Financial compensation needed to ‘put things right’ for Gypsy Travellers

The Scottish Government is being urged to “put things right” and open a redress scheme for Gypsy Travellers for the harm caused by the so-called “Tinker Experiment”.

While First Minister John Swinney made an apology for the “trauma” caused by “unfair and unjust policies” last June, the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) said that further action was needed.

A new report by the SHRC said the First Minister’s apology was a “positive first step on the path to righting the wrongs done by Scotland’s institutions” to Gypsy Travellers, but went on to make a series of recommendations it said must be adopted “with urgency” to address the “continuing harms”.

The SHRC study comes in the wake of a Scottish Government report last year, which branded the “Tinker Experiment” as “cultural genocide”.

The “Tinker Experiment”, which lasted from the 1940s until the 1980s, was a programme designed to integrate travellers into mainstream society.

That saw policies backed by councils and the Scottish Office of the UK Government, amongst others, set out to remove the traditional nomadic lifestyle of Scotland’s Gypsy Traveller community.

As part of this, rudimentary accommodation, such as cramped huts, was provided for people to live in, and when families became too big to be housed in these places, children could be taken away from them.

Victims interviewed for the report shared accounts, with one recalling the trauma of being forcibly separated from family members and subjected to abusive treatment in government-run institutions.

“We’d all be terrified, absolutely petrified. We always feared being taken to a children’s home,” said one interviewee.

“The emotional plague of having been the victim of savage gaslighting and defamation continues to haunt my mind,” another described.

SHRC chair Professor Angela O’Hagan insisted there has been “insufficient action” from the Scottish Government to address the injustice of the Tinker Experiment.

As part of a call for “transformative reparations”, the report said there must be further apologies from the Scottish Government, and for financial compensation to be paid to victims and their families.

It also recommended a “culturally appropriate review” be carried out to ensure the adequacy of accommodation provided at Gypsy Traveller sites.

Noting that “victims were forced to give up their culture and in some cases their children”, Prof O’Hagan insisted that “apologies are vital, but are not enough on their own”.

She said: “Scotland must now put things right and support those who continue to live with the harm.”

The SHRC report, titled No Man’s Land, found that “the state systemically forced the assimilation of Scotland’s Gypsy Travellers by conflating nomadism with vagrancy”.

This was also done by “discriminating against Gypsy Travellers and by enacting laws in the 1800s and 1900s to suppress nomadic practice and to remove Gypsy Traveller children from their families”.

Both the Scottish Government and local councils have “failed and continue to fail to uphold an adequate standard of living” in relation to the provision of “adequate housing for Scotland’s Gypsy travellers”, the SHRC said – claiming this was a breach of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

The report cited huts with asbestos wood walls at the Bobbin Mill site near Pitlochry as an example of this, claiming there was no electricity there until the 2010s and the accommodation “lagged behind improvements made to general housing provision”.

Meanwhile, the SHRC said that removing children from their families “for no other reason than to ease overcrowding” was a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

“Threats to remove children were used by the state to compel families to assimilate, would, by today’s standards, amount to an interference with Article 8 of the ECHR,” the report said.

“This has caused mental distress and prevented Scotland’s Gypsy Travellers from conducting their family life and causing significant and lasting trauma.”

Prof O’Hagan said that the “marginalisation” of Scotland’s Gypsy Travellers “is a long and shameful part of Scotland’s past and our present”.

She stated: “We cannot be clearer that the harms of the ‘Tinker Experiment’ have not been addressed, are ongoing, and amount to a continuing human rights issue.

“It is evident from testimony that victims of the Tinker Experiment experience ongoing substandard housing conditions, poor health outcomes, and face discrimination in education and in accessing employment.

“Furthermore, laws remain on the statute book which discriminate against this community in their failure to recognise their cultural traditions, and policymaking fails to consider the needs and views of this community as required by a human rights-based approach.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government welcomes the publication of the Scottish Human Rights Commission report regarding a human rights assessment of the “Tinker Experiments” and will carefully consider its contents.

“We are improving the lives of Gypsy/Traveller communities in Scotland through the second Gypsy/Traveller Action Plan. Backed by £1m over the past five years, this is driving positive change to health, education, accommodation, poverty, and tackling discrimination.

“Alongside this, over £500,000 has been invested into the Community Health Worker programme to support Gypsy/Traveller communities overcome barriers to accessing health and other public services.

“The Scottish Government continues to engage closely with affected community members to explore further action in the immediate and medium term.”