Consultation has been ignored charity says
A charity supporting sex workers has slammed the Scottish Government after it was rejected for funding.
Umbrella Lane did not receive any of the £90,000 announced by the Scottish Government on Wednesday to support three other bodies working to supply services to help women engaged in prostitution.
The charity also claims the results of a recent government consultation proved the purchase of sex should be decriminalised.
However community safety minister Ash Denham has said the consultation responses were “polarised” between those in favour of criminalising the purchase of sex and those favouring total decriminalisation.
As a result, she said, the government would design “bespoke” Scottish proposals, which would “tackle prostitution in line with our broader ambitions to be a progressive nation in relation to women’s rights and addressing gender inequality".
Chief executive of Umbrella Lane, Anastacia Ryan, said: “It’s fantastic that so many people responded to the consultation on sex work legislation – particularly those with lived experience of sex work – and it shows that many more people are in support of decriminalisation as a legal framework.
“While we welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to working with specialist groups like Umbrella Lane who support sex workers, currently it only seems to value this in the context of service design.
"Involvement of sex workers has to be more than tokenistic, and invite sex workers to shape the policy that effects their lives and livelihoods. We know from working with sex workers that they don’t want the purchase of sex to be criminalised.”
Prerna Menon, the charity’s co-ordinator, said: “It feels frustrating that while the consultation responses make it clear from sex workers own voices that more meaningful engagement from peer-led groups is needed, we have been left out of the extra 90K funding released by the Scottish Government and this is despite being the only peer-led support organisation for sex workers in the whole of Scotland.
"In line with our values, we will continue to build relationships with the organisations that emergency funding has been awarded, but only as far as we can with already limited resources.”
However, Christian charity CARE welcomed the government’s plans and said it would support “specific legislation to criminalise the purchase of sex”.
Michael Veitch, parliamentary officer at CARE, said: “We welcome the commitment to develop a tailored Scottish model, and to draw on international approaches seeking to challenge men’s demand for sex. It is now imperative that concrete action to criminalise those who exploit women through the purchasing of sex be urgently brought forward.”
