 The next item of business is a member's business debate on motion 2911, in the name of Ruth Maguire, on online pimping. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put, and I would ask those members who wish to speak in the debate to please press the request to speak buttons now. I call on Ruth Maguire to open the debate, seven minutes please, Ms Maguire. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Today I am calling for three things, that the Scottish Government urgently outlaw online pimping, that traffickers and exploiters are held to account with the full force of our criminal justice system, and that comprehensive support and exiting services for women advertised and exploited via pimping websites is provided. I would like to begin by thanking colleagues from Labour, the Conservatives and the SNP for supporting my motion and enabling this debate to go ahead and thank everyone who is contributing today. I am grateful to UK Feminista, who supported and facilitated the inquiry and to all those who took part. I also wish to thank those who have provided briefing materials and feedback for today, but particularly a model for Scotland. I will declare an interest as a member of the searing group, however it is the members of the group, the women who generously and openly share their lived experience and expertise, those who have exited prostitution, the front-line organisations who work with women and the grass-roots campaigners who do the real work. I am grateful to know them and feel very privileged to work with them. Their courage and tenacity is awe-inspiring. In 2021, the Scottish Parliament's cross-party group on commercial sexual exploitation, which I co-convened with Rhoda Grant, conducted an inquiry into pimping websites. I think that most people in Scotland would be surprised that our country at the moment is a place where our current laws mean that criminal gangs profiting from the sexual exploitation of women can hide in plain sight using so-called adult services websites. A quick glance at one of those sites today would show you that in this city right now there are women who have been trafficked here both from outwith and within our borders who are being subjected to abuse, violence and humiliation to satisfy the demand of a minority of men. That is not just happening in Edinburgh but right across the country. Scotland's laws on prostitution have not kept pace with technological change. As a result, commercial pimping websites, which advertise individuals for prostitution across Scotland, currently operate openly and freely. The problem that we face online pimping is legal and fuels sex trafficking in Scotland. Detective Superintendent Filippo Capaldi, head of police Scotland's national human trafficking unit, told our inquiry. Adult services websites are one of the main facilitators of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation in Scotland and the rest of the UK. We come across them quite commonly when we are dealing with trafficking inquiries, particularly involving foreign nationals. Pimping websites enable and incentivise sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. Those websites, which host adverts for prostitution, expand the scale of sexual exploitation, enabling anyone on the internet to anonymously access women being advertised for prostitution. Websites are routinely used by sex traffickers and there is no realistic way that the website operators can prevent that. Most prostitution advertising now takes place online rather than on the street or in local newspapers. A small number of websites dominate this online advertising marketplace. Those market-leading websites centralise and concentrate demand from sex buyers across Scotland. By placing an advert on one of those sites, trafficking gangs can quickly and easily advertise their victims to sex buyers across the country, as well as move their victims between different locations by simply altering the location information on their advert. Frankly put, those websites make the brutal business of sex trafficking easier and quicker for criminals. They do not deliver protection or security to the women being advertised on them. On the contrary, they typically openly display the phone numbers of the women being advertised, allowing anyone with access to the internet to immediately and anonymously access those women. There is also no way that website operators can identify if a woman is being advertised on their site, if she is being exploited by a third party such as a trafficker or pimp. As Megan King, a survivor of prostitution, told our inquiry, when I was handed over to my first client, at which point I had no idea I was being sold into the sex trade, that client took intimate photos of me, some in my underwear and others more intimate and degrading. The underwear shots were then used as a profile picture on my adult work profile that my pimp created without my knowledge or consent. There is no real way that the website can verify that that woman is the same woman that is then sold to a punter. In my situation, I believe that the pimp's wife took passport photographs under which all of the girls were then advertised. An inquiry by the UK Parliament's all-parliamentary group on prostitution and the global sex trade concluded that pimping websites are now core to the typical business model of sex trafficking. Those websites have turbocharged sex trafficking trade. The websites incentivise sexual exploitation by making it quick and easy for pimps and traffickers to advertise their victims to men who pay for sex. This online pimping is taking place on an industrial scale in Scotland yet their operations fall through the cracks of our outdated prostitution laws and website owners profit from this exploitation with impunity. The Scottish Government must, with urgency, get on with adopting laws against sexual exploitation that are fit for the 21st century. That requires making it a criminal offence to enable or profit from the prostitution of another person. Tackling men's demand by criminalising paying for sex and decriminalising and supporting victims of sexual exploitation. It's time to get serious about men's violence against women and girls in all its forms. It's time to put pimps and traffickers out of business. I now call on Eleanor Woodham to be followed by Russell Finlay up to four minutes. First, let me express my gratitude to my colleague Ruth Maguire for securing this important debate and to my colleagues in the cross-party group on ending commercial sex exploitation for their determined and focused work to highlight the brutal business that is the world of online pimping. In Scotland, we have a Government that rightly recognises prostitution as a form of violence against women and our equally safe strategy underlines that. We need to implement a challenge and demand approach, whereby it is the sex buyer who is recognised as the driver for this violence and in turn the pimps, whether on the streets, in brothels or operating online, are understood to be the traffickers and suppliers of prostituted women. It beggars belief that men in Scotland are able to simply turn on their smartphones and open up the likes of Viva Street platform and order themselves access to a women's body as easily as they may order a pizza. What does that say about the position of women in our society? Commodities to be bought and sold, trafficked and abused from coast to coast. There is very little empowerment for women in a system that allows online platform companies and pimps to get rich at the bodily expense of women. I recently watched the panorama documentary online pimps exposed, which saw investigative journalist Bronam Monroe take a forensic look at the Viva Street platform, where you can buy a second hand car as easily as you can find a woman in your own vicinity to exploit. Now, whilst the company maintained that they do all they can to prevent pimps from operating on the site, that is not believable when the programme uncovered evidence that hundreds of ads included the same mobile phone number and the same language, including all of the same grammatical errors, but advertised multiple women. Clear warning signs at Viva Street should have picked up on its indicators of sexual exploitation. No Northern Irish trafficker was followed as he picked up women at airports who were then quickly added to the platform and access to their bodies for sale within hours. That clearly indicates sexual exploitation for financial gain. The news documentary also featured interviews with Detective Sergeant Stuart Pell, who runs the exploitation team at Lancashire Police. He told panorama, and I quote, "...every single job is Viva Street. They advertise over Viva Street. It is very common knowledge that if you need sexual services, Viva Street is the place that you'll find it. You can arrange what you want the girl to look like. It's like a takeaway menu. There isn't one single job I have done that's not Viva Street." That is echoed by Detective Superintendent Filippo Capaldi, head of Scotland's Police and National Human Trafficking Unit, who said that adult services websites are one of the main facilitators of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation in Scotland and the rest of the UK, and we come across them quite commonly when we're dealing with trafficking inquiries, particularly involving foreign nationals. There have been numerous prosecutions of pimping and sex trafficking involving people who have used Viva Street to advertise the women they are exploiting. In one case in the north-west of England, a man spent £25,000 on adverts in Viva Street in 2017. He actually gave them his own personal account manager. What does that say? A model for Scotland's briefing for today's debate further outlines that a small number of highly lucrative pimping websites continue to dominate the online marketing place for the advertising of prostitution. They are the go-to websites for sex buyers who can find a woman to pay for sex as a result of pimping websites centralising concentrate demand from sex buyers online. Finally, women are being murdered and assaulted in appalling numbers. We cannot disengage this reality from the exploitation of women involved in prostitution and pornography. Violence against women must be seen in all of its forms and in all of the places that exist. Reducing women to commodities harms all of us and our laws must reflect that. I congratulate Ruth Maguire on bringing forward this important debate. I am very glad for the opportunity to speak in it. As MSPs, we get bombarded with a vast amount of information from political parties, public and professional bodies, members of the public, pressure groups, charities and many others. I do not think that anyone can really say that we claim to read it all. However, I urge all members to take the time to read the report on online pimping, which has been produced by the cross-party group on commercial sexual exploitation. This is a thorough and well-researched piece of work that lays bare the extent of the online sex industry and the hugely complex issues around how best to deal with it. The report identifies four main websites operating in the UK. Today, one of those websites contains 905 adverts for prostitution, often euphemistically misnamed as escorting. Of those adverts, 358 are in Glasgow with 176 in Edinburgh. However, it is not just our big cities, with women for sale today in all but two of our 32 local authority areas. Some of the content is deeply disturbing. A cursory look yields an advert containing the word schoolgirl. There are women from many countries, including those such as Romania, which have associations with the trafficking of people. Those series of websites are a window into a deeply disturbing and dangerous world. Services and prices are displayed alongside photos of those women, who we are expected to believe have made the choice to do what they are doing. The report makes clear that many of those women are treated as no more than commodities, enslaved by cross-border criminal gangs. One of the most shocking findings of the CPG report is that the median time a sex trafficking victim is held captive is 274 days or approximately nine months. In that time, they will be raped 795 times. I note with interest the competing views about how law enforcement deals with those websites and the sex trade more generally. It seems that police have sought to engage with those sites in order to try to identify and catch criminal gangs and offer some form of protection to the victims. The police approach seems to be based on pragmatism and an acceptance that the trade and sex will always be with us. However, the CPG report suggests that a much more robust approach is necessary, citing France as an example. One concern is that this may drive the trade further underground, potentially making it even harder for the police and increasing the danger to women. While I can appreciate both perspectives, I am sure that this will be the subject of continued debate. I have only got four minutes, so I would like to conclude by categorically agreeing with others that men are the catalyst for this online trade in women. Just as men have controlled sex for sale throughout the ages long before the internet, it is men who use violence and threats to control their female victims and it is men who maintain the trade by paying for sex, with absolutely no regard for the subjugation and misery that they are fuelling. This trade is part of a broader societal issues affecting women and girls from the sexualisation of children, the abundance of pornography, female exploitation, everyday sexism and discrimination right through to a criminal justice system in which women continue to be failed, as was acknowledged in here this week by the cabinet secretary for justice. Last year, it was reported that an English university was offering sessions to support students involved in sex work. I agree with the UK higher education minister, Michelle Donilon, who said that this was legitimising a dangerous industry. Finally, I would like to conclude by stating that it is incumbent on all men to stand up and be counted to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. I thank Ruth Maguire for bringing forward this debate and also for her work on the cross-party group on commercial sexual exploitation. The group's report on online pimping was a detailed but harrowing piece of work that covers so many bases. In many cases, girls and women are trafficked and then bought, sold or hired by men for the purpose of sexual violence and exploitation. Unfortunately, that is not new, but the rise of the internet has changed the landscape and, as the CPG reports notes, fuelled a demand and grew the market in recent years. In the past, men who paid for sex were at risk of being caught by frequenting red light districts. Nowadays, men can access websites to buy women by the hour just as easily as they can do online grocery shopping. Rightly, the Scottish Government recognises prostitution as an example of gender-based violence. Equally safe, as we have heard, is the national strategy to prevent and eradicate all forms of violence against women and girls. It has also been adapted for schools to embed gender equality into our education system and prevent gender-based violence. That is important for so many reasons, including in relation to men's demand for prostitution. Research from the Sandiford Clinic in Glasgow found that men who had not purchased sex by the age of 25 are less likely to ever do so. By educating boys and young men and highlighting that prostitution is sexual exploitation, we can hopefully curb some of that demand. We also need reforms to the law in terms of those who pay for sex and the need to end commercial sexual exploitation is clear. I know that the Scottish Government has been considering international best practice in tackling the harms associated with prostitution, and I welcome the commitment to develop a model that will reduce the harms of prostitution and challenge men's demands but will also support women to exit prostitution. Right now, as Ruth Maguire points out, online pimping is legal, but those women who may well have been trafficked are criminally liable. Equally safe emphasises the importance of excess services to support women to leave prostitution and move on with their lives. Importantly, those women deserve to be treated without fear of judgment and discrimination. Women who have been involved in prostitution experience huge stigma, but the outrage should be directed towards those men who buy sex. It is crucial that the model for Scotland tackles the stigma experienced by women, encourages them to come forward and get the help and support they are entitled to, and not make the victims of sexual exploitation the people who face criminalisation. Presiding Officer, I commend the cross-party group on its inquiry. I want to thank everyone involved for their work and especially to those women, those survivors of sexual exploitation who are trying to affect change. The Scottish Government's approach to date has been good, but we need legislative changes. It is time to outlaw online pimping, and I look forward to hearing an update from the minister on the planned reforms. I now call Rhoda Grant to be followed by Mikey Chapman up to four minutes. I too would like to congratulate Ruth Maguire on securing this debate and also say that it is really good to see her back in the chamber. We all know and recognise that prostitution is violence against women. In a country that values equality, men should not be able to buy access to other people's bodies. That is male violence, and it is the abuse of power, and it has no place in Scotland. Yet today there are 1,595 women in sale in Scotland on Viva Street and Adult Works. That is because there is a sizeable minority of men in Scotland who are abusive and they lead to the creation of a lucrative industry. The pimps, traffickers and brothelkeepers exploit that market, but to do so they need to be able to advertise their victims to sex buyers. Those pimps are the same whether they advertise on the street, own a brothel or operate a website. They facilitate and profit from the prostitution of others. Viva Street, Adult Works and the rest of them are simply that. They are pimps. Making money through promoting violence against women and exploiting people to feed this appalling trade. The truth is that prostitution is very lucrative to those who manage it. Those websites say that they have measures in place to stop victims of trafficking being advertised on their sites. However, as we heard from Ruth Maguire, our witnesses in the report tell us very different and Megan King's evidence was alarming. Elaine Witham cited last year's BBC panorama broadcast, an investigation into Viva Street, that exposed how pimps and their traffickers used the site to advertise their victims. The journalist who led the investigation Ronan Monroe said, "...I was able to identify a pattern surrounding phone numbers, surrounding the names of the women that were being advertised, the names of women that were passing through multiple post codes. There were hundreds of numbers connected to multiple ads. Of the 12,000 ads that I looked at, they were littered with adverts that I would say were concerning. Surely if she can see that, surely then so should the police." Elaine also quoted the case that shows how seriously Viva Street takes the issue of sex trafficking, the single trafficker who spent £25,000. Prior to their arrest, Viva Street did not respond to the man's high rate of spending on prostitution adverts by calling the police, but they allocated him an account manager. Pimping websites have a major vested interest in prostitution and will oppose any attempts to combat that exploitation. National Ugly Mugs, a charity that is launching Numbrella Lane, a service in Scotland for people involved in the sex trade. They have the Viva Street logo on their homepage of their website, listed as one of their funders. Their website states, "...we have a long standing relationship with Viva Street that began in 2015. Last year, National Ugly Mugs lobbied the Scottish Government through the Equally Safe Consultation to fully decriminalise the sex trade, including third parties. The relationship between exploiters and organisations promoting decriminalisations of pimps is close, making money out of misery and using it to further the cause of misery. They must be stopped." I now call on Maggie Chapman to be followed by Bill Kidd up to four minutes. I thank Ruth Maguire for bringing this debate to the chamber today, because it allows me to give voice to those not represented by the sexual exploitation inquiry report, Sex Workers. As we seek to tackle violence against women and girls, including sex trafficking, we should follow the evidence to ensure that we support sex workers, keep them safe and tackle the causes and structures that enable both sex trafficking and violence against women and girls. Ruth Maguire. Shea Maggie Chapman, given way. I wonder if she would acknowledge that we may call them different names, but people who had been involved in prostitution were very much represented in our inquiry. We spoke with those who were involved in what might be deemed high-class prostitution and people who had been victimised in the street. The current sex workers were also invited to take part. They declined. As I will come to, I will talk about the responses that Scott Pepp, who represents sex workers, how their evidence was not included in that report. I do not agree that outlawing adult services websites will stop sex trafficking and deliver the kinds of changes that the motion outlines. Sex workers and groups that support and represent them do not want our online platforms to be banned, and they highlight three key reasons for that. First, sex workers use online platforms to screen clients to improve safety. They also use them to connect with each other, reducing isolation and keeping each other up-to-date with risk alerts. I will make some progress, if I may. Second, if online platforms were banned, it would force sex workers into on-street and other informal ways of working. That could disrupt their income streams, causing economic hardship. I will make progress, if I may. That would lead to survival sex work, which is more unsafe. There is clear evidence from the US that, following the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act 2018, violence experienced by sex workers increased, as did their vulnerability to pimps. It also, perhaps unexpectedly, negatively affected their ability to find other forms of work. They were less able to deal with mental and physical health issues and therefore less able to secure alternative employment. Third, banning online platforms risks displacing activities to the dark web and other unregulatable spaces, where there is far more risk of harm and less scope for outreach, safety and support services. The dark web is already used by traffickers. Banning online sites now will not stop that. Beyond the Gays, a research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council found that sex workers overwhelmingly agreed that the internet had enabled them to work independently of pimps and managers. Screen clients effectively find out about their rights as workers and people, access networks and support and improve the quality of their working lives. Rather than criminalising and endangering sex workers, I urge the Scottish Government and those speaking in this debate today to engage with sex workers themselves, speak to them to explore how we can regulate adult services sites, improve safety, secure rights and options for earning the money needed to live, whilst also addressing poverty, economic insecurity and structural inequality. I would also encourage you all to read Scott Pepp's response to the CPG sexual exploitation inquiry. Their evidence was not included in that report. I will close with the words of a young sex worker in Edinburgh. Jay says, I know first hand the impact removing online advertising spaces causes as my colleagues in the United States were being contacted by pimps being told that it is different now and claiming that we need them. I don't want to see sex workers in Scotland pushed back into the hands of managers. When I started sex working at 21, I worked in a brothel where a manager took 60 per cent of my earnings and I kept 40 per cent. Being able to work alone has helped me, keep my earnings, helped me to achieve stable housing and allowed me to claw my way out of poverty. We must abolish poverty, not force women working in sex work into worse and more dangerous conditions in the name of saving them. I now call on Bill Kidd to be followed by Mercedes Villalba up to the four minutes please, Mr Kidd. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and thank you also to our colleague Ruth Maguire for lodging this motion for debate. I want to begin by stating my support for the model for Scotland campaign and to urge my fellow MSPs to public support the campaign as well. I agree that legislation is required to account for technological change, which has significantly increased the levels of sex trafficking and exploitation taking place in Scotland. As members will be aware, Rhoda Grant MSP was kind enough to arrange a briefing on the model for Scotland campaign last December, and this is still available online. During this, Valiant Richie, the co-ordinator for tackling human trafficking in Europe for the OSCE, that's the organisation for security and co-operation in Europe, spoke about the scale of the issue at hand. He highlighted that, 10 years ago, a study concluded that technology is the single greatest facilitator of the commercial sex industry, and he would want to say that, over the course of the past decade, the only thing that has changed that conclusion is that the situation has grown much worse. This is confirmed by police leading convictions against traffickers in the UK, noticeably from Sergeant Peele, that the scale of sex trafficking cannot be met by current police resources and these websites incentivise trafficking by increasing profitability. That brings us to our debate today, where we as legislators have the power and ability to begin the process of closing the legislative gap and look to stop online pimping websites from facilitating mass exploitation in Scotland whilst evading the law. Detective Chief Superintendent McCluskey, head of police protection for Scotland, recently awarded the Queen's police medal, described online pimping websites as the most significant enablers of sexual exploitation in Scotland. Should this Parliament move forward and legislate on this matter, I would urge fellow parliamentarians to remain informed and grounded about the horrific reality of the abuse and misery of sexual exploitation and trafficking, and that includes against children. I would underline that there is no such thing as a good or safe buyer of prostitution. I think that that is farcical. Our laws already recognise the important nature of sex trafficking and prostitution. I urge MSPs to anticipate that there will be false dichotomies and false narratives put forward by lobby groups that are paid for by those profiting from the illegal industry, including by people convicted of human trafficking offences. That can also come from people who have heard these narratives and whose information on the issue may vary. Going back to the OSCE co-ordinator for tackling trafficking in 57 countries from Europe, Central Asia and North America, Mr Ritchie explained that the advertising of women for sale on those websites opens a gateway to harm. Those websites allow on a great scale the intersection of somebody paying for sex with someone who did not come to that transaction willingly. Rather, whether a woman or a child, that person finds themselves trapped as a result of coercion, abuse or preying on vulnerability. The whole transaction is rendered as non-sexual sex. Those websites facilitate mass rape and, in the UK, have been linked to many cases of further violence and, indeed, homicides. They should not be legal under any circumstances. Those websites are against human rights. Mass rape is not a human flourishing, rather it is the worst possible kind of degradation against people who are the most vulnerable in our society. Examples from the US and Israel show how successful legislation can be in shutting down the operation of those websites. For example, after Fosta Sesta was passed the online marketplace of those websites in the US dropped 80 per cent in 72 hours. It is our responsibility as MSPs to act to the limits of our abilities and to take this issue and the protection of the victims of exploitation and trafficking seriously. I now call on Mercedes Villalba to be followed by Paul McClennan, who will be the last speaker in the open debate up to four minutes. I won't be taking interventions as the dominant view has already been very well represented in today's debate. I would like to thank Ruth Maguire for bringing forward this motion for debate today. I believe that her concerns are genuine, but I am concerned that moves to criminalise online platforms used by sex workers will actually increase the risk to their safety. Sex workers themselves have said that they use online platforms to screen clients, to improve safety and to connect with each other for support. Those platforms are also providing greater opportunities for sex workers to access outreach. Safety and support services, and this is more likely than would be the case in unregulated online spaces like the dark web. That is why I believe that it is important that any decisions that could affect the safety and livelihoods of sex workers be taken after meaningful consultation with those in work and be based on evidence. The evidence from studies so far shows that the vast majority of sex workers believe that there are benefits to their use of online platforms. The Beyond the Gaze project surveyed sex workers who agreed that online platforms had improved their safety and their ability to access support. Those workers also noted that online platforms enabled them to screen clients, engage with sex worker networks and access support services. Crucially, the vast majority of them believe that both advertising sexual services online and purchasing these services should be legal. What happens when a criminalisation approach is pursued? In the USA, they have opted for criminalisation of online platforms through the Foster Sesta Law and the End Banking for Human Traffickers Act. Research published in the anti-trafficking review found that these laws had increased the financial insecurity of sex workers with some force to move offline to work on the streets or through an exploitative third party. The laws have also undermined sex workers' safety with the loss of web-based harm reduction tools, which helped to identify clients with the history of violence. The result of those laws has been to push those workers into more dangerous ways of working, into greater financial insecurity and away from support networks. They were passed in the face of opposition from workers, from anti-trafficking organisations, from criminal defence lawyers and from LGBT health and social justice organisations. The approach taken by the US is the clearest example of policy being made in spite of evidence and without meaningful consultation with those affected. As I have said before, if we are serious about supporting people to exit sex work, we have to tackle the underlying material issues that often drive people into sex work in the first place. Some of those issues are long-standing, such as a lack of employment or education opportunities and inadequate social security provision. Others are being worsened by the current cost of living crisis, such as rent, food prices and heating. Given the underlying material issues, the criminalisation of online platforms will not help individuals to leave sex work. Instead, it will leave sex workers facing greater risks to their safety, drive them into financial insecurity and deny them access to support networks and services. The proposal to criminalise online platforms is neither based on the evidence nor the views of sex workers. We need a new approach. That is why I continue to believe that we should pursue decriminalisation of sex work offline and online. I would like to conclude with a comment from a sex worker reflecting on the foster sester law. It was written to remind us that our lives are dispensable. We are not protected. Our work is unseen and irrelevant. It was written to destabilise our ability to live with any degree of agency. Prostitution remains aninherently exploitative of form. It is gender-based violence, no more, no less. The law as it stands presently means that this form of violence against women is wholly within the law, which is unthinkable in any other context. We have heard about the Government who deserves credit for its equally safe strategy, and I agree with that. Its recognition as prostitution as a form of violence against women and its stated commitment to develop a tailored Scottish model to tackle prostitution. In a brief in a model for Scotland stated, online pimping is currently legal in Scotland, as a result of highly lucrative pimping websites operate without impunity. Many people in Scotland do not see this, and they are unaware of the issues that are causing Scotland every day. We heard about the grants and there are about 1,500 to 2,000 women for sale now, which is incredible. Pimping websites play a key role in enabling and incentivising sex trafficking and sexual exploitation in Scotland. As a result, the websites make it quick and easy for traffickers and pimps to advertise their victims to sex buyers across the country. We heard Elena Whitham talk about how it is as easy as going shopping. You just go online two minutes later and you buy a woman. The Scottish Government is committed to challenging men's demand for prostitution and support women to exit sexual exploitation. To achieve that goal, model for Scotland asked the Scottish Government to outlaw online pimping, hold exploiters to account and deliver comprehensive support on existing services for individuals, advertised and exploited through the pimping websites. We heard about the cross-party group and what they found. In the three main issues, one was the pimping websites not only facilitating profit from the prostitution of others, the commercial pimping websites are designed to facilitate and profit from this form of violence against women. They also incentivise and enable sex trafficking by centralising and concentrating demand online. We've heard already before that a small number of high locative websites dominate the marketplace in Scotland. One of the other key things is that they are a market expanding force. Those sites can be set up pretty quickly. It is no legal expertise and they can open up pretty quickly. It is an industrial scale in which exploitation already takes place. The size and the scale of prostitution trade is not constant. It is a context dependent. I want to touch on this important part about the evidence-based to support the recommendations that we've heard of using in a couple of ways in online pimping. In the States, we've heard about the Stop Enabling Sex Fifers Act 2017. There was a website called Backpage, which was previously a major pimping website at that time, which has seen its demand significantly disrupted and has seen a real reduction in demand in websites in that regard. Online pimping is illegal. Legislation makes the legal assisting or profiting from another person's prostitution. It is punishable by seven years imprisonment and a fine of £150,000. The sentence can also enthase the 20 years imprisonment and a £3 million fine of the offences committed by an organised group. In conclusion, and this is a key part of evidence for myself, Valiant Ruchier from the OSCE and who is a co-ordinated for combating trafficking in human beings said that Governments should really be considering policy options to shut down those sites as quickly as possible. It's made much easier for traffickers to advertise people and much easier for buyers to find them. Anytime you can reduce that threshold, these barriers to access in the market, you're going to see more engagement, and that's been the major problem. It also reduces the risk for traffickers, so it makes it much more attractive. Online pimping is wrong. It's symptomatic of gender-based violence against women and has no place in Scotland in 2022. I think that Maggie Chapman might have inadvertently misled the chamber. On 12 October 2020, Ruth Maguire contacted Scott Pepp inviting them to give oral evidence to the cross-party group inquiry. On 10 November that year, I wrote to them again, again extending the invitation to give oral evidence but also suggesting that they might wish to give written evidence again if that wasn't possible. On 12 November, again I wrote to Scott Pepp asking them to give evidence to the inquiry, either oral or written. We had no response to that. I thank the member for her contribution. I would suggest that that's not a point of order on the basis that it is not a matter for the chair as to the content of statements and contributions from members. However, the member has made her point, which will be in the official report. I call on the minister, Ash Regan, to respond to the debate around seven minutes. I thank Ruth Maguire for raising that motion and commend the cross-party group on commercial sexual exploitation for their report. It highlights the cross-cutting issues related to online pimping, such as its role in facilitating human trafficking and the underlying issues of how women are viewed in society, which is timely to mention with the independent working group on misogyny, which is due to publish its report later this month. I thought that Ms Maguire's speech today was an unflinching portrait of this grim issue. There were many excellent speeches across the chamber today and I never thought that I would get to this point, but I am quite in agreement with Russell Finlay on many of the points that he raised in his speech. However, I cannot agree with either Maggie Chapman or Mercedes Villalba on the assessment of the issue or the approach that we should take to it. One of the things that was mentioned was, of course, listening to prostituted women. I agree that that is very important. Rhoda Grant's point of order that she just made did show that, of course, that is an important part of it. We want to listen. For the member's information, Scott Pepper is also on the Government's reference group, so we are, of course, listening very carefully to what they have to say. I agree that it is really important, and I think that I have spoken to a number of women who have been involved in prostitution, so I just wanted to assure members that that is something that I take very seriously. However, I urge the members to really look at the reality of prostitution in countries that have pursued a decriminalisation model, and the high level of trafficking that is involved and the conditions that are involved, and ones that, I am sorry to say, are very far from safe for the women that are involved there. The levels of commoditisation, which was a theme that came up quite a lot during the debate this afternoon, and I would reflect that this type of inhumane commoditisation harms the women that are involved in this, but it also harms, I think, an impact on society's view of all women. My question to both would be, is this appropriate and is this desirable? Is this what we want to see in Scotland? I would say that it is not. The Scottish Government is very clear that misogyny fuels violence against women and girls. It erodes our efforts to make progress and to address gender equality, and women's bodies being commodified in this way and purchased by men is, of course, a deeply misogynistic behaviour. Let me be clear that an exchange for sex or sexual services is not about sex, it is about power, it is about control, and the persistence of structures that normalise these harmful behaviours within our society. An equally safe definition includes the full spectrum of violence against women, and it doesn't prioritise tackling one behaviour over another. I think that that was something that was mentioned by Elena Wittemann-Herr's contribution in order to achieve equality and recognise that forms of gender violence frequently overlap. A recent Encompass snapshot survey demonstrated this, so the survey showed that 36 per cent of the women disclosed experiences of childhood sexual abuse, 83 per cent of the women disclosed experiences of domestic abuse and 20 per cent of women disclosed that they were under 18 when they were first involved in selling sex or sexual images. Our commitment to tackling prostitution is in line with our intention to incorporate the UN convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women into law, and article 6 in particular compels Scotland to take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to suppress all forms of trafficking and exploitation of women through prostitution. That is a global call to action and one that we must respond to, and this year's programme for government commits to that. It commits the Government to develop a model for Scotland to challenge men's demand for prostitution, and in doing so it adds to a series of policy actions being taken forward to root out misogynistic behaviours in society. The cross-party working group report has called for a number of legislative solutions to address certain activities associated with prostitution and to restrict pimps and traffickers' room to operate and exploit. There are a number of laws in Scotland that make certain activities associated with prostitution illegal, so those are running a brothel, public solicitation to sell or purchase sex, loitering to sell or purchase, or procuring someone into becoming a prostitute and trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation. I fully recognise that those laws are piecemeal, and they were not consistently developed against a wider understanding of socio-economic deprivation or, in some cases, even when the internet was available. However, we are clear that the development of a new model to challenge men's demand must be informed by such factors that make things better and not worse for women, and we must shift the burden and focus on to the men who buy sex and have been able to do so for generations without being held to account for their actions. To support the design, we have tasked a short-life working group of experts to consider what the fundamental principles to underpin the model could be, and the group has met on two occasions and is making excellent progress. Its membership includes justice and health representatives, COSLA, Scottish Women's Aid, Violence Against Women, Partnership, Representation and Public Health Scotland. The development of principles will create a solid foundation that will uphold the values that we want to see reflected in the model, ensuring that women's safety is at its heart. Our ambition is to make very clear what the model stands for and draw on possible areas of consensus, such as the need to further recognise and address the structural and systemic disadvantages experienced by women. The draft principles are expected by the early part of this year, and we will further consult to feed further voices into this process. A national contract has been awarded to an independent research team to undertake lived experience research to better understand current support service provision and the needs of service users, and that will help to inform the support aspects of the model. Independent Scottish Government analysis is under way looking at international lessons learned to implementing laws that challenge men's demand. That will be vital in learning from the global stage on how best to approach this issue. It is perhaps helpful if I set out that regulation of internet and online service providers is a reserved matter. We are continuing to liaise closely with the UK Government on its forthcoming online safety bill. On 1 February, this year, the UK Government announced extra priority offences to be written on the face of the bill, which we understand will include offences involving sexual exploitation. In principle, that is a welcome move, as it aims to make the internet hostile to pimps and to human traffickers. Once we have more detail on that bill, we will consider that very carefully, especially in terms of the scope of the domestic model that we are developing. Now is the time for progressive and ambitious policies that support women to address the underlying causes of misogyny and drive forward gender equality. I am heartened by today's debate, and I am fully committed to continuing to work across the chamber and with stakeholders as we further progress with the model's development. Thank you minister. That concludes the debate, and I suspend this meeting until 2 pm.