Personal submission to @ScotGovJustice Consultation now available on @UmbrellaLane website

Full response - https://t.co/WCB4Y3qNrN

A thread of main arguments to save anyone having to read through what became a second thesis 🙄 on these important issues 1/8

#NotEqualNotSafe

@scotgov sweeping definition of all prostitution as inherently violence renders invisible actual acts of abuse in the sex industry; continues an ineffective& dangerous reliance on criminal justice approaches that fosters unsafe working practices&deters victims to seek redress 2/8
The push to criminalise clients is a misplaced moralistic agenda put forward at the expense of a much needed social justice &public health approach in policy & services that centres the varied needs of people this consultation states intention to support 3/8
The focus within Equally Safe strategy on ‘reducing demand’ fails to address root causes& factors that exacerbate the vulnerabilities of women&girls 2violence, which extend beyond the narrow focus on eliminating prostitution as a means to achieve gender equality in #Scotland 4/8
A platform of social justice – rights, redistribution, respect, inclusion and recognition – extending from decriminalisation as a VITAL first step, has the potential to avoid the trap of a coercive welfarist approach as set out in current policy 5/8
Which only creates new forms of intervention in the lives of marginalised, stigmatised &criminalised women. Being able to openly challenge structural oppressions of #gender, #class & #race is essential in the de- marginalisation of women who sell sex 6/8
Only under full decriminalisation are these reforms possible.

@scotgovjustice has an opportunity to lead the way internationally on an agenda for change that co-creates laws & policies meaningfully with people with lived experience 7/8
I remain hopeful that this consultation acts as a catalyst for an opportunity to recognise &value the citizenship, voice, agency of sex workers, whilst creating policies to affect systems change for all women; two important tasks that need NOT be treated as mutually exclusive 8/8

More from For later read

I should mention, this is why I keep talking about this. Because I know so many people who legally CAN'T.

How do I know they have NDAs, if they can't talk legally about them? Because they trusted me with their secrets... after I said something. That's how they knew I was safe.


Some of the people who have reached out to me privately have been sitting with the pain of what happened to them and the regret that they signed for YEARS. But at the time, it didn't seem like they had any other option BUT to sign.

I do not blame *anyone* for signing an NDA, especially when it's attached to a financial lifeline. When you feel like your family's wellbeing is at stake, you'll do anything -- even sign away your own voice -- to provide for them. That's not a "choice"; that's survival.

And yes, many of the people whose stories I now know were pressured into signing an NDA by my husband's ex-employer. Some of whom I *never* would have guessed. People I thought "left well." Turns out, they've just been *very* good at abiding by the terms of their NDA.

(And others who have reached out had similar experiences with other Christian orgs. Turns out abuse, and the use of NDAs to cover up that abuse, is rampant in a LOT of places.)

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