Promoting the rights of women seeking asylum in the UK
Women and asylum in the UK
Many women come to the UK because they are fleeing real persecution in their home countries. But women often find that if they are fleeing rape and other kinds of gender-related persecution, such as honour crimes, forced marriage and female genital mutilation, the Home Office will not see this as grounds for giving refugee status.
Marjorie Nshemere Ojule, a trustee of Women for Refugee Women, explains in the Observer, 21 September 2008, why she came to the UK.
“In Uganda I was active in opposition politics at a grassroots level: working in my village, helping women to know their rights and teaching them reading and writing. I was detained twice. The horror that I experienced in there, you wouldn't wish that on anyone, not even your enemy. I was tortured, I was raped, I was burnt with cigarettes, I was cut with razors, electric shocks: all the horrible things you can think of to get information from someone. Eventually I escaped and came to England. When my case was heard in court, the judge agreed that I was tortured and gave me leave to remain on human-rights grounds. But the Home Office appealed against that decision. They said I was not entitled to stay here. That was in 2004 and, until January this year, I was living in limbo, waiting to hear the outcome.”
For instance, at the time of writing a young woman called Bella was being held in Yarl's Wood detention centre. Before she was detained she described to Women for Refugee Women what had happened to her in Uganda when government agents came to her house to get information from her father: "One of the men raped me while the other held my father's head to watch with his arms tied and he was beaten each time he closed his eyes. I pleaded for him to give them what they needed but he did not. I leave the matter open for anyone to conclude whether I have been a victim of torture."
The Home Office believed that she was raped but told her that this did not mean she qualified for refugee status. Asylum law in Britain is founded on the 1951 Refugee Convention which states that asylum should be given to people who show a well-founded fear of persecution because of their "race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion."
But even when women have been targeted for political reasons, they are often refused asylum. It is also the case that many women are persecuted by private individuals such as family members. Key cases in Britain that have gone to the House of Lords have shown if their state cannot provide any protection for them against persecution such as honour crimes or forced prostitution, women can be considered members of a "particular social group" for the purposes of asylum law. But these appeal decisions are not being consistently followed by the Home Office and many women at risk of gender-related persecution, including rape but also honour crimes, domestic violence, forced marriage of themselves or their daughters, or forced prostitution, are being refused refuge in the UK. If a woman is turned down for asylum here, she can be made destitute, she can be detained, and she can be deported to a country where she may be in danger.