And cutting-edge technology that's breaking down

It's that time of year when tens of thousands of young people

are embarking on a new chapter as students, often living away

Freshers' Week is meant to be fun but for a significant minority

of students the first week of term is marred by sexual harassment

This year, for the first time, several of Scotland's universities

are taking steps to tackle the problem.

This woman says she was sexually assaulted when she was a student.

The case went to trial but the accused was found not guilty. She

says the attack had a devastating effect on her and her studies. I

don't remember agreeing to it or anything like that. And I find

myself being strangled and raped, basically, and it was a very scary

experience and I remember running out of the place terrified, running

into some workers to help me and get me back to my friend who I was out

with, and he phoned the police. The first week of University is supposed

to be one of the best times of your life. But one in five students have

reported experiencing some sort of sexual harassment during the first

week, according to a report by the NUS. Sexual violence is a problem

for universities around the country but it is on campus in Glasgow that

staff and students have decided to take action and do something about

it. Over the past 18 months the University of Glasgow has been

working jointly with the University of Glasgow Caledonian and with Rape

Crisis Scotland and Police Scotland to put into place a strategy to

raise awareness about sexual violence on campus, to train

students to recognise and identify and be able to signpost to other

services when students might report or disclose that they have

experienced unwanted sexual attention or sexual violence

perpetrated against them and put into strategies in order to make it

easier for students to know where to go and where to report and to

support them if they wish to report. Are you OK? These Freshers' Week

helpers are on hand to show new students the ropes but this year

Glasgow University volunteers have been trained in how to give support

and advice to victims of sexual assault. The initiative is joint

project with Glasgow Caledonian University, but about their students

concerned about the scale of the problem. Sexual violence as a prime

area is chronically underreported so the issue, we're not suggesting

Glasgow has a huge problem that is not replicated everywhere else, this

is a problem in society and universities should take the lead.

What do students think? Tackling it head on and getting people from the

beginning of University life would be good to raise awareness. We talk

about rape and hear about that but not the smaller areas of sexual

harassment, which is a bigger problem, the way people talk to

women on campus, for example. There is definitely an issue, I have not

experienced it yet, I hope I don't, but we should try to combat it. Rape

crisis have developed the training being delivered on campus. Something

like one in seven women students have experienced physical violence

and sexual assault whilst at university and something like 68%

have experienced sexual harassment, a significant number have

experienced things like unwanted touching or groping on a night out

and those things are commonly experienced. This is a pilot year

for the initiative but it is hoped it will be rolled out again next

year. Well, joining me now to talk

about all this from London is lawyer and author of the book 'Why Rape

Culture is a Dangerous Myth', And here in the studio

is Dr Kallia Manoussaki, psychology lecturer

at the University of Good evening to both of you. There

are worrying statistics in the report. If my daughter was going to

university, I would be pretty worried about that. It is worrying

but it is not only this year, this year thankfully attention has been

brought to it, sexual violence has been going on for as long as human

beings have been living on the earth. It is just that recently we

have tried to bring about some sort of solution and universities have

been a little bit slow to deal with this problem but we are doing

something and we're very proud about that. Your university launched the

campaign yesterday. What is it you hope to achieve? Well, through

external partnerships we hope to create spaces for students to learn

about all sorts of issues relating to sexual violence and were hoping

they'd teach others, without students will lead workshops and

focus groups and art projects and help each other because for us, the

solution lies in changing destructive attitudes because we

believe that it is the attitudes that actually provide a fertile

ground for sexual violence to happen in the first place. It informs all

of our decisions. Luke Gittos, what do you make of initiatives like

this? These statistics have been around for a long time, we had a

report from the NHS a few years ago with roughly the same statistic but

it is worth looking closer at it, the one in five statistic is based

on a self-selecting survey which means the NUS actively encourage

people to respond to the survey and deliver reports. That is a classic

mythological mistake because you encourage people who have something

to report rather than a sample that is random. I think it is definitely

overestimating the problem, on a campus context, there is no reliable

evidence that sexual violence is more prevalent in university or any

evidence of any epidemic. Throughout the history of rape discussion from

the 70s onwards universities have always been a site where people

argue that sexual violence takes place because it is that it was more

promiscuous place but the evidence tells us that students are far less

than they were, they are more afraid of going out and being sexually

liberated and that is the real issue. With all the fear we stoking

up around sexual violence on campus, students are becoming more worried

about living a really important aspect of their personal lives,

their sexual lives, when they meet people, for the love and have

relationships and we are creating such a toxic environment around the

discussion, this talk of violence and assaults in nightclubs, all of

this is still in the minds of students with the idea that anybody

out there is a potential rapist and that is incredibly problematic. What

is your response to that? Were actually making students fearful,

that low-level Everyday Sexism is not the same as being under the

threat of sexual violence? -- every day sex. This is not about sex at

universities as such, this is universities recognising that sexual

assault happens in the world, everywhere, in bedrooms, behind

alleyways, in front of bins, and it also happens during university life,

this is not about students, university suddenly terrifying

students by implying something will happen at university. But there are

aren't similar campaign starting in work, this is for young people as

students? This is not just about higher institutions, also secondary

institutions and primary schools, taking their responsibilities much

more seriously, we do not want to just teach students about different

disciplines, we want to encourage them to become socially responsible

citizens, it is part of our learning programme, not because suddenly

universities have become a place where rape happens all the time but

because universities recognise that rape happens in the world at large

and we want to embed this within our educational programmes, we want to

change attitudes as part of our educational programmes to prepare

them for the world, not just university life. What is wrong with

that? I don't know what it means. Sexual violence is a very public at

a problem. There is an enormous amount of information but it is

often difficult to ascertain what the truth is and if you look at the

statistics, there is a wide range of problems with identifying any clear

trends. We don't very little about sexual violence perpetrators, we

know they tend to be repeat offenders, they tend to be targeted

in what they do and we know that they tend to assault people close to

them. All of which is counteracted by the student awareness movement

which seems to encourage the idea that almost anyone you meet in a

nightclub is liable to take you home and force you to have sex with them.

The idea that all of this is about making students aware that sexual

violence exists in the world is counter-productive. Students should

learn about sexual violence but they should learn about the serious

academic work that goes on around the topic. There is a vast amount.

There is all manner of books they can read. That is not what this

movement is about, it is about stoking fear and panic around an

issue they don't really need to worry about. You are shaking their

head? Universities are place of learning and sexual violence is such

a multifaceted issue. We take our responsibility very seriously, our

student volunteers, our male student volunteers as well as female

volunteers would be quite taken aback by the statements because they

are very proud that universities take a moral education and social

education as seriously as academic education. In fact, we are looking

at rape from an academic point of view, we are looking at research and

we are looking at how attitude changes can make a real difference.

The World Health Organisation report recently said that one of the most

important things educational institutions can do is raise

awareness about how attitudes actually link to sexual violence.

Very briefly, we're almost out of time... This idea that attitudes

lead to sexual violence has been debunked. There is a fantastic book,

a history of rape and sexual violence, there is a chapter

dedicated to arguments that a particular environments lead to an

increase in sexual violence, it is used to demonise working-class

people in the past, people say working-class people are more likely

to be rapists because they live in a debased culture, they said that

about black culture. Now, what we have, we have a situation where...

We have to leave it there. Thank you both for coming in this evening.

Scotland's Brexit Minister says it's "inconceivable" that the Scottish

government won't be involved in negotiations on devolved issues.

Mike Russell held his first meeting with his Westminster counterpart

David Davis earlier today in Downing Street.

Afterwards they pledged to establish a "good working relationship".

Here's our political correspondent, Nick Eardley.

Trying to find a Brexit approach that satisfies the UK and Scottish

governments could be a challenge. Today was a first step to trying to

figure out how that might happen. Two things in particular today were

important. Firstly, trying to establish a formal process whereby

Scottish ministers can feed into the UK Brexit strategy. In particular,

on devolved issues, Mike Russell was keen to say he thinks Scottish

ministers have to play a pretty crucial role in talks with Europe.

Secondly, it was a chance for the Scottish government to highlight its

key interest- the one we have heard a lot about in the last few weeks is

membership, continued membership of the European single market. After

the talks in Downing Street today, I caught up with Mike Russell.

Devolution is clearly massively embedded in the whole of the UK, we

believe in moving on from that but it would be inconceivable that areas

of devolved responsibility were negotiated on and away by anybody

else because they are the responsibility of the Scottish

government and parliament and we have to make it absolutely clear.

There are clearly things you think are crucial to Scotland's interest.

What happens if the UK government does not incorporate these things in

its overall strategy? Is at the point at which you say we need

another referendum? We have not even started those discussions, we are in

the process of setting them up, you can ask me when they are under way

and the moment I go into those discussions with the positive

intention of putting a case and the argument. There will be more on the

formal process of Scottish involvement in the next few weeks.

That issue of the single market is accommodated one. Scottish ministers

want continued membership, UK ministers want access but they also

want to reduce migration from the EU, something seen as a key reason

for the leave out. Then the European side says you cannot have one or the

other, you cannot have access to the single market without free movement

so definitely a square to be circled. David Davis was unable to

talk to us after those talks with Mike Russell today but we did speak

to David Mondale, who also spoke to Mike Russell about the Scotland role

with the UK approach. We could have had pharyngeal

arrangements in relation to Scotland, where there were specific

issues that related to Scotland and were not as prevalent in the other

parts of the UK, but the case needs to be made and the detail needs to

be brought forward, that is part of what this exercise is about. It is

important that the negotiation position is based on factual

analysis, on listening. We are at a very early stage in the process, we

have to understand how we take forward the respective interests of

Scotland and other parts of the UK and how the negotiations will be

struck. Some movement towards a process for

Scottish involvement. What could be harder is finding the deal that

satisfies everyone, Scotland, the UK and Europe. The talks will continue

in the weeks to come. Now, smart glasses that

recognise your friends and can read you a menu if you're partially

sighted, goggles that can help someone with no sight loss

experience a variety Just some of the cutting-edge

technology on show in Glasgow at a Europe-wide conference

which got underway today. The TechShare event aims

to highlight the potential of innovation to transform

the lives of blind people. What if the world look like this? Or

like this? That is the reality for 188,000 Scottish people with

significant side loss. The technology can help. The theme of

the Europe wide conference that started today in Glasgow. Mainstream

technology is becoming more accessible, allowing interfaces to

talk, so we have some songs here showing their smart TVs, allowing

people to use the interface if they have no useful vision, by navigating

it with speech. We have the chance to see what is possible to do, not

necessarily using your vision, but by using speech or tactile access to

gain the same level of opportunity that other people take for granted.

One company is exhibiting a smart camera that clips onto glasses. They

claim it could learn faces and read text. Imagine you enter a

restaurant, the waiter hands you a menu. If you can't read it with your

eyes, if you are wearing this, it is simple, you pick up the menu, point

at it with your finger, the device will start reading it to you. Lentil

soup served with crusty bread. When you want to stop, give it a stop

gesture, and it stops reading. It can read text, recognise faces and

identify products. It is translating visual information into audio for

people who cannot see or who have sight loss. What technology do

people actually use and what difference does it make? I use a

mixture of Braille, tactile, and also audio technology. I have an

iPhone and iPod that speak to me and screen reader software that reads my

computer screen, so I'd use that to read e-mails. I use dictation, to

dictate e-mails and touch type. Loads, I listen to books and radio

and podcasts and all that, a talking microwave... It breaks down the

physical barriers that now do not exist. For people who don't have

experience of blindness or side loss, this can offer a tremendous

insight into the type of challenges that people with vision loss will

face, but using digital technology. It is a unique and Judy to explore

first-hand what the fragility is might be, what the challenges are.

These goggles are supposed to allow you to experience different sight

loss conditions, so what IMC aimed at the moment through the goggles

and you can see on the screen is a sense of what it would be like to

have cataracts. If I go to the menu and change it to better night as

pigment hoser, you can see that people with this condition

effectively experience a tunnel of light in a world which is otherwise

dark. I suppose the idea is so that product designers and even family

members get a sense of what different side loss conditions are

really like. But technology will never replace some things.

With me now to discuss some of today's news are the journalist

Anna Burnside and the former Labour MP Tom Harris.

That begin with the story of a nurse with cancer who wrote to the First

Minister, asking for reform of drug funding. She was told she will be

given her medicine on the NHS. Nicola Sturgeon told MSPs that the

NHS would now provide the prescription.

Kezia Dugdale had raised the issue. The system has to be reformed so

that in future cancer patients do not have to hold bake sales to find

the money they need for the cancer treatment that they need. Can I ask

the First Minister again, when the review is published, can she assure

the chamber that cases like this will never happen again? I cannot

and I will not give an assurance that no patient would ever again

find that they cannot access a drug that they think they should, because

in any system that has to assess drugs, there will inevitably be hard

vision that are difficult for all of us where drugs are not accessible

for a particular patient. You write for the record, they

published this powerful story. A fantastic story for us. Do you think

that Nicola Sturgeon was right to say she could not promise to be able

to do this in lots of other cases? Unfortunately I do. She cannot be

writing blank cheques from behind her lectin. It is not appropriate,

she is not the appropriate person to make blanket statements on who can

and cannot get certain drugs. Especially as technology has

progressed, there will always be hard raking stories like this one,

and our instinct is to want to help everybody. She has two sign off on

the cheques, she knows that it is not possible. It is ghastly for her

and it is a political Achilles heel for anyone in that position. Kezia

Dugdale has the moral high ground, this woman's friends are holding

bake sales to pay for her treatment, nobody wants that, but she cannot

just say, everybody, here they are, and throw them out like Smarties.

The Scottish medicines Consortium have to look at all of the evidence

and make these difficult decisions. I wonder how helpful if this went it

is bypassed. Those decisions are better taken not by ministers or

politicians, who obviously going to more susceptible to newspaper

headlines. Nicola Sturgeon was right. If Kezia Dugdale found

herself in Nicola Sturgeon's position, she would have to say the

same thing. There is a limited amount of money, we cannot start

doling out life-saving medicines based either on media pressure or

under political pressure. It has got to be done on the medical evidence.

In England it is done by NICE, in Scotland we have our own system,

that is better than it being in ministers' hands. Hillary Clinton

back on the campaign trail after having pneumonia. Her health has

become a central issue. She tackled it had on in her first public

appearance in a few hours ago. As you may know, I recently had a

cough that turned out to be pneumonia. I tried to power through

it. Even I had to admit that may be a few days of rest would do me good.

What do you think of how she has handled this? She has pulled it

back. She and the team handled that badly, it made them look secretive,

as if they had something to hide why not fronting it up in the first

place. I can understand why she did it, if she had not gone to the

memorial service and she had been in bed, she would have been pelted for

that. But she got pelted for going and struggling and having to be

escorted off into a van. That was the right decision now, to front it

up and make a joke of it. Everybody gets a cold and a cough. I don't

think anybody should realistically be holding that against her

suitability to be the president. You will know how carefully

stage-managed these things have to be, every detail. The background

music was James Brown, Feeling Good. Talk about protesting too much, they

don't do subtlety. I am nervous, in a situation where the Republicans

have got Donald Trump is the nominee, I'd wish the Democrats had

come up with another candidate who was far more trusted and popular.

Hillary Clinton is not trusted or popular. If she gets the presidency,

it will be because she is not dislike quite as much as Donald

Trump, which is a dangerous situation. There is a danger that

this plays into the idea that she is not trustworthy, there is a

cover-up, here we go again with them. The secrecy thing plays badly.

If Donald Trump wins, it will be the fault of the Democrats and Hillary

Clinton. Let's move on to the final story, Brexit. We heard that the

Scottish and UK ministers met for the first time in London today, it

was all smiles and pledges to work together, do you buy that? No, of

course not. It is ghastly, difficult and horrible decisions they have to

make. I see nothing but the debris of crumpled bits of paper and broken

dreams and promises on the conference table, I don't see this

going well at all. You led the Leave campaign in Scotland, you argued

about the positive benefits, are you still so optimistic? Yes. It is

vital that Mike Russell and the other ministers get closely involved

in these negotiations. The day after the referendum, David Cameron, the

first thing he said, before he resigned, was that he wanted all of

the devolved administrations to get involved in these discussions.

Fishing, which is already devolved, policy will be decided in Holyrood

after ten back row, which is really important. We need Scottish

ministers in there from the start. Arguing for the best possible deal

for our industry. Are you confident they will be embedded? I think they

well. The English ministers, the UK ministers, they know that

politically they need to get the Scottish ministers and the Northern

Irish and Welsh ministers on board, because there is a lot of talent

there, and the more they have, the better deal we will get. I wonder

what room for common ground there is. I hope there is some. We want to

get the best deal out of this we possibly can. I hope Tom's optimism

is grounded and that everybody can get over their differences and get

the best deal possible. You are not unnerved by this uncertainty? Is

that what you anticipate it would happen if there was a Leave vote? It

is wrong to say I am not on the, but I am more optimistic than people who

voted Remain. I think there are some amazing possibilities are potential

gains, out of this, as long as Scotland is represented at the core

of these discussions. We can win out of it. We will have to leave it

there. That's it for tonight

and for this week. Until then, have a good

weekend, bye bye. 50 years ago,

they became superstars in astronomy,