When it comes to women’s rights, the Scottish Greens have a flawless record — of getting it wrong. First, they championed the reckless policy of gender self-identification. And earlier this year they opposed Alba MSP Ash Regan’s “Unbuyable” bill, which proposes to “reframe the shame” of prostitution by targeting the buyers and supporting those exploited by the sex trade.

Officially titled the Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill, it’s still at Stage 1 in the Holyrood process, but has already gained tentative cross-party support from the SNP, Labour and the Conservatives. Last week, Reem Alsalem, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, praised it as an “effective framework for ending the exploitation and violence that women are subjected to in prostitution”. But for the Scottish Greens, facts — like biology — remain deeply inconvenient.

Maggie Chapman MSP, the Scottish Greens’ social justice spokesperson, has condemned the bill for potentially “endanger[ing] sex workers” by driving the trade underground. “Greens are clear that the approach must focus on minimizing the harm, marginalization and exploitation that sex workers face every day,” she said in May.

In essence, though, what Regan is proposing is so eminently sensible it’s astonishing it isn’t already law. Her bill aims to shift the burden of criminality away from the prostituted (88% of whom are women and girls) and onto those who exploit them: the pimps, brothel-keepers, traffickers and buyers. Modeled on the Nordic approach already in place in Sweden, Norway, France and Canada, the bill criminalizes the purchase of sex while decriminalizing the selling of it, much of which begins in childhood. It also proposes a national exit strategy with housing, trauma counseling, and skills training. In short, it treats women and girls as victims of a predatory system, not willing participants in a free market.

Curiously, the Greens have found themselves in strange company on this issue. The Christian Institute has voiced concern, not over Regan’s crackdown on punters, but that the removal of criminal sanctions might legitimize prostitution. While the organization agrees that outlawing buyers “sends a strong signal to society”, it objects to decriminalizing those selling sex, on the grounds it fails to properly condemn the trade. SNP Community Safety Minister Siobhian Brown also has reservations about Regan’s proposal to quash convictions, a move that would allow those exploited to start new lives without stigma. In addition to concerns about the cost, she warned that this was an “exceptional” measure and “not a step that can be taken lightly”.

Despite claiming to care about those at the bottom of the heap, these warring factions both treat women’s humanity as collateral. As such, it’s worth remembering that a disproportionate number of women in prostitution are migrants, often with insecure immigration status and no recourse to legal employment or public funds. In Britain, around 70% have a history of local authority care.

It’s far easier to quote scripture or chant slogans about “sex work” than to offer women and girls legal protection and safe routes out. Under full decriminalization, the model championed by the Greens, prostitution becomes just another form of “labor”. That means brothel owners, punters, and traffickers — all “sex workers” too, according to their favored lexicon — can operate openly, while the women and girls are treated as commodities.

For all the Scottish Greens’ idealism elsewhere, these self-styled progressives insist that ending prostitution is simply too tricky, so the best we can hope for is to “reduce harm”. It’s the legislative version of handing out helmets to victims of domestic violence to soften the blows. If it’s going to happen anyway, why not make it safer? Meanwhile, those who demand full criminalization often ask women in prostitution the moral equivalent of “why doesn’t she just leave?”, totally disregarding the coercion and desperation involved, before punishing them for not setting a better example.

Of course, attempts to dismantle prostitution will be resisted, not least by those with vested interests. That includes people such as convicted trafficker Alejandra Gil, who advised Amnesty International on its decriminalization policy, and the men who buy sex, some of whom are sitting comfortably in Holyrood.

As with the disastrous Gender Recognition Reform Bill (Scotland), the Scottish Greens have yoked themselves to yet another dangerous cause that doesn’t put women first. But perhaps that’s the best endorsement Regan’s bill could ask for. The opposition of politicians like Chapman may be the clearest sign yet that it’s rooted in common sense — and that it has a fighting chance of becoming law.

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Josephine Bartosch is assistant editor at The Critic and co-author of the forthcoming book Pornocracy.

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