Learning the lessons from Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre damage - Susan Dalgety

Mridul Wadhwa has stepped down as chief executive of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre

In a damming review of the centre published last week, independent expert Vicky Ling said that the organisation had damaged some of the women who tried to use its service after being raped or sexually assaulted.

I cannot think of a worse criticism of a charity set up specifically to support women at their most vulnerable.

The centre’s chief executive, Mridul Wadhwa, who is heavily criticised in the report, has disappeared. Wadhwa, a trans-identified man, took leave in June following an employment tribunal judgement which found that former ERCC worker Roz Adams had been the victim of a “heresy hunt” orchestrated by Wadhwa.

And a statement issued by the board of EWRCC reports that Wadhwa stood down from the post a few days ago. Good riddance. But even without its chief executive’s malign influence, ERCC is no longer a safe space for women.

It, like its umbrella body Rape Crisis Scotland and another key women’s service, Scottish Women’s Aid, wholeheartedly embraced gender identity theory, which argues that men who ‘identify’ as women are indeed female.

The result was that women needing their services could not be guaranteed that they would get a female-only service. Indeed, they were criticised for even asking for what should have been their right.

And when the author and philanthropist JK Rowling, set up Beira’s Place two years ago to guarantee survivors of sexual violence a female-only service, ERCC staff refused to work with the new centre.

ERCC attracts funding from several sources, but the Scottish Government, NHS Lothian and the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board, which is responsible for the city’s health and social care partnership, provide most of its income.

I have no faith that the Scottish Government will do the right thing. After all, successive First Ministers, from Nicola Sturgeon to John Swinney have pursued gender identity policies with vigour. It is unlikely the government will now admit that it was wrong.

But Professor John Connaghan, chair of NHS Lothian, and Katharina Kasper, chair of the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board should meet urgently with council leader Cammy Day to decide their response to the Ling report.

The bottom line is this: if JK Rowling had not invested in Beira’s Place, the women of Edinburgh and the Lothians would have been without female-only support services for the past two years. A completely unacceptable position for our capital city.

Sexual violence is a terrible fact of life. The overwhelming majority of victims are women. The overwhelming majority of perpetrators are men.

In 1978, Edinburgh women got together to set up a rape crisis centre in recognition that female survivors of abuse needed specialist support to recover from their trauma. Today, their legacy lies in tatters.

ERCC’s reputation is destroyed and its once world-leading service diminished, all because some careless women believed the lie that human beings can change their sex.

It may be too late to save Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, but now is the time to rebuild female-only services in our city.

Beira’s Place shows how it should be done. Let’s hope our city leaders have the courage to do the right thing.