Promoting the rights of women seeking asylum in the UK
Briefing Politicians
Women for Refugee Women aims to provide a bridge by which individual asylum seekers can speak directly to policy makers about the ways that their policies impact on women's lives. We hope that this will mean that policy makers realise the importance of ensuring that women are treated justly and with dignity throughout the asylum process.
When Farhat Khan and other women asylum seekers met Barbara Follett and other women MPs, May 2007.
On 8 May 2007 a delegation of asylum seekers led by Oona King went to see the women's committee of the Parliamentary Labour Party. We wanted to explain to the women MPs how women face serious injustice in the asylum system.
Farhat Khan, who comes from Pakistan and lives in Manchester, spoke about how she has been turned down for asylum despite facing serious gender-related persecution. She felt compelled to flee her violent husband when his family got her daughters engaged to his equally violent relations. She said, "Please understand that I, like other women refugees, love my home country and wish I could believe that my children and I could be safe there. But I cannot return and put my children in danger. I believe that every woman in this room would have done the same as I did if faced with this terrible choice."
Marjorie Nshemere, who comes from Uganda, spoke about how she was given exceptional leave to remain in the UK because she had been tortured in her home country. But the Home Office appealed, and Ms Nshemere is still waiting for a final decision. She has been here since 2000, and left her older daughter behind in Uganda. She said, "When I look at my experiences and the experiences of women like myself I have to ask myself - what more do we have to suffer to get asylum here? What do we have to go through?"
Salima Sekindi spoke about what happens to a woman asylum seeker if she is turned down for asylum, and her own experiences of living destitute and being detained. She said, "One day I tried to kill myself in Yarl's Wood. I had lost all hope. I had been tortured in my own country and I have been tortured here, and the worst torture is mental torture."
The asylum seekers asked the women MPs to raise the issue of justice for women asylum seekers with their colleagues.
Barbara Follett, who chaired the meeting, said that she found the women's stories heartbreaking, and the women present agreed to raise the issues of access to lawyers, quality of decision-making on women's cases and training of judges with the relevant ministers.
When Harriet Anyangokolo met Vera Baird, December 2006.
Women for Refugee Women is concerned about the potential impact of legal aid reforms on women asylum seekers. On 4 December 2006 a delegation of asylum seekers and lawyers went to see Vera Baird, minister in charge of legal aid reform at the Department of Constitutional Affairs.
Harriet Anyangokolo, a refugee from Uganda, told Vera Baird about how poor legal representation had led to her claim for asylum being turned down. She was then made destitute and forced to sleep rough on the streets of London. Later she was detained at Yarl's Wood, where she went on hunger strike, and where two attempts were made to deport her forcibly. When Ms Anyangokolo finally got a good lawyer, she succeeded in getting refugee status.
We wanted to bring home to Vera Baird how any policies that reduce the numbers of good lawyers doing asylum and immigration work can have a terrible impact on individual asylum seeking women. The legal aid reforms that Vera Baird is overseeing this year will reduce the numbers of lawyers doing legal aid work. Without a good lawyer, women are likely to lose their cases even if they have a good claim to asylum.
For more information, see the What Price Justice campaign by the Law Society