Policies affecting Nackens (Scottish Gypsy Travellers), Gypsy/Travellers and Scottish Travellers: lived experience testimonies

Executive Summary

This report is aligned with the results of archival research that was commissioned by the Scottish Government and carried out by independent researchers based at the University of St Andrews (hereafter ‘the archival research’). Both examine twentieth-century policies and legislation that have negatively affected and continue to affect the ethnic minority known as Nackens (Scottish Gypsy Travellers), Gypsy/Travellers and Scottish Travellers.

This report presents thematic analyses of lived experience testimonies from some of those affected by the actions of authorities in relation to certain policies and legislation. It speaks to, but stands apart from, the archival research because its priorities are not primarily based on documentary evidence. Analysis of the lived experience testimonies resulted in the emergence of three interrelated themes:

1. Nacken, Gypsy/Traveller and Scottish Traveller families being allocated deliberately substandard and/or inappropriate and uninhabitable/insanitary accommodation by state actors, sometimes as a part of housing and/or social ‘experiments’.

2. The displacement of families, especially the removal of children and/or the threat of removal, as a means to assimilate future generations of Nackens, Gypsy/Travellers and Scottish Travellers into ‘mainstream’ populations. This included the transportation of children and/or families to places like Canada and Australia.

3. The significant and ongoing social, cultural, economic and psychological trauma engendered by the above themes, along with the related intergenerational impacts.

Participants in this research testify that they, their families and/or kin were routinely placed in deliberately substandard, uninhabitable and often insanitary housing that was sanctioned by the state, and other official institutions, during the twentieth century and into the twenty first century.

Although other legislation and policies may have influenced ‘settlement’ and ‘assimilation’ schemes, the Children (1908) Act is deemed by research participants and archival research to be predominantly responsible for the displacement of families. The testimonies gathered demonstrate strongly that, under the auspices of the Children (1908) Act, the actions of the Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and other institutions resulted in the disproportionate removal and segregation of children from Nacken, Gypsy/Traveller and Scottish Traveller families. The testimonies reveal that removal and segregation also included the removal of children to state-sanctioned homes, adoption within unrelated families, and transportation abroad.

Along with the social, cultural and economic segregation that resulted from state-sanctioned housing, the displacement and segregation of families engendered lifelong psychological impacts. The discrimination, harassment and inequality reflected in the testimonies can be viewed as a result of these segregations, where stigmas attached to living conditions, and displacements from family and kin, resulted in cycles of disenfranchisement, alienation and a significant curtailment of life-chances. These negative impacts are also felt intergenerationally, with current generations sometimes dislocated from their culture and heritage.

It can be demonstrated that certain legislation and policies targeted Nackens, Gypsy/Travellers and Scottish Travellers, and that officials’ and others’ insensitivities to their lifestyles and working practices meant that they had disproportionately negative impacts on the families. The evidence presented below indicates, corroborating the archival research, a disproportionate bias that was based on ethnicity and that therefore constitutes racial discrimination. The Scottish Government should consider offering an effective apology for this mistreatment and also consider individual(s) circumstances where appropriate.

It is important to acknowledge and differentiate between experiences that, although they may stem from the same policies, have manifested and impacted people in significantly different ways. Also important to acknowledge in this respect are those participants who identify as ‘Tinker Experiment Victims’, who were placed in deliberately substandard housing schemes, and who therefore seek an apology specifically on this basis. Many of these participants voiced the position that they offered their testimonies to the Scottish Government and Scottish Ministers for the express purposes of transparency regarding their experiences and to prompt an effective formal apology.

The gravity and seriousness of the ongoing impacts of these mistreatments on people’s lives cannot be overemphasised. Although the term ‘historical’ is sometimes used to refer to certain policies during this report, it is crucial to acknowledge that the testimonies below represent what the participants see as breaches of their human rights and that the impacts are being felt to this day. The testimonies suggest that an effective apology would be a first step to learning and moving forward not only from the discrimination of the past, but into an equitable future that is based on acknowledgement of past wrongs, and on new understandings.