THE Westminster challenge to the incorporation of UN child rights standards in Scotland risks further disenfranchising Traveller youth, community experts say.
MSPs last month voted to embed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) into Scots law. Last week the UK Government referred that legislation to the Supreme Court, saying parts of it may be outwith Holyrood powers.
The Scottish Parliament bill would embed key rights into our system that leaders with the Traveller community say are vital to the future of marginalised young people, including the right to an adequate standard of living, education and respect for their culture.
READ MORE: Douglas Ross tried to get Traveller family evicted as site was 'very visible'
Activist Davie Donaldson and Dr Lynne Tammi, a specialist in human rights and community development, say these rights are of vital importance to Gypsy/Traveller families amidst ongoing and systemic inequality. Despite the national Gypsy/Traveller Action Plan, which Donaldson contributed to, they say everyday racism continues to mar lives and keep families from accessing basic necessities.
On Thursday, one family contacted Donaldson for help after being threatened by a council officer with eviction from a site in Scotland because one of the 13 children present had been seen urinating in the trees. Donaldson declined to identify the local authority area to avoid identifying the family but says several requests for toilets and water supplies at the designated site had been denied by that council.
He told the Sunday National: “When we talk about Scotland we talk about a forward-thinking country but we don’t reflect and really strongly critique the fact that we are still seeing young children having to go to the toilet in the woods.
“It is still often said that we are causing our own inequalities, not that systems have been created that are exclusionary to Travellers.
“The legislation would protect young Gypsy/Travellers’ right to a culture, their right to travel, their right to basic sanitation, to running, clean water.
READ MORE: Tories are ‘picking fight’ on child rights to prove UK ‘superiority’, expert says
“The challenge to that legislation risks negating the positive impacts of enshrining the rights of all young people in Scotland, especially young marginalised people.”
Tammi said: “For any child or young person, this bill is fantastic news – people have been working for this for years. But sometimes people are shocked that for Gypsies and Travellers there are still issues with access to basic things like water.
“The UNCRC includes the right to play, the right to feel safe. Very few sites have play facilities within them, but this would require consideration of that when land is offered.
“They are challenging the law on a technicality. It seems churlish to do something on a technicality. Is this about starting to chip away at human rights law in Scotland?”
Available data shows a raft of inequalities experienced by Gypsy/Traveller communities, who face a male suicide rate estimated to be seven times higher than that of the settled community. Life expectancy is thought to be around 10 years lower and members are more likely to have a limiting long-term health problem or disability, according to the most recent census.
In this week’s STV leaders’ debate, Patrick Harvie of the Scottish Greens pressed Conservative leader Douglas Ross over derogatory remarks he made about Gypsy/Travellers in 2017, when he said “tougher enforcement” against them would be his number one priority as prime minister and that he was “disappointed and frustrated that we seem to have to bend over backwards for this ethnic minority”.
Ross told Harvie his comments were “wrong”.
READ MORE: Douglas Ross's five most awkward moments at the STV Leaders' Debate
Donaldson says they serve to reveal the prejudice his community faces on a daily basis, recalling that, as a young campaigner, he was told at one council health committee meeting: “Nobody here cares about the t***s.”
He said: “Douglas Ross’s remarks don’t sit in isolation.
“We have to really reflect on institutional racism. What makes it a lot harder is when political leaders propagate the prejudice that exists at a grassroots level.”
The UK Government says MSPs cannot make it unlawful for any public authority to act in a way that’s not compatible with the UNCRC and its “concerns are not about the substance of the legislation, rather whether parts are outwith the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament”.
On Thursday, Nicola Sturgeon said: “If the UK Government thinks there’s technical issues about competence here, wouldn’t it be better just to take away those issues by the UK Government saying they’ll comply with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as well?
“What is it the UK Government is planning to do in Scotland they worry is going to breach the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?”
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