Hansard

The world is watching. As the Jeffrey Epstein scandal finally unravels, it exposes something that survivors and whistleblowers have been telling us for decades: that sexual exploitation does not persist because no one knows about it; it persists because those with power choose not to act.

We must honestly ask ourselves today what Scotland can truly say that we have done. Have we listened to survivors, many of whom are in the gallery with us today? I am sad to say that, shamefully, very few in the chamber have listened to survivors. Too often, survivor voices have been drowned out by louder ones with platforms, enviable access to power and the presumption to speak over those who have lived experience. Politicians might write bold strategies on prostitution, but they repeatedly fail to confront the root cause of sexual exploitation, which is, of course, the demand to buy sex.

In the gallery today, and watching from home, are survivors who have tried time and again to be heard. They have submitted evidence, spoken to committees and attended parliamentary events, reliving their trauma not for themselves but to protect the next wee girl from what happened to them. Today, they have entrusted me with something profound: to be their agency, to speak truth to power and to ask this Parliament finally to act.

I will be absolutely clear about what the bill does. My unbuyable bill recognises prostitution for what it is—a system of exploitation and violence that is sustained by demand. It would decriminalise those who are sold, recognising them as people who are constrained by vulnerability and not as offenders, and it would place criminality and accountability where they have never properly sat in Scots law: with those who buy sexual access and those who profit from the sale of sexual access to human beings.

That is not radical. It would close a gap in the law that has existed for almost 20 years. Police Scotland is clear and is fully supportive of the idea that buying sex is a form of exploitation that should be covered by law. The majority of those who sell sex are vulnerable and most are at risk of violence and therefore should be supported, not criminalised. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service tells us that, although such offending often happens behind closed doors, that

“does not mean … that the difficulties are insurmountable”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 5 November 2025; c 2.]

The Lord Advocate is unequivocal and has said that

“those who purchase sex … are statistically more likely to perpetrate domestic abuse and other forms of violence against women and girls”,

making this a matter of clear

“public interest and societal harm.”

The UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls has stated plainly that prostitution

“constitutes torture, inhuman and degrading treatment”

and is an aggravated form of male violence, facilitated by demand.

This bill is not out of time; it is overdue. Why do this now? Because exploitation is not going to wait for more reviews, more consultations or more Government strategies. The electorate did not send us to the chamber to observe the harms that are going on outside; they sent us here to act and to do something about that. Public support for the bill is strong, yet Scotland remains in the extraordinary position where protecting women and children from sexual exploitation was not a fully funded, year 1 priority for the Government, which, after 19 years in power, has still failed to act.

The Government’s own expert adviser on grooming and child sexual exploitation, Professor Alexis Jay, said in 2018:

“The big issue here is tackling the problem of demand.”

The demand for sex with children is growing worldwide. Most women who are in prostitution entered as children, many of them from the care system and many already carrying the scars of sexual abuse, domestic violence and trauma. Surely the public expect us and the Government to do everything in our power to protect those vulnerable women and children, so why will we not do that?

The UK Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner has warned of a surge in trafficking, calling it a demand-led crime that grows faster than our ability to protect victims. This is a market where buyers believe that they are never going to be challenged, and that belief is our collective problem to solve in this place today. For nearly 20 years, inaction has allowed that belief that buyers have to harden.

I am sorry to say that, although the Parliament speaks eloquently and at length about equality, it is searching for reasons not to act where action is required. Inaction is not neutrality; it is a decision, and it has a cost. Dismissal of international evidence as being contested is not caution; it is intellectual laziness. The data exists if we choose to engage with it.

Sweden pioneered the equality model in 1999, criminalising the purchase of sex while supporting exit and recovery, and men consistently report a fear of legal consequences as being the primary deterrent. No Nordic model country has ever reversed its position. Instead, those countries have strengthened their laws, expanded their support and refined their enforcement. Once a society decides that human beings are not commodities, it does not go back from that position. That is what the global sex trade fears: losing its market of misery for profits.

The United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, is clear that prostitution is incompatible with women’s equality. Legal frameworks that normalise the buying of sex entrench violence and discrimination. Her message is that we have a duty to address demand, rather than to manage exploitation.

Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Ireland, France and Canada are all demonstrating positive outcomes of their laws. They have reduced demand, fewer people are in prostitution, they have improved safety and they have world-leading sexual health outcomes. In Sweden, there have been zero femicides in prostitution in 26 years. Sweden has the lowest demand for paid sex, it has world-leading HIV eradication, and it has strengthened laws to tackle online exploitation. That is not ideology—it is the evidence.

Let us remember Scotland’s legislative history.