The Scottish Government has today formally announced its new strategy for tackling prostitution and commercial sexual exploitation in Scotland.
It has taken a long time, but perhaps it was worth the wait. While it doesn’t go as far as introducing legislation to make buying sex a criminal offence, it includes most of the other key elements of the Nordic Model, and there are good arguments for introducing these first.
Based on the Scottish Government’s longstanding recognition of prostitution as a form of violence against women and girls and commitment to building a society where women and girls are safe and free from sexual exploitation, the strategy is both ambitious and impressive. It is not a small amendment sneaked in on the back of something entirely different. It is a joined up and well researched strategy.
In sharp contrast to what goes on down south in Westminster and the Home Office, the strategy unequivocally rejects the euphemistic “sex work” terminology in favour of “prostitution” and “commercial sexual exploitation”. Those directly impacted are “women involved in prostitution” or “women who sell/ exchange sex”, showing that you don’t have to resort to the “sex work” lexicon to treat women with dignity.
The strategy aims to “improve support for women, including to sustainably exit prostitution, and to challenge and deter men’s demand through education, awareness raising, more informed public and private sector service provision and engagement, and where evidenced, through legislation”. We at NMN are confident that the evidence for criminalising buying sex is already beyond clear, so hopefully that will follow soon.
A key element of the strategy is a new “national support pathway” to provided better support for those with lived experience of prostitution, which will include support to exit the industry and sustain a positive life outside it. They have incorporated learning from their “lived experience research” which showed that women need a whole raft of services, many of which are currently judgemental and require them repeating their story over and over. So the plan is for much better coordination, training for agencies, and a national hub for specialist services. Experience in Ireland shows that this sort of joined up approach can greatly improve outcomes for women.
The strategy is based on clear and sound guiding principles. Importantly it is a national strategy for the whole of Scotland that will provide:
“A strong, consistent, and unambiguous national message that is understood and promoted throughout policy and practice on national and local levels that reinforces that there is no place for commercial sexual exploitation of any individual in Scotland.
It will make plain that prostitution and wider commercial sexual exploitation are a form of violence against women and girls, and that this will not be tolerated in Scotland. Those perpetrating exploitation (such as sex buyers and profiteers) will be held to account.”
This is so important. We’ve seen what happened in Northern Ireland and Canada, when Nordic Model style legislation was pushed through without a strategy for ensuring that all the public sector agencies and third sector organisations are trained in the thinking behind it and how to implement it effectively. Instead Scotland has produced a strategy that includes a 16-page annex that lists all the different agencies – including justice, social security, debt advice, child protection and child poverty, housing, missing persons, drug and alcohol services, refugee integration, ending destitution, support for care leavers, students and those leaving prison, women’s healthcare, sexual healthcare and mental healthcare – and how they will be brought on board with the strategy and play an important role in making it happen.
Because the legal and social framework understands prostitution as a form of exploitation, those involved in selling or exchanging sex will be treated as victims and not as criminals, while those exploiting, recruiting, and managing prostitution will be considered criminals and should expect punishment proportionate to the damage they cause.
Other key guiding principles include prevention and addressing the root causes, promoting social inclusion and addressing stigma, and learning from those with lived experience. They’ve even set out detailed time lines for when each element in the strategy will be piloted and implemented.
All of us at NMN are thrilled by this development and we wish Scotland every success in implementing this ambitious and long-awaited strategy. And we hope that Westminster listens and learns from it.