Scottish sex workers wrote a letter to the First Minister, John Swinney, urging him to not vote for Regan’s proposed legislation. See the full letter below, and the coverage in the Herald here.
“Dear John,
We write to you as the people who will be most affected by Ash Regan’s Bill to criminalise the purchase of sex, to plead with you not to vote for this dangerous proposed legislation at the Stage 1 vote on February 3rd.
Our most urgent concern in all of this is our safety. There is significant evidence from Amnesty International, the World Health Organisation, and the vast majority of academic research in the area that criminalising the purchase of sex makes it much harder for women to work safely. If a client is concerned that they will be arrested, they will be far less likely to give sex workers identifying information – which is a crucial part of keeping us safe.
If this Bill were to pass, women selling sex would face more violence. In every country where this legislation has been implemented, violence against women selling sex has drastically increased. In Northern Ireland, rates of violence rose by a horrifying 225%. We must not implement this failed legislative model in Scotland.
The proposed legislation also does nothing to address one of the most dangerous parts of our work. Currently, it is illegal to work in the same indoor location as another sex worker. This means we have to work alone, without the safety of our friends there if a client becomes threatening. It’s scandalous that current laws force sex workers to work in more dangerous conditions, and outrageous that this Bill would maintain this law.
The majority of people who sell sex are women. It is far from “anti-women” to want sex workers to experience less violence, to have safer working conditions, and for them to be able to access support more easily. As a group made up largely of women, and with all of our members being feminists, it is shocking and offensive to see our concerns dismissed in this way, when we are the ones who will face the devastating repercussions of this Bill.
We have the same concerns as any other women. One of the leading reasons why women enter sex work is poverty. We need to pay our rent. We need to pay our bills. We need to buy food. We need to support our families. By making our work less safe, and making it harder to advocate for our own rights, we are pushed further into the conditions that brought us to sex work in the first place. This Bill does nothing to support us and everything to harm us.
The Bill must fall. There is nothing about it that can be changed at later stages that would minimise the harm it will do to sex workers. You cannot amend a Bill that will inevitably increase violence against women.”