IF there is one thing that the #MeToo movement has exposed, it is that sexual harassment is a lived, everyday reality for many, many women and girls. In workplaces, on the street, on public transport, in schools, colleges and universities, women and girls are speaking of everyday intrusions on their lives and sense of safety and wellbeing – sexual comments, unwanted touching, intimidation, assaults.

Women are speaking about the steps we take, every day, to avoid being sexually harassed or abused – where we walk, how we get home, what online spaces we feel safe in.

Young women and girls tell us that sexual harassment is such an everyday reality in schools that it is normalised, unremarkable. The more something is normalised, the harder it is to object, and to believe that you will be listened to and taken seriously if you do. And it has a far reaching impact. Research from Girlguiding’s annual Girls’ Attitudes Survey found that one in four girls think twice about speaking up in class because they fear sexual harassment.

A study published by Amnesty in November last year found that one in five women had experienced abuse or harassment through social media. Young women aged between 18-24 are particularly affected, with more than one in three saying they had experienced online abuse.

The research found that this abuse had a significant impact on women’s physical safety and psychological wellbeing. Online abuse limits women’s space and ability to engage with the online world. The same study found that 24% of women stopped posting content that expressed their opinion on certain issues due to the abuse they had experienced.

A common response to the exposing of the reality of women and girls’ lives through #MeToo was for people to ask: “Why didn’t they report it?” At the moment, it feels like we are surrounded by so many painful examples of just why women don’t speak out or report what has happened to them.

It can be very difficult for anyone to come forward and speak out about sexual harassment, but this can be particularly so when the person accused is in a position of power. In America, Professor Blasey Ford has spoken out about an alleged sexual assault by a Supreme Court nominee and has faced death threats and been forced to move home. Her actions during and after the alleged assault have come under tremendous scrutiny. This week, she gave evidence to the Senate about what had happened; that she did so was testament to her extraordinary courage. The judgment and disbelief in some of the responses to her evidence was depressingly familiar. Closer to home, we have had a number of very public cases of Scottish politicians accused of sexual harassment or sexual misconduct, with MSP Mark McDonald last year and Alex Salmond, the former First Minister, this year.

This week, we saw a woman withdraw from a sexual harassment procedure against Conservative MSP Miles Briggs. “Emily”, supported by Rape Crisis Scotland, made a complaint to the Scottish Conservatives earlier this year of inappropriate sexual conduct against Miles Briggs.

The process used by the Conservative Party involved inviting Emily to a hearing to be questioned by Briggs. When we raised concerns about this, the party agreed to have the chairman of the investigating committee put Briggs’s questions to Emily.

They informed us that she would be “cross examined” by both the chairman and the rest of the committee. It is my view that an adversarial approach such as this is completely inappropriate in sexual harassment cases. There is far too great a risk of re-victimisation.

It is also not the best way to get to the truth of what has happened. This is something that we are slowly learning in our criminal justice process – that putting a person into a formal and intimidating setting is not the way to get best evidence from someone who has made a complaint of a sensitive or traumatic nature.

It is certainly never appropriate to expect someone in these circumstances to face – without representation in the Miles Briggs case – questioning from the person they have made the complaint against.

While the process used by the Conservatives was a particularly poor example of how to handle complaints of sexual harassment, I’m not convinced that any political party has yet got this completely right.

What would an appropriate process look like? For a start – and at a minimum – it needs to try to not replicate the power structures which sustain and enable sexual harassment to take place. Power is central to sexual harassment, and an understanding of power dynamics needs to underpin the design and operation of any process to investigate sexual harassment.

Key principles which should underpin any process include fairness, transparency and the protection of the complainer’s privacy and anonymity.

The latter is particularly important – we know that fear of press interest and the prospect of potentially being identified can act as a major barrier to women coming forward when the perpetrator is someone who is in the public eye. There is a need for independent advocacy and support for anyone considering reporting sexual harassment.

In the Miles Briggs case, Emily told us that she couldn’t imagine having to go through the process on her own. Even with support from Rape Crisis Scotland it was a horrendous experience for her, but it would have been so much worse if she hadn’t had independent support. Investigations should take a fact finding, rather than adversarial, approach. Everyone involved in investigating sexual harassment complaints needs to have undergone training on sexual harassment, and understand the dynamics involved.

There are some promising developments – Close the Gap, a Glasgow-based charity which works on women’s participation in the labour market, is piloting an accreditation scheme for employers, called Equally Safe at Work, which aims to support employers to develop employment practice that is sensitive to violence against women, including building capacity in employers to develop effective reporting mechanisms.

There is ongoing work within the Scottish Parliament to improve processes for responding to sexual harassment complaints.

There is also significant work happening across universities and colleges to raise awareness of gender-based violence and where to go for help.

This work has particularly benefited from the courage and tenacity of the parents of Emily Drouet, a student who killed herself following abuse and violence from her boyfriend.

Rape Crisis Scotland runs an Equally Safe at School project, a pilot scheme to develop a “Whole School Approach” to preventing gender-based violence and promoting equality.

Rape Crisis Scotland also co-ordinate a national sexual violence prevention project, which runs workshops throughout Scotland in schools, working with young people on issues around consent and healthy relationships.

What is clear, however, is that if women are to feel able to come forward to report sexual harassment, there needs to be a transformation in the processes available to them to do so.

This is not about party politics: sexual harassment is an issue all political parties must grapple with. We need to ensure that anyone experiencing sexual harassment – no matter the perpetrator – feels able to come forward and can be confident that if they do they will be treated fairly.

Events of the past few weeks have demonstrated that, despite the increased awareness of sexual harassment brought about by the #MeToo movement, we still have some way to go.

Sandy Brindley is chief executive of Rape Crisis Scotland