Speaking after the socially distanced photo-call of ALBA Women Candidates outside the Scottish Parliament today, where 15 of ALBA's women candidates took part and were joined by around another 100 women who 'voted with their feet' and placed shoes outside the Parliament as a symbolic gesture for Women's rights.
ALBA Lead Candidate for Central Scotland Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh said:
"Today ALBA's women candidates came to the Scottish Parliament to proclaim their support for Women's sex-based rights and vowed if elected on Thursday 6 May, to work every day to be that strong voice for Women's equality inside the chamber and the committees of the Scottish Parliament.
"ALBA's women MSPs will be a determined voice for Women and girls wherever they live in Scotland. We will speak up on all policies which affect us as we are no longer prepared to be abused or silenced. The ALBA Party will maintain and preserve our sex-based protections as set out in the Equality Act of 2010.
"Women have a right to organise ourselves as women, according to our sex, across the range of cultural, leisure, educational and political activities. We have a right to our single-sex spaces.
"However, in 2021, women in Scotland still struggle for equality - for equal access to education for equal Employment Opportunities, for equal support for our health needs. We suffer from sex-based violence and from sex-based inequality and it's time to change once and for all. To shake things up for women.
"So the ALBA Party will ensure our female-only spaces such as changing rooms, hospital wards, our toilets, our showers, sleeping accommodation, refuges, hostels and prisons are protected and maintained as ours. The ALBA Party will protect our right as women, to refuse consent to males entering our single-sex spaces.
“Women matter to ALBA and their sex-based rights will always be preserved and protected by us, and only by us. Our message to women across Scotland is loud and clear - 'For Scotland, For Women - Vote ALBA'. As more and more women hear that call so support for ALBA will rise between now and polling day.”
