The Scottish Travelling community has been a part of Scotland since at least the 12th Century. It arose from Scottish workers who wandered the country taking seasonal farming jobs and providing goods and services, especially as tinsmiths and peddlers. In spite of their Scottish origins, they were and still are looked upon as outsiders.
Although there are no official figures on the number of Gypsy Travellers in Scotland, numbers are estimated at between 15- 20,000 people, or less than 0.5 per cent of the Scottish population. The 2011 census revealed that Scotland was the most common country of birth for Gypsy/Travellers in 2011 (76 per cent), followed by England (11 per cent).
Source: Scottish Government Report
A Fact Sheet for journalists points out:
Despite these relatively small numbers, there is significant coverage of this group of people in the media. A recent study by Amnesty International shows that a disproportionate amount of that coverage is negative.”
A report issued on this date in history by the Church of Scotland allowed:
The Travelling Community has historically suffered much discrimination. For example, in 1533 King James V issued a decree banning gypsies from Scotland saying they should ‘depart forth of this realme with their wifis, bairns and companies.’ Discrimination has continued and even intensified in the succeeding centuries as access to land for temporary sites has been more and more tightly restricted and legislation impacting on Travellers more rigorously enforced.”
In its 2011 report, the church made a public statement admitting its complicity in the persecution of Travellers and in forcibly removing children from Traveller families and sending them abroad. Church ministers were even present sometimes when youngsters were forcibly taken from their families and sent to Australia and Canada during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.
But it proposed an excuse:
With hindsight, we can regard with regret some of the attitudes which the Churches have displayed towards the Travelling Community and, when it occurred, deplore their historic failure to stand alongside a minority group facing discrimination and even persecution. However, it should be acknowledged that proposals . . . were made in the belief, at the time, that they would bring benefit both to the Travelling Community and to wider society.”
In recent times, the Human Rights Act of 1998 and the Equality Act 2010 have recognized Travellers as an ethnic group which provides them with greater protection against discrimination. Nevertheless, many Travellers report continued biases affecting them in such areas as housing facilities, education, healthcare, and legislative representation. The BBC reported in 2017 that discrimination against Travellers in Scotland has become the last form of “acceptable racism.”
The Scottish Parliament focused on the issue of Traveller discrimination for Human Rights Day 2017. It admitted that research showed “entrenched and stubbornly high levels of discrimination” against the community. A recent Scottish Social Attitudes survey found 34% of people in Scotland believed a Gypsy/Traveller was “unsuitable” to be a primary school teacher, and 31% would be unhappy if a close relative married a Gypsy/Traveller.
Davie Donaldson, a young campaigner for Travellers rights, argued that people in the “settled community” needed to be more willing to meet Travellers: “We are the same as everyone else. We may have a unique culture but we have always been here. We are rooted here the same as everyone else. We are your fellow man.”
Davie Donaldson is a campaigner for Travellers rights
A Scottish government spokesman said: “We recognise that Gypsy/Travellers are among the most disenfranchised and discriminated against in society, which is why we are determined to do all we can to remove barriers to achieving equality. . . . “
To that end, the Scottish government published “A Fairer Scotland for All: Race Equality Action Plan 2017-2021” on December 11, 2017. You can access it here.
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