FiLiA Women First and FiLiA Women’s Assembly in Holyrood
Julie, FiLiA Women’s Assembly, and Hannah, FiLiA Women First
Tuesday 20th May saw the launch of Ash Regan’s Unbuyable Bill in the Scottish parliament, and a couple of the FiLiA team were there to support it.
The day began with a press conference, which spoke to the different pillars of the bill which will criminalise the purchase of sex, repeal outdated offences that target the seller, quash historic convictions and create a statutory right to support for those in and exiting prostitution.
Fiona Broadfoot, founder of Build a Girl and survivor of the sex trade, spoke about her experience of being exploited within the sex trade and talked powerfully about how the shame must lie with the men who buy sex, rather than the women themselves.
Linda Thompson, from Women's Support Project, talked about the support that women need. She shared the words of one of the women she has supported who had said that if she was a government right now, she would be ashamed that no action had been taken.
Maren Schroeder talked about what we can learn from other countries. Germany has gone for a full-scale decriminalisation model, which has led to ‘super brothels’ and in turn an increase in trafficked women. Since adopting decriminalisation, over 100 women in the sex trade have been murdered, with over 60 more attempted murders. Compare this to Sweden, who since adopting the Nordic model have not seen a single woman murdered by a punter.
Ash encouraged people to read the section in our packs that debunk some of the myths circulating around this debate. But we know there are lots of people who will oppose her bill, especially those who profit from the sale of women, as punters and pimps.
After lunch, we had the opportunity to talk to some MSPs and MSP researchers and in the evening, we attended a Q&A session. We talked about how the FiLiA Women’s Assembly has supported this campaign and will continue to do so and that the feedback from women on the ground is overwhelmingly in favour of the bill. We also shared feedback from the Women First team, whose interviews with survivors echoed the themes of the day – that prostitution is violence against women and girls and requires specialist support to help women exit and move on.
We left the day in awe of Ash and her team in pushing forward with this important bill. We will continue to support it. We know that the more we move towards positive change, the louder the voices of opponents will be. We will continue to amplify the voices of survivors and encourage as many women as possible to support this bill and bring change.