Greens call for public apology to Gypsy Traveller community for ‘Tinker Experiment’
The Scottish Government must apologise for the historic treatment of Scotland’s Gypsy Traveller community as part of the controversial ‘Tinker Experiment’, say the Scottish Greens.
Scottish Green MSP Mark Ruskell urged Ministers to publicly address the decades of distress caused to traveller communities by ‘the Tinker Experiment’ in a General Question asked in the Chamber today.
This state-sponsored operation, which ran from the 1940s until the 1980s, threatened to take travellers’ children into care if they did not give up their way of life. It forced travellers to move into low quality prefabricated accommodation, often with no running water, heating or electricity, ghettoising them and tearing their communities apart.
Mr Ruskell said:
“Generations of families have been impacted by disgraceful persecution at the hands of the British state. People who could have thrived within their unique culture were split up, put into slum housing and shunned by local communities.
“I have heard first-hand from a constituent about the severe physical and mental health impacts caused by the many years of racist abuse and inhumane housing conditions they had to endure, and the scars of mistreatment to the traveller community are still felt and added to in society today.
“Scotland should be ashamed that it had a role in what was known as the ‘Tinker Experiment’. It is only right that the state apologises for its actions and commits to making meaningful improvements to the lives of those affected by it.”