Workshop on the Needs & Rights of Migrant Sex Workers in Scotland

Ubuntu Women Shelter, National Ugly Mugs and the Sex Workers Union warmly invite you to a generative conversation (and Q&A) about the needs and rights of migrant sex workers in Scotland.

Framed by expertise drawn from front line support work, lived experience and interconnections with the larger feminist movement, VAWG sector, union organising and anti-racist and decolonial struggles.

Ubuntu Women Shelter
We are a woman*-centred feminist organization ‘led by and for’ women and people of other marginalised genders who have experienced the injustice and violence of border regimes. We provide practical support and offer unconditional support for destitute women and people of other marginalised genders who have no recourse to public funds (NRPF) and insecure immigration status in Scotland. We challenge and resist policy and institutional practices that perpetuate disbelief, deny and erase the continuing harm and trauma of slavery and colonisation.

National Ugly Mugs
National Ugly Mugs (NUM) is a pioneering, national organisation that provides greater access to justice and protection for sex workers who are often targeted by dangerous individuals and face obstacles to reporting, access to service and police protection. We recognise three ways of understanding sex work issues: Lived Experience, Practitioner Know-how and Scholarship. We privilege people who embody all three and work as a blended team of experts to lead NUM, design and deliver services, conduct community-based researcher, develop and deliver education to professionals, and participate in policy advocacy to change the conditions that lead to survival sex work.

Sex Workers Union
SWU is a branch of sex workers, in the UK, organising with BAFWU for better working conditions and fighting to change the industry from within.

The UK Sex Workers Union fights for ‘Worker’ status giving strippers and sex workers basic worker protections while allowing them to retain the label of self-employment and associated freedoms. SWU works with sex workers across the UK to improve conditions through collective negotiation and individual casework. We organise to establish ‘worker’ status, which will enable those working in clubs to claim basic rights at work, such as annual leave, sick pay, a guaranteed basic wage and the right to organise and be represented by a trade union.


We will provide brief context setting on:

• current challenges of women without recourse to public funds in Scotland
• different legal models around sex work
• experiences of migrant sex workers in the UK/Scotland
• criminalisation of migration from the global south to the global north

The knowledge held between the representatives of these three organisations amounts to decades of community organising and we know that the participants of this workshop will also bring a wealth of insight. We welcome this opportunity to learn, discuss, question and exchange.

Teas, coffee and light refreshments will be served.