Female Asylum Seekers Failed by the UKBA

Over the past few days, we've seen a huge amount of media coverage of Women for Refugee Women's brilliant report detailing the UKBA and Home Office's failure to support and protect women seeking asylum in the UK.

The reported revealed that 74% of women seeking asylum in the UK are refused at first decision, despite the fact that 50% of all female applicants were victims of rape, and another 50% have experienced arrest or imprisonment.

Of those who were refused asylum, two thirds were consequently made destitute. A further 56% of these individuals had to sleep rough, 16% experienced sexual violence and 18% were forced into unpaid labour for food or shelter.

The psychological impact of both detention and destitution is hard to ignore. Half of the women questioned for the report had thought about killing themselves whilst battling with our fickle asylum system.

This is not a UK specific phenomena; female asylum seekers all across the EU are faced with asylum systems that continually fail to acknowledge and protect their rights as weomne. In an article written today by Asylum Aid's Communications and Public Affairs Office, Russell Hargrave, the multiple discrepancies in asylum legislation across European countries were blamed for the EU's inability to provide sufficient support and sanctuary for women fleeing persecution:

Among the nine states researched - the UK, Belgium, France, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Romania, Spain, and Sweden - there are glaring discrepancies in national asylum practice. The protection available to women in one state may be wholly absent across the border. Spain, for example, fails to recognise trafficking as a form of persecution.Neither is Forced Genital Mutilation (FGM) always recognised as persecution in France, Malta, and Romania. 

On a strategic level, fewer than half the states have adopted gender guidelines so are missing a crucial tool for guiding asylum decision-makers on gender-related claims. One country, Romania, fails entirely to publish asylum statistics broken down by gender, despite legal obligations to do so.

For more information about the report, see the following articles:
Women for Refugee Women - 'Refused' (full report).
The Scotsman - 'Asylum 'needs to address rape issue' - 28/5/2012
Left Foot Forward - 'Poor standards persist across Europe for women seeking asylum' - 30/5/2012
Women's Hour, 28/5/2012 (interview withe a woman who was refused asylum in UK)

Bernard Mboueyeu Update

Last minute legal representation and intervention from many supporters across the country managed to stop Bernard Mboueyeu from being deported last night. 

However, Bernard remains in detention, and is still at risk of another deportation order from the Home Office. We'll keep you updated with any changes to Bernard's circumstances. 

Stop the Deportation of Roseline Akhalu

We've just received an email from the campaigning group No-Deportations, about the potential deportation of Roseline Akhalu. Please take a moment to sign the online petition or send an email to the Home Office demanding that they do not deny Roseline the critical medical help she needs. 

Statelessness in the UK

The UN Refugee Agency, alongside Asylum Aid published a report in November 2011 named ‘Mapping Statelessness in the United Kingdom’, highlighting the struggles faced by the ‘stateless’ individuals in the UK. A stateless individual is defined by the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons as a ‘person who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law’. This report aimed to highlight the current problems faced by such ‘stateless’ individuals and make some recommendations as to how their position can be improved.

Despite the United Kingdom's efforts to protect stateless individuals with the ratification of the 1954 Convention, the report still emphasizes some disturbing realities that take place on a daily basis. One of the most fundamental problems faced by stateless individuals is that there is an absence of any formal procedure for which they can apply for their statelessness to be recognized. This has grave practical consequences; with no identity documents, the stateless individual is unable to leave the country. This lack of formal procedure, combined with no leave to remain within the UK, means that individuals are more at risk of having their human rights breached. This is due to the fact that without any formal status they are more likely to be left without residence or separated from their family. However, due to a lack of data surrounding the issue of statelessness, the UN Refugee Agency and Asylum Aid were unable to gain a realistic picture of the scope of such problems in the UK. Nonetheless, it is suggested that these issues already affect many.

Consequently, the report makes some important recommendations to the government and Home Office based on the problems discussed, including a proposal for the introduction of a formal procedure by which stateless individuals can be identified and calls for the reformation of current UK stateless persons law to ensure that it is compatible with human rights declarations. Whilst at present the government does not appear to have acted on these recommendations, it is hopeful that the report will act as the catalyst for such overdue change.

By Ruth Hartley