Delivered at Sex, Drugs & Scotland's Health Virtual Conference, this presentation was delivered by Niamh Roberts & Kate Astbury. More information about the virtual event is available here: http://ow.ly/YntW50GWhJ0

1. Stealthing in Scotland
Legality and Impact
Kate Astbury and Niamh Roberts

2. The Background
❏ Stealthing: the non-consensual removal of barrier method
contraception
❏ Legal analysis indicated legal ambiguities in Scottish Statute
❏ Delegitimizing effect lack of awareness and recognition can
have on those that have experienced it
❏ Conditional consent receives less attention in both education
and institutional settings
❏ Public health issues: STIs, unwanted pregnancies, emotional
and psychological effects

3. Method
❏ Survey to understand
the prevalence and
awareness of stealthing
❏ Survivor accounts
❏ FOIs

4. Findings: Feedback and tackling the
issues
❏ Survey found that 69% of respondents were aware of what
stealthing entailed before completing the survey
❏ 16% shared that they had experienced stealthing
❏ 32% said they knew of someone who had been stealthed
❏ Found that 50% of perpetrators instilled doubt into the
individual demonstrating that stealthing is often not an
isolated experience of abuse P36

5. Prevalence and awareness
❏ Previous awareness
❏ Often a lack of confidence,
particularly in survivor
accounts
❏ Prevalence between
groups
❏ LGBTQIA+ people,
women, SIMD
❏ Lack of understanding

7. Impacts
❏ Health risks: STIs, pregnancy, abortion, mental
health issues
❏ Emotional: Mental health issues, long term
distress
❏ Loss of autonomy: loss of trust and choice
“I think myself and everyone I know has felt disgusting and violated after it. You feel
totally uncomfortable in your own body, knowing that you didn’t consent to this. It’s a
horrible experience and it is so normalised in men.”

8. Implications: What’s next and what
the network can do for CERT
❏ Campaign launch
❏ Develop relationships through collaboration
❏ Creating a private members’ bill
❏ “91% regarded the act of stealthing as sexual assault, as shown in Figure 5. Furthermore, of the
8% that were unsure, these participants believed that it should belong to its own category of
sexual violation.”
Investigating…
❏ Sex workers
❏ Stealthing forums
❏ The feasibility of reforming education
❏ “Overwhelmingly, 93% of the total sample believed that it should be included and only 1%
said that they did not.”

9. Thank you for the opportunity to
speak, and share our findings.
Questions, comments, and collaborations are
welcomed and encouraged!
Selected referenced:
Boadle et al, Latimer et al (2018), Australian
government, Brodsky 2017