These are challenging times for women seeking asylum in the UK, and for those working to support them. Funding cuts mean that services are being reduced, access to legal support is ever harder to achieve, and public opinion is not softening – in fact it sometimes seems attitudes are hardening. But at the same time, there is increasing concern for the different experiences and particular needs of traumatised women seeking asylum, and I was invited by the Red Cross to give a workshop at their March conference in Manchester on Women and Asylum.
The conference aimed to share knowledge and good practice around understanding the needs and supporting the rights of women who make asylum applications in the UK. About 30% of asylum claims in the UK are made by women. As Nick Scott Flynn, head of refugee services at the Red Cross, pointed out, women often have different experiences of persecution from men – because both the reasons and the form of the persecution they suffer is gender-based, and because women’s social roles may mean that they have non-typical profiles of political activity, for example. These issues have to be taken into account in order to offer women protection appropriately and in appropriate forms.
In the morning, we heard presentations from Tony McNulty MP; Nick Scott Flynn; Ian Macdonald, a team leader for the UK Border Agency; and Debora Singer, head of policy at Asylum Aid. Nick Scott Flynn gave a great overview of why we need to focus on women seeking asylum, and Debora Singer brilliantly and engagingly summarised the key issues that Asylum Aid has been raising for years about the need to respect the rights of women seeking asylum, and the way that a systematic failure to recognise these rights leads to human rights abuses against vulnerable women. The speaker from the UKBA gave a general overview of the role of the UKBA and spoke about anti-trafficking work.
The afternoon saw seminars on surviving destitution (the Refugee Council and Women Asylum Seekers Together); the journey of an asylum claim (Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit); and rehabilitation after surviving torture (Freedom from Torture); and credibility and seeking asylum (CSEL). Sadly for me, the price of giving a workshop was missing out on the others.
However, my seminars were very popular, and so lively that I can’t complain. I used the time to host a discussion about why it’s important to be able to refer to credible, scientific research findings when supporting women seeking asylum, and how you can make use of findings in different support roles, with reference to CSEL’s research where appropriate. I found that 45 minutes isn’t long when you have a room full of lively professionals and volunteers keen to share their experiences and explore ways to use new information to improve the quality of the service they provide for women seeking asylum.
The conference report is now being written, and will include evaluation of the workshops, but if the vitality of group discussions are anything to go by, I can definitely say that CSEL’s research captured the interest of the conference delegates. Many thanks to Rachel Keene, Antonia Dunn and all the Red Cross volunteers for pulling together this exciting regional event.
