Prostitution Scotland: Hundreds sign open letter to MSPs calling for law change

The bill by Ash Regan MSP aims to bring in what is known as the Nordic model. This would decriminalise the selling of sex while criminalise the buying of sex, and is already in place in a number of neighbouring countries,

Campaign group Nordic Model Now! has written an open letter to the 129 MSPs in the Scottish Parliament, and has been backed by international organisations from across Europe as well as from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, India, Israel, Malawi, New Zealand and South Africa.

Scottish groups including For Women Scotland, Women Won’t Wheesht and the Scottish Feminist Network have also given the open letter their support.

In the letter the group details the societal understanding of domestic abuse, and added: “There is much less understanding … of women involved in prostitution - how they can be trapped by a web of forces, it can be even harder to escape.

Subscribe to our re-designed Steamie newsletter

“Forces like poverty, a lack of alternative options and drug addiction (often developed to survive the reality of enduring sex with multiple male strangers every day, many of whom might be unattractive, have poor hygiene, or be cruel and believe they have the right to do whatever they want to her).”

It added the “mainstream propaganda that sex work is a normal job” can make women in prostitution “feel there is something wrong with her if she isn’t successful in it” and warned that women in prostitution can often face “coercion or even outright violence” from pimps.

It said: “If she hears about the Nordic model and has the independence of mind to see through all the scare stories about it making prostitution less safe and driving it underground, she is likely to say ‘yes, that is exactly what we need’.

“We need to change men’s behaviour and we need to provide women with better options so that prostitution is not the only way that they can survive.

“Claims that the Nordic model is more dangerous for women and that it drives prostitution underground are just that - scare stories.”

There are those in Scotland who want to see prostitution fully decriminalised instead of introducing the Nordic model, including Scotland 4 Decrim and the Scottish Greens.

Amnesty International and the World Health Organisation also support full decriminalisation rather than the Nordic model. However, the letter to MSPs dismisses these two organisations’ opposition, saying their stance is down to pressure from “powerful” pimps who have “vested financial interest in the decriminalisation of pimping”.

The letter added: “We know that not all men are punters. But all men know that prostitution is available to them any time they need their ego building up, or someone to offload their frustration on.

“And at some level they know that prostitution shores up the inequality between men and women, from which they derive such benefit - just like the prevalence of rape and sexual harassment does.”

The open letter from Nordic Model Now! comes only weeks after Scotland 4 Decrim wrote a similar letter to MSPs urging them to throw Ms Regan’s bill out.

The group said MSPs “must not introduce a legal model which has failed in its aims in every country where it has been implemented”.

In this letter opponents of the bill claim crimes against sex workers almost doubled in the two years after Ireland introduced the Nordic model, and said women were “increasingly reluctant” to report violence to the police.

It said: “Proponents of the Nordic model claim that criminalising the purchase of sex will help victims of trafficking by reducing prostitution, and by extension trafficking.

“But trafficking isn’t caused by the demand for sex but by people’s poverty and lack of options - people are made vulnerable to traffickers for a number of reasons.

“Research from Dundee and Edinburgh Napier University has shown that criminalising sex work is not an effective anti-trafficking strategy.

“Criminalising clients has been shown to increase violence for the most marginalised workers, the same workers who are often conflated with trafficking victims.”

Speaking in response to Nordic Model Now!’s letter, Scotland 4 Decrim said: “Scotland 4 Decrim is sure that members of the Scottish Parliament will value the reliable evidence produced by trusted organisations such as Amnesty International, UNAIDS and Human Rights Watch over this letter full of baseless smears, which demonstrates the conspiracy theory agenda of the Nordic model supporters.

“Most importantly, the voices of current sex workers - who will be the most affected by any change in the law - should be centred and prioritised in this debate.

“These voices are unsurprisingly nowhere to be found in this letter.”

Last month Community Safety Minister Siobhian Brown said the Scottish Government had “significant concerns” about Ms Regan’s bill, despite supporting the general principles.

She told a key Holyrood committee the government would remain neutral on the issue and added: “I have heard genuine fear from women who are involved in prostitution at the moment that they will become more endangered.”