Meeting of the Parliament 18 February 2026 [Draft]
The world is recoiling at the sexual exploitation of vulnerable women and children that has been exposed by brave survivors in cases such as those of the grooming gangs and Epstein. However, in Scotland—even within walking distance of this Parliament—men who buy sexual access to vulnerable women do so with complete impunity.
For 19 years, a Government whose equally safe strategy defines prostitution as violence against women has refused to criminalise the men who perpetrate that violence. That is not caution but complicity.
Survivors, front-line services, Police Scotland and very senior legal voices have repeatedly demanded action on reducing demand, yet the minister ignores them and offers only more consultations and commissions. A minister who admits that she has done no work in that area has been asleep at the wheel of her portfolio.