Ash Regan MSP has introduced a private members bill into the Scottish Parliament, which is informally known as the Unbuyable Bill. If passed, it would bring the Nordic Model to Scotland.

The Scottish Government is now running a public consultation on the bill. Please take a few minutes to respond and show your support for the Nordic Model. You don’t have to live in Scotland. You can respond from anywhere in the world. The consultation closes on Friday 5 September. So get cracking!

The consultation has only five questions and all are easy to answer. If you are strapped for time, you can even just respond that you agree with the proposal with no further information. However, for each question we are providing a couple of links below to background material that might be helpful if you want to provide further explanation.

Note: We have had reports of people encountering a glitch when filling in the consultation survey and having to start again. We therefore recommend composing your responses in a Word document or similar and copying and pasting them into the consultation form.

Question 1:

• General information about the Nordic Model
• How buying sex makes men more prone to VAWG generally

Question 2:

• How a Nordic Model approach to tackling prostitution was implemented in Ipswich

Question 3:

• Campaign to wipe women’s prostitution-related criminal records
• About time! Women’s criminal records for soliciting will no longer always be disclosed

Question 4:

• FACT: Women often struggle to leave prostitution
• What makes exiting prostitution so hard?

Question 5:

• Why a critical analysis of the sex industry is necessary now more than ever
• Why I Support the Equality/Nordic Model instead of Decriminalisation of Brothel Owners and Pimps
• ‘Decriminalisation of the sex trade vs. the Nordic Model: What you need to know’ booklet

Consultation on the financial memorandum

The Scottish Government is also running an additional consultation on the financial aspects of the bill. This consultation is more specialised and is most relevant to people running services in Scotland.

For our report on the social and economic costs of prostitution, see: The Social & Economic Costs of Prostitution & Other Forms of Sexual Exploitation: The Case for Investing in Equality.