Hello all ^_^ thanks for checking in. I’ve got an update on the SEVs legislation consultation campaign for you today so please be sure to read to the end.
(Also be sure to check out my previous post explaining more about the SEVs consultation – HERE)
First things first let’s talk about the protest that was held in Georges Square, Glasgow on Saturday 22nd of June.
The protest was organised by The Empowered Woman Project (TEWP) and received a fair bit of media attention. Unfortunately the overall turnout of protesters was quite low. I imagine this could partly be due to it being Edinburgh Pride and partly due to people worrying about the stigma they might face for openly showing support for sex work.
TEWP are also the group that organised the petition that’s currently going around. At time of writing the petition has 3,753 signatures.
I have to say that turning up (a little late) to find that there were only 5 other protesters and probably 10 or so photographers/journalists was quite disappointing. It left me feeling as if the protest was little more than a photo shoot, which is really not what I had expected. Especially considering the number of people that had put themselves as going/interested in attending the protest.
Personally I felt the protest had been organised with too much focus on media presence and should have focused more on spreading information, working together to promote future events and creating a clear line of contact between everyone that wished to be involved.
However the official GMB campaign – #askthe700 – have said that both the protest and petition aren’t what we need to be focusing on. They say that we should focus on getting people to respond to the consultation – which I do fully agree with. In order to do this they will be hosting a family friendly event on the Saturday 29th in George Square, Glasgow where they will be available to answer questions and help people fill out their response to the consultation.
I found out the night before the protest that they weren’t actually involved in it and it left me a little unsure as to whether I would still go along, but I decided that the protest was a good way to bring extra attention to the campaign which in turn would be a great way to get more people to reply to the consultation. Despite the low turnout I am really glad that I went along as it was a great opportunity to meet like minded individuals, I also got to meet Mandy – one of the founders of TEWP. She’s certainly very passionate about wanting to help and had a very positive group supporting her, which was lovely to see.
On the AskThe700 website they have a statement regarding their relationship with Mandy and TEWP, I’d recommend going and reading it for yourself – https://www.askthe700.org/please-read – as the information is very important and should influence how you interact with TEWP.
AskThe700 has my full support and I will endeavour to do better at double checking which events they are endorsing before passing on this information to my followers. I’m so happy that TEWP is speaking up and drawing attention to the issue but I personally feel that if we don’t follow the wishes of the official campaign (the 700 worker’s representative) then we’re going against the very thing that we are asking for.
I hope to see you at the info day/consultation response day on Saturday 29th.
Until then, stay safe and be happy x
An Overview Of Blue 