Finally, Justice for Miss Emma Caldwell
28 February 2024
Update, 7th March 2024:
We are pleased to hear that the Scottish Government has announced that there will be a public inquiry into Police Scotland’s handling of Emma Caldwell’s murder. We hope that this inquiry highlights the urgent systemic changes that are necessary for harms against sex workers to be taken seriously, and for sex workers to be supported by the legal system. We would like to thank the tireless work of Margaret Caldwell, Aamer Anwar and the many sex workers who have come forward throughout the investigation in bringing these issues to light.
Original statement:
We spent the morning of December 17th, 2023, International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers (#IDEVASW) affixing the names of the 199* sex workers murdered in the UK since 1990 to little red umbrellas. After tying them together we led a procession to Crossbones Cemetery, where we stood in a cold huddled mass and spoke the names of our community members, murdered sex workers, back into existence.
Miss Emma Caldwell was one. We have been marking this day for 20 years.
Emma died in 2005. It has taken 19 years for her family, her friends and her community to gain answers to what happened to her, 19 years to see justice in the wake of her death.
Emma’s murder is not an isolated case. Of the 12 known sex workers murdered in Glasgow and the surrounding areas since 1990, half remain unsolved. Another took 22 years for a conviction to take place. We remember those today who have yet to see justice: Joanne Broome, Leona McGovern, Diane McInally, Karen McGregor, Marjorie Roberts, and Jackie Gallagher.
It’s time for the Model for Scotland and ‘Equally Safe’ become a Model for Sex Workers, for their rights, liberty, and justice. We urge politicians and policy makers to come to the table in direct dialogue with active sex workers, to design a strategy with their interests at the centre.
We can discuss safety, health and wellbeing, digital and financial citizenship, poverty, racial capitalism, what’s needed to leave sex work, and most importantly, why defining sex work as violence excludes active sex workers at stakeholders and instead positions them as deviant victims, responsibilised for the harms that they survive and the harms that they don’t. This approach blocks sex workers from negotiating their policy priorities and from accessing resources needed to design out exploitation and design in safety and rights workers’ rights.
Listen to and Work with Sex Workers
We call on Police Scotland to work with us to follow up on the reports of violence against sex workers and for prosecutors to take these cases very seriously. Sex Workers shared information about this dangerous man before Emma was killed.
One worker was arrested after surviving violence and reporting the incident.
Today sex workers continue to fear police enforcement when reporting violence. Current policies and proposals ensure that the same voices are heard, the same groups get resources, and that we get more of the same policy violence and exclusion.
NUM is the largest sex worker victim support organisation in the country, with a membership of 9600, and we must beg for visibility on this issue in Scotland and elsewhere, due to ideological differences. We are penalilsed for having a human rights and harm reduction approach in an economic climate of precarity, scarcity and inequity. Read what the UN Commissioner for Human Rights has to say this month about protecting sex workers.
- We too want to see an end to predatory and situational violence against sex workers.
- We too want to see an end to forced labour in sex industries and end to organised exploitation.
- We too want sex workers to have police and social protection, and the ability to report violence with impunity.
- We too want to end the conditions that lead to survival sex work.
- We too want sex workers to have a comprehensive continuum of support and resources to leave sex industries.
We must improve the status of sex workers in our society, and see an end to the war on people who use drugs, and an end to criminalisation, crimmigration, discrimination and stigma.
NUMbrella Lane, our wellbeing space for sex workers in Scotland has almost 600 members and the 231 people visited the drop-in and participated in events in 2023.
Our services are designed and delivered by, for and with sex workers and yet we have not been invited to design services for our communities or tap into resources. No other victim support organisation is excluded to this extent.
While we are relieved to see justice for Emma today and we send our love and regards to her mother Margaret, her family and friends, we continue to mourn her death and the deaths of others and advocate for support, healing and recovery for the 20 survivors of this predator’s violence.
We would like to thank Aamer Anwar & Company for their representation for the Caldwell family. We would also like to thank all those, including the many sex workers, who provided evidence leading to today’s conviction, and the investigative team who’s work led to Emma’s case finally being solved.
We hope that Emma’s experience inspires the social and political change needed to value the lives of sex workers enough to meaningfully engage them in creating a safer future.
Gone too soon. May Emma Now Rest in Power
Explore NUM’s Memorial Map
If you are a sex worker in need of support or want to chat, contact the casework team.
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*The 199 people contained in our memorial map are only individuals that are in the public domain. We acknowledge and honour the thousands more who we do not have permission to name, as well as those who have been lost to us due to illness, suicide, overdose and by other means. May they too Rest in Power.