Joint Committee on Human Rights
Oral evidence: Violence against women and girls, HC 594
Wednesday 5 November 2014
Ordered by the House of Lords to be published on 5 November 2014.
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 5 November 2014.
Written evidence from witnesses:
Members present: Dr Hywel Francis (Chair); Baroness Berridge; Baroness Buscombe; Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws; Lord Lester of Herne Hill; Baroness Lister of Burtersett; Baroness O’Loan; Mr Virendra Sharma; and Sarah Teather
Witnesses: Natasha Walter, Director, Women for Refugee Women, Anna Musgrave, Women’s Advocacy and Influencing Officer, Refugee Council, and Saira Grant, Legal and Policy Officer, Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants gave evidence.
Q85 Dr Hywel Francis (Chair): Good morning, and welcome to this evidence session of the Joint Committee on Human Rights for our inquiry into violence against women and girls. For the record, could you please introduce yourselves?
Saira Grant: My name is Saira Grant. I am the legal and policy director at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants. We mainly deal with women who have suffered violence in the immigration context rather than the asylum context.
Anna Musgrave: My name is Anna Musgrave. I am from the Refugee Council.
Natasha Walter: I am Natasha Walter. I am the director of Women for Refugee Women. We work with women who have sought asylum in the UK.
Q86 The Chair: Thank you for coming along and co‑operating with the inquiry. The first question is very straightforward. Are immigration officials or groups represented at meetings within government on violence against women, for example at the inter‑ministerial group?
Natasha Walter: We would not actually know who goes to those meetings, because we are not included ourselves, but we feel that, too often, immigration policy and policy on violence against women and girls seem to be made separately. Where they come into conflict, often migration policy seems to trump policy on violence against women and girls. I can go into more detail on that if you would like. I do not want to take up too much time at the outset.
Anna Musgrave: The Refugee Council sits on the Home Office stakeholder group on violence against women and, I have to say, the representation from UK Visas and Immigration has been, in the main, very poor. I sit on the groups and I very rarely see anybody in those meetings who I recognise. It feels like a real missed opportunity because a lot of the time you are sitting there with 40 people in the room discussing how to address violence against women and girls, and I am aware that I am the only person in the room who is thinking about how this applies to asylum‑seeking women. Very often, the issues that are being discussed are directly relevant. There is a real opportunity for UKVI to learn from what is happening in other departments and to hear the presentations in terms of understanding the issues, but also to hear the solutions that are being presented and to think about whether these solutions could be applied to the asylum system.
Saira Grant: Again, we do not sit on any committees. I do sit on the National Asylum Stakeholder Forum, which is a larger forum where former UKBA representatives sit as well. Violence against women has not been raised in those meetings as a discrete subject. It can be raised as a topical issue from time to time, but those meetings are much broader and do not necessarily focus on specifics of gender.
The Chair: Your short answer is that you do not really know who is represented there.
Anna Musgrave: I do actually—Ian Cheeseman. I cannot remember his job title but he is the person who represents UKVI.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: Can we have the name again? You mentioned a name.
Anna Musgrave: Ian Cheeseman. My understanding is that he is the current member. I have not seen him at many of the meetings, but I think the issue is about appropriate representation at the right level from the inter‑ministerial group down, and that is what we do not see. I have to say it has been quite frustrating for me. Ian’s remit is mainly limited to the asylum determination system. For example, at one of the meetings I gave a presentation around how the asylum support system impacts on women’s safety in the UK. Ian Cheeseman understandably came along to that meeting, but it was outside of his remit, so he was not the right person to be at the meeting. It needs to be somebody with oversight of the issues for the whole of the asylum system. Where there has been progress in the asylum system in addressing women’s safety, it has been focused on the asylum determination system, and the asylum support system has been much neglected.
Sarah Teather: I do not mean to hog this, but I have two questions. Is he the only person who you have ever witnessed at those meetings? Has anybody else ever come along if something is relevant? I was also quite interested in that Natasha dangled a carrot and suggested she had more specifics; but if we could perhaps have a follow‑up from Anna first.
Anna Musgrave: I need to qualify what I say, in that I cannot say I go to every single meeting. That is partly because there is a limit to what I can get addressed in that meeting, because there is nobody from UKVI there—which I am always slightly baffled by, given that the Home Office co‑ordinate and lead on addressing violence against women. I would endorse what Natasha said—that UKVI does not see it as being relevant to asylum‑seeking women. I cannot say categorically that he is the only person, but the only time that I have witnessed somebody from UKVI, it has been Ian.
Natasha Walter: My point was just that, from the outside, we do not see evidence of joined‑up thinking. For instance, the Home Office has the initiative to tackle FGM in the UK, but we do not see anything coming out of the Home Office about how that might affect women seeking asylum from the threat of FGM for their daughters. We are working with a woman at the moment who sought asylum here because she does not want to be a cutter like her mother and grandmother, but she is being forced into that role and she has been refused asylum. She was locked up in Yarl’s Wood for five months. There is a lack of joined‑up thinking: you have got an initiative to tackle FGM but then women who are fleeing precisely that abuse are facing injustice within the asylum process. Something we might come back to is the Foreign Office’s initiative to tackle sexual violence in conflict. We are very concerned about women who cross borders from precisely that abuse and fail to find protection here in the UK. We think there are real missed opportunities here, because there are such good initiatives going on, and yet they are not being carried through into the asylum process.
Mr Sharma: The way I understood your answer, you said that the people who are present there do not have a reasonable understanding of domestic violence or violence against women.
Anna Musgrave: Sorry, are you talking about UKVI?
Mr Sharma: Yes.
Anna Musgrave: I was really talking about Ian’s remit being much more focused on the determination system, and whether or not women’s claims and needs for protection are being recognised. I am sure we will get on to these issues, but my point is that progress has been made in the asylum determination system, but it is seen a little bit in isolation. When we think about women’s safety and the violence they are affected by, we also need to think about what happens to women in the asylum system in this country, which particularly relates to the asylum support system. That is an area of particular concern for me, which has not been acknowledged by UKVI. There has been no effort on that front.
One more point, which may perhaps explain the lack of attendance by UKVI and the lack of involvement in those decisions, is that women in the asylum system are not very present in the Home Office action plan to address violence against women. In fact, it was only in 2003 that concrete action points were inserted into that action plan, and that only came about because of a campaign led by Asylum Aid. That is really almost the starting point. There needs to be much more thought in terms of what needs to happen for asylum‑seeking women going into that plan.
Q87 Baroness O'Loan: The United Kingdom is obliged under the Istanbul convention to protect the resident status of victims of violence where, for example, there has been a dissolution of a marriage or a woman has been forced into a marriage, so that they can retain their status in the country in which they habitually reside. Is the United Kingdom sufficiently complying with its obligations in this regard and what has been your experience of the measures taken by the UK in this regard?
Natasha Walter: We only work with women who seek asylum in the UK, so we would rather not comment on this specific question.
Anna Musgrave: Similarly, I would have thought that this is much more Saira’s area.
Saira Grant: Women who are here with immigration status, for example on a spouse visa, will have their passport until such time as they get British nationality and will have rights in their own country. That remains so and we have not experienced any difficulties with that option for them to return not being there. The question of course becomes that they do not usually want to return there.
To answer your question, we are not aware of any specific steps being taken to ensure that that resident status abroad is maintained; however, nothing has been done to take that away, because women will have dual nationality and that will be maintained until such time as they choose to obtain British nationality, if they have been here long enough. Depending on the country’s rules about dual nationality, they might have to make a choice. It has not come to our attention as a problem.
Mr Sharma: When you come here on a spouse visa, there is a condition—is it two years?
Saira Grant: Two.
Mr Sharma: If the marriage breaks down within two years, it is a marriage of convenience and action could be considered. Is that right?
Saira Grant: Not necessarily a marriage of convenience, but yes.
Mr Sharma: If the marriage breaks down within those two years on the basis of violence—which has been, in some cases, proved by going through police and hospital or doctors’ reports—is there any recognition that the girls or women are still suffering, even after the breakdown of the marriage, and are they forced to leave the country?
Saira Grant: If during the probationary period the marriage breaks down due to violence, under the Immigration Rules women can apply for indefinite leave to remain, prior to completing the full term. That is there within our legal system. The problem is the evidentiary burden, and that is where we find it is often very difficult, if not impossible, to prove that violence. The culture of disbelief, which we will come on to, means that, if you do not have objective evidence, it is very hard to make that claim to say that, actually, this woman has suffered domestic violence; that has led to the breakdown of the marriage and, therefore, she should be granted leave to remain in the country despite the breakdown. Our greatest concern is that, when clients come through our door with harrowing stories, they do not have objective evidence that the Home Office will accept in order to prove that.
Sarah Teather: For the record, I think Saira misunderstood Nuala’s question. She was actually asking about whether there is any difficulty in retaining the status in the country where the woman habitually resides. We are talking really about the UK, but you have just answered that. All I want to make sure of is that the record reflects the fact that that answer really relates to the first question.
Q88 Lord Lester of Herne Hill: Obviously the victim of a forced marriage is the victim of a marriage that is not a real marriage anyway and is highly vulnerable. Do you think that there are positive obligations on the United Kingdom to protect the victim against blackmail about the immigration status she will have here, et cetera, because on the face of it she is highly vulnerable?
Saira Grant: Yes, you are absolutely right that she is highly vulnerable. It is very difficult to see how those positive obligations could be enforced. It would be wonderful if there were obligations—to my knowledge there are not—but how would that manifest itself? We would like to see progress in this area. I cannot today give you what the solution should be, but it would be good if there were more positive measures in place, so that the way these women are treated was different. At the moment, that positive obligation does not exist and, therefore, it goes back to being able to prove objectively that you have suffered violence.
If there is a situation where, due to cultural norms, there is blackmail, and if a woman was returned she would face persecution back in her home country due to cultural norms and expectations on how she would be treated, then we can make an asylum claim, but that is a very difficult claim to run.
Mr Sharma: The convention requires that gender‑based violence against women is recognised as a form of persecution within the meaning of Article 1(A)(2), of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and as a form of serious harm giving rise to complementary or subsidiary protection. In your experience, is gender‑based violence afforded this recognition within the UK asylum system at present?
Anna Musgrave: The simple answer is, yes, in terms of guidance and policies. We have some really good guidance in terms of the asylum determination process, and it is fair to say that the UK complies with Articles 60.1 and 60.2 of the Istanbul convention. I refer particularly to the gender guidelines, which specifically give an explanation of how to make a gender‑sensitive interpretation of each of the refugee convention grounds.
That does not mean that women are not being wrongly refused asylum. Clearly they are, and that is indicated by the overturn rate of Home Office decisions by the courts on appeal. There is still a higher overturn rate for women than for men. That is explained by a range of factors. There is clearly something about a gap between policy and practice. There has been a real commitment from the Home Office to improve decision‑making, including a focus on women’s claims, but there is inevitably a bit of catch‑up that needs to happen in terms of that implementation.
I would make the point that there is a real need to look at the asylum system as a whole and not just the determination system. It must feel incredibly hostile and incredibly confusing, and the difficulties that women face at various stages throughout the process are going to impact on a woman’s ability to present her case. This may well explain, I believe, why there is a higher overturn rate of women’s cases and why women are still not getting their protection needs recognised. We need to think about the impact of, for example, screening, when women are faced with a barrage of questions. Their first interaction with the Home Office might feel quite confrontational, and we need to think about how that is going to impact on whether she feels that she can share the things that she has been through in her home country.
There are clearly certain areas where there is a need for thinking through implementation. There have been improvements in terms of clear guidance to decision‑makers that women should not have their children in their substantive interview, for example. Everybody agrees that must not happen, and yet the practical arrangements have not been put in place to support women to be able to avoid bringing children to their asylum interviews. Childcare provision in Glasgow has been suspended for over a year, while there has never been any childcare in London whatever. There is meant to be some flexibility, so that women’s interviews are scheduled for a day when they can find childcare. My concern would be that we are talking about women who may well be newly arrived in the country and may have very limited, if any, support. Who are they leaving their children with? They are told not to bring the children to the interview. Do they feel happy about the safety of their children while they are at this very crucial moment of trying to get their protection needs recognised, or are they actually sitting in the interview worrying about their children?
Baroness Berridge: Anna, you mentioned the overturn rate at, I presume, First‑tier Tribunals being greater than for men. In other areas of claims that then go to First‑tier Tribunals, we are seeing that there is quite a high overturn rate from the initial decision. Is what you are pointing to disproportionate to the other sectors of decisions that are going to the first tier as well? Have you ever done any comparison of other claims that are overturned at first tier?
Anna Musgrave: I have only done a comparison looking at the difference between men and women. The overturn rate last year on men’s claims was about 24%, and on women’s claims it was about 28%. I have not interrogated the figures any further than that.
Natasha Walter: Could I come in on that? We are very concerned indeed by the gap between the guidance and the excellent case law that you see, and the decisions that women are still getting. Although, as you said, the Home Office has made stated commitments, we really are not seeing those followed through in practice. We are still very concerned about the accountability of decision‑makers. If they are making decisions in UKVI that are poor and that are overturned at tribunals, how is that carried through so that the training ensures that they are not going to go on doing that?
On the ground, we are really seeing that women are still experiencing poor decision‑making and, as Anna says, there are still so many barriers for women in the asylum process such as the lack of childcare. We are still seeing many women who say they were interviewed by men. When we ask whether they would have preferred a woman, they say, “Yes, but I was not sure that it would be okay to ask for one.” There are those kinds of uncertainties and, of course, the difficulty of accessing good quality legal representation, which we see more and more in London, but particularly in the regions now. With the cuts in legal aid, it is very hard to find good immigration lawyers for women’s claims, which may be quite complex and rely on very good up‑to‑date knowledge of case law. They are often just being let down by their legal representation. Although the legal arguments have been won, we feel that there are still too many barriers in practice for women to get good decisions on claims involving gender‑based violence.
Baroness Berridge: When we talk about decisions made by the Home Office, the danger is that we think the Home Secretary is making all these decisions personally, but she is not obviously. What is the level of qualifications and experience of the person who is making that first decision, in your experience?
Natasha Walter: You probably want to talk to UKVI about the current trends. The decision‑makers for those first decisions receive training around gender‑based violence, but it is one day’s training. It is not enough, as I think the police force found, when they are working on violence against women and girls just to deliver one‑off training; you have to monitor it and see how it is implemented. There has to be an ongoing change in culture. There is real learning that UKVI could do in terms of looking at how things have changed within the police and criminal justice system about how to respond to issues around violence against women and girls.
Anna Musgrave: To answer Baroness Berridge’s point, I think I could find out about the level of Home Office decision‑makers.
Baroness Berridge: The qualifications of the person who is making those decisions would be interesting.
Anna Musgrave: The other point I was going to make is that the Home Office is meant to be auditing their decision‑making on women’s claims. That is actually one of the action points in the violence against women action plan. While I know they have been doing this, our frustration is that they have not been making that information public. That is something we would really like to see to be able to hold the Home Office to account—to be able to see the results of the audit.
I also think there are other things that they can monitor. For example, the guidance now says that women are specifically asked whether they want a woman interviewer or interpreter, but it is caveated as it depends on operational constraints. It would be good to monitor that, so that we know and have evidence that those requests are being met. It is extremely concerning if a woman specifically requests a woman interviewer and interpreter and they find themselves facing two men.
Saira Grant: It tends to be the first caseworker who will make a decision. However, the guidance does say that, if there are gender‑based issues, and there is a whole list of issues in terms of country of origin, internal relocation et cetera, then a senior caseworker should be approached before a decision is made. But the decision will come from the original first‑tier caseworker.
Sarah Teather: On the childcare point, when we were taking evidence around asylum support—Baroness Lister and I were both there—I heard about the case of a woman who had effectively left her children with strangers in order to attend. I do not know whether that was an isolated case but it really shocked me. I wondered, first of all, what your perspective on that was.
The wider issue around how women are interviewed and received at different stages of the immigration process was something that struck me when I went into Yarl’s Wood. I was put through the system as if I was a woman coming through, and the first interview was in a place that was a wide open area, where people were wandering through. The second private interview was with a male nurse. I was told that there was no woman available. That was my experience, but I did not know whether or not I had seen something unusual. I would be really interested to hear what the perspective of the panel is on that.
Natasha Walter: I would like to talk more at length about the situation in detention, particularly for women who have experienced gender‑based violence, because I think your experience is absolutely not unusual at all. For women going into detention centres, the screening interview is often perceived as hostile, and information is attempted to be elicited that should not be elicited at the screening interview. Then, as you say, the immediate encounters with male staff on entry to Yarl’s Wood and throughout the stay in detention centres can be very traumatic for women.
Of course, all this will impact on a woman’s ability to disclose why she came to the country. It is essential for somebody who is claiming asylum to be able to disclose, to feel comfortable about disclosing and to disclose at the earliest possible opportunity. All these practices that we are talking about make that so difficult. You can imagine that a woman who has fled from gender‑based violence has maybe never disclosed to anyone what she has been through, and then she is in these situations when she is confronted again by male officials, who may be reminding her of what she has been through. It is just the difficulty of getting through that barrier and then the implications that will have later on for refusal and possible return.
Q89 Baroness Lister of Burtersett: As you know, Article 60 of the Istanbul convention requires the UK to develop gender‑sensitive reception procedures and support services for asylum seekers as well as gender guidelines and gender‑sensitive asylum procedures, including refugee status determination and application for international protection. I have three questions around this and I will ask them separately. It is mainly for Natasha and Anna but obviously, Saira, you may have something you want to add. I think I probably know your answer to the first question. Do current immigration procedures and detention policies fulfil these obligations and, if not, why?
Natasha Walter: Could I particularly home in, so that we do not repeat each other, on the situation around detention, because I would just like to flag up the way that we really feel that this is in breach of the need to have gender‑sensitive reception procedures? There is no mention in the current UK gender guidance about whether women should or should not be detained. In all the detention procedures, there is nothing specifically about why these should be gender sensitive, why there may be reasons why women should not be detained or how detention should be carried through for women. We are very concerned about that.
As we mentioned in our written evidence, in recent research we carried out with women who had been detained after seeking asylum, we found that the majority were survivors of gender‑based violence and they found detention in the UK extremely traumatic. It had a grave impact on their mental health. We would like to underline to this Committee that detention is unnecessary in the asylum procedure, particularly the lengthy detention that women go through: 40% of women are being detained for more than 28 days. Their claims could perfectly easily be considered in the community at less cost to the Government and just as efficiently. We feel that this would be a very important step to take: to look again at detention; to include survivors of gender‑based violence among those who would be considered unsuitable for detention; and to bring in gender‑sensitive policies for detention. There are already gender‑specific standards in prisons, and yet there is nothing similar in the detention estate.
Anna Musgrave: I agree with what Natasha is saying on detention. I am keen to make a particular point, which I have already alluded to. In terms of having a gender‑sensitive asylum system, there is a real need to see the wider system, rather than just the asylum determination system in isolation. I would reiterate that there has been very little attention to the asylum support system.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett: I will come on to that in a moment.
Anna Musgrave: This is where I think the UK is not complying, in terms of our reception procedures. That for me is where there is a real gap. The other elements of it are around gender guidelines. We have good guidance—there may be issues around implementation, but the guidance is there. On asylum support, women’s safety is barely mentioned.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett: The second question is: how does the use of the detained fast track process comply with the UK’s obligations?
Natasha Walter: There is obviously a huge problem with detained fast track. Recently there has been a case in the High Court that found it unlawful. We are very concerned about the way that women are screened into the detained fast track, because this happens after the screening interview. During the screening interview, officials are not meant to elicit the details of the claim—why people are claiming asylum—and yet they are then pushing people into the fast track without knowing the full details of their claim. We meet many women with very complex cases involving gender‑based violence who are put in the detained fast track. They often have very limited access to lawyers in the detained fast track. What is called “the fast track” is often not fast at all, so that we meet women who are detained for weeks or months waiting for their substantive interview or waiting afterwards. We really feel that the detained fast track is completely unsuitable for cases involving gender‑based violence, and we feel that that should be ended.
Anna Musgrave: The Refugee Council is fundamentally opposed to the use of the detained fast track for any asylum cases. The statistics show you are clearly disadvantaged by an accelerated determination system while in detention. Last year, only about 5% of cases that went through DFT ended up with the grant of asylum. That compares with the UK average of 33%. One concern for us is about the numbers now going through DFT, which seem to be increasing. Last year, 18% of claims went through DFT, which is enormously concerning, particularly given the countries that people are coming from that go through that—Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. These are countries with known human rights abuses.
I would absolutely reiterate Natasha’s point around women going through DFT. Evidence shows we know women, by definition, are very likely to be affected by violence, and that is supported by evidence. There was a report in 2009 that interviewed women in three different European countries and found that around 45% had been affected by sexual violence. DFT is clearly an inappropriate system for women who are going to be talking about sexual violence. As I say, we are fundamentally opposed to the use of DFT but, if it is going to happen, we believe that women who disclose at screening that they have been affected by gender‑based violence should be automatically excluded from DFT.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett: We will now get on to the support service. I was struck by the written evidence that both of you put in about how the deficiencies in the support service are making some women very vulnerable to violence in the community. What needs to be done to the support service to prevent this happening?
Anna Musgrave: It is tempting to say that they need to start again. It feels quite difficult to identify key improvements, because it is wrong on so many different levels, to be honest with you. First of all, I was very struck by the evidence given by Dr Goodey. She said that women who are economically struggling are more vulnerable to violence. That is absolutely relevant to asylum‑seeking women. We have a support system that forces women into poverty; they have no choice of accommodation and a single woman gets £36 a week. By definition, they are living in poverty. On top of that, they are new to the country and do not speak the language. Even if they have any friendship networks in the UK, they are likely to be moved to a different city where they know no one. There is a range of factors that will make them vulnerable.
One of the major concerns is how the asylum support system fails women, leaving them destitute at key points, with gaps in support where they may find themselves destitute. That has very significant implications for women’s safety. Women can find themselves destitute at a number of points, not just at the end. Men and women, but particularly women, I think, have difficulties at the beginning of the system proving their destitution. This is one reason why women may not be able to access support. They face further difficulties when they go from one form of support to another and they face further difficulties at the end of the process, both when they are identified as having protection needs and are granted asylum, and when they are refused. But there can often be a gap of support at the end, even for those women who have been identified as refugees.
It is unacceptable that women in the asylum system find themselves living on the street or sofa‑surfing. That should not be happening and urgently needs addressing from a women’s safety angle. There has been research by Heaven Crawley that examined the survival strategies of destitute asylum seekers. She found that both men and women engaged in transactional relationships in order to get a roof over their head, but that women engaging in that survival strategy were much more at risk than men of violence, entrapment and coercion.
We need to acknowledge—the Home Office needs to acknowledge—that there is a gendered impact to destitution; it impacts on women differently from men. What is frustrating is that that is acknowledged by other departments, and particularly in the work that happens overseas. I was very interested to read about DfID funding work that is around addressing the survival strategies of women in post‑disaster zones, specifically so that they did not engage in those kinds of very dangerous survival strategies. That acknowledged that that is what women are forced to do in desperation, and yet in this country we have policies and a system that is creating those same circumstances for a certain group of women.
Natasha Walter: I absolutely agree with everything that Anna said. In our samples, when we have spoken to women who we are in contact with who are living destitute, we have uncovered lots of anecdotal evidence of transactional relationships, staying within abusive relationships, engaging in sex work and the vulnerability to sexual violence. Between one in five and one in 10 in the two samples of destitute women that we looked at said they had experienced sexual violence while they were destitute, particularly of course if they had had to sleep rough. It is a huge concern to us that women who may be fleeing precisely those kinds of violence in their country of origin come to this country and then are forced, through the asylum process, back into that kind of vulnerability again.
Saira Grant: Can I just add another point? I completely agree with Anna and Natasha, but we are talking about women in the asylum system. The support issues are magnified for women with a precarious immigration status, and those are the women we see—women with no recourse to public funds will not even be seen by a refuge. They find themselves completely trapped. There are very few refuges that will give them support. They come to our doors, and social services will not help them unless they are particularly vulnerable; usually if they have children. If a woman with a precarious immigration status has suffered violence, she is very much on her own with absolutely no support network, and there is nowhere we can turn to look for assistance for these women. That is just something that we see on a very regular basis.
The problem of course is that, if women are destitute and they do not have any stability or basis for it, they cannot even seek legal assistance in order to make a claim. It is a vicious cycle. In many cases, women are sofa‑surfing, the violence is being perpetuated or they are going back into the situation where the violence started, because they have nowhere else to go. They are extremely fearful to regularise their immigration status. It is a very grim situation for these women, and it is a vicious cycle which they cannot seem to get out of. We feel that we have nowhere to turn to help these women.
Baroness Buscombe: Natasha, you were saying that you are really concerned about the whole system of detention and yet, at the same time, you are all saying that there is a serious problem here in terms of destitution in the community. There seems to be a conundrum here. I just wondered whether we could clarify this a bit. What is your solution?
Natasha Walter: We believe that all asylum claims should be considered while people are living in the community, and that they should not be locked up, but that asylum support should be at a level that enables people to live dignified lives while their claims are being considered. There should not be these gaps. As Anna flagged up, in that transition between asylum support and the mainstream work and benefits system, there is often a gap where women come and say, “I have nothing to live on for the next two weeks. What am I going to do? What are my kids going to do? We have nowhere to turn”. It is about joining up those dots—joining up the pieces of the jigsaw for the people who live in the community to make sure that people are supported in the asylum process end to end—and making sure that asylum claims are considered while people live in the community, which is just as efficient and cost effective.
Anna Musgrave: I was just conscious that I did not give many recommendations for how it could be improved. I would absolutely agree: asylum support should be raised to an absolute minimum of 70% of income support. That is something very simple that can happen. In terms of addressing the gaps in asylum support, in terms of women’s safety, an analysis needs to happen around the decision-making on women’s asylum support applications and what the barriers are for women accessing asylum support. We did some analysis around how long it was taking the Home Office to make decisions on Section 4 applications. That is still in its early stages, but our early findings suggest that it takes four weeks for a decision on women’s claims, as opposed to three weeks on men’s claims. Work needs to be done to identify where the problems are, but I absolutely think that is what needs to happen, rather than detention.
Q90 Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: A number of the organisations always refer to a culture of disbelief operating within the Home Office. I just want to ask you about this because, first of all, everything you are saying suggests that you take that view also. Would that be fair to say? I see all three of you nodding. It seems to me that two things coalesce here. One is a generalised culture within the Home Office’s UK Visas and Immigration section that people who are coming in here will lie in order to get themselves in. There is that set of beliefs in the background of any processing of persons making applications. Added to it are more generalised, wider cultural assumptions about women and sex—that, when it comes to sexual matters, there is very rarely the kind of independent evidence that there can be for asylum seekers who are political activists or members of political parties, where they can document that and so on. When you have been sexually violated, that does not exist, so it is very much about the account that you give of your experience. What happens here is that this coincides with a generalised feeling that this is an area where women are able to lie, because there is no confirmation from other sources. I just want you to help us with this. We know that happens in rape cases more generally, and we have had to confront it with policing. What do you do here? How do you change a culture of this sort?
Natasha Walter: You are absolutely right that women in the asylum process face this double discrimination. The problem is that asylum seekers are often seen as people who are just trying to get in for a better life. Also, there is a lack of understanding about the experience of gender‑based violence that women suffer throughout the world. What we find is that women often have very good evidence of what they have suffered and can bring quite a lot of evidence with them, and yet the culture of disbelief within the Home Office is such that if there is just a small flaw or a little contradiction, the whole thing will be thrown out. The bar is raised so high on evidence, which is a real problem. There has to be more discussion with UKVI about the evidentiary level that they are looking for in order to accept women’s claims.
I could bring examples, if people are interested in examples, of where we have seen this happen in women’s decisions. So often, they are bringing quite good evidence of what happened to them in their home countries, but there is some little gap or some little flaw and the whole thing is thrown out. They could continue to make that case—they often do in the courts—but UKVI takes that opportunity to make that first refusal, which has a huge impact on the woman’s life.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: Even the Home Affairs Select Committee in its report found that women faced something in addition to the problems that were confronted by men.
Natasha Walter: Absolutely. We see a trivialisation of women’s experiences so often.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: Of course, the other thing is that women, particularly women coming from very patriarchal societies, are going to find difficulty in giving expression to matters of a sexual nature, to men especially but probably to anyone. As they elaborate further, once they gain some confidence about talking about such matters, it is seen as being inconsistent with the previous statement, and so that is used against her.
Natasha Walter: Absolutely, and this is another reason why it is so important that women have good legal representation. We often find that women do not actually understand what they need to bring forward for an asylum claim so, in that first interview, they will be silent about key issues that might be really important and germane to their claim. It is very important that women have good lawyers who enable them to tell their full story and then to bring the relevant evidence through.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: How do you shift the culture?
Natasha Walter: As I say, there is good learning that can be done now in the Home Office. We have seen changes in the police and the criminal justice system. That could be carried through to UKVI. It could be done within the Home Office. It is not something that is going to happen overnight, but we have seen that it can happen. Changes can occur.
I just want to say one thing, in case people think we are saying that everyone should be let in who comes here saying, “I was raped”. Obviously, there still has to be a clear and transparent process that women pass through, but it is possible to have that clear and transparent process in which women are treated with dignity and their claims heard fairly.
Sarah Teather: I could not actually locate it, but somewhere in our briefing papers somebody had suggested that the actual process by which people end up being more traumatised because of the way in which they are interviewed prevents them from being able to make a good claim later. There is evidence to suggest that interviewing people badly from the beginning can actually prevent them from ever being able to do it. It is not just a question of delaying things. I could not put my finger on who it was who had given us that evidence, but I wonder if any of you could comment on that.
Anna Musgrave: That is actually very similar to the point I was going to make. I absolutely understand why women feel that they are not believed, and that is because of the adversarial nature of the system almost from the very start. A woman has summoned up the courage to talk about her experiences, and yet when she first starts to tell somebody about it she faces a barrage of questions around things like who her teachers were 20 years ago. It is like that throughout the system. I absolutely agree with your point, Sarah, about having to look at the asylum system as a whole and the extent to which women are supported to be able to present their case to the best of their abilities. The Home Affairs Select Committee also made the point that the criminal justice system has woken up to the needs of survivors of sexual violence and that the asylum system needs to do the same. That is really what we are talking about, from the very start of the process. Women’s early experiences, when they first encounter the asylum system, will absolutely impact their ability to talk about what has happened to them.
I will briefly mention one case we saw, which I really hope is highly unusual. A woman from DRC who suffered horrific sexual violence, both in her home country and in transit, arrived in the UK and did not know what to do. I would absolutely endorse Natasha’s point; I think that is really common. They do not understand that they have an asylum claim—that they claim asylum and go to Croydon. She actually found support and shelter with a man who spoke her language, who explained that she needed to go to Croydon and in fact paid for her to get there. When she arrives at Lunar House, at 11 o’clock in the morning, she is told she needs to phone and make an appointment. She leaves and she goes to the nearby telephone box. She uses her last remaining £2 to make the phone call to phone the number, and the phone box eats the money. She spends that night in a local shopping precinct. When she gets kicked out of there, she is back in the same phone box opposite Lunar House and is found in a terrible state—this was in the winter—by security guards the next day. She is in a bad state actually because she had torture wounds that had not healed.
When she is seen by a screening officer the next day, they shout at her. That was the thing that she really pointed out to me: “They shouted at me”. She was in too much of a state to go through the screening process, so she was taken to emergency accommodation for the night and told to go back the next day. She felt so afraid that she left and tried to get to Birmingham to find the man who had originally looked after her. She then went through a period of street homelessness and it took her a while before she found support and was told again, “You need to go back to Lunar House”. On her second encounter, she was shouted at again. I am aware that they have made efforts to address the problems at screening, but there is still a long way to go. That was her first encounter with the Home Office, with the people who she thought were going to give her help.
Sarah Teather: I have just had it pointed out very helpfully by the clerks—I knew I had remembered it from somewhere—that it was the Royal College of Psychiatrists, talking about the impact of DFT, which said that the effect of retraumatisation prevents people from being able to give a coherent account at any future stage. It prevents them from being able to get a fair determination.
Saira Grant: Can I answer Baroness Kennedy’s question about the culture of disbelief? You asked what can be done. One thing that needs to be done is that the guidelines that are already in existence need to be enforced. In 2011, when the UKBA’s quality audit team reviewed the guidelines, it said that they had been inconsistently observed. You have already heard accounts from Natasha and Anna but, as you rightly point out, this happens from the very start. For example, the screening interview, as Sarah said, is often in public. In one case, our client’s two daughters—this was violence against all three, the children as well as the mother—were with her in Croydon. The screening interview took place. The children were in earshot. The woman was very nervous and anxious, and did not want her children to hear what she had to say. The interpreter there was a male interpreter, so she mumbled a few answers and that went against her almost from the very start.
When she had her interview, she did ask for a female caseworker. Again, the guidelines say she can have one if it is operationally possible. She had a female caseworker, but she had a male interpreter again at her substantive interview and she was extremely reluctant to talk, so her interview did not reveal very much. At this point, fortunately, she came to us and we were able to put in written representations.
My point is that, throughout the process, because of this culture of disbelief, the woman’s experience is not taken seriously, which is why it is thought okay to conduct a screening interview in front of the children, in public and with male interpreters. If the guidelines were actually implemented and there was monitoring, from the very start, that would tighten up the appropriate use and what should be done. It would ensure that the Home Office actually takes its own guidelines seriously. That would be a very good start because, when women are traumatised by the process, as Sarah pointed out, it means that they suffer more trauma. Late evidence is also seen again as a negative credibility finding: “Why did you not raise it at the start?”.
My final point, which the Home Office really needs to understand and which comes down to education and training on the issue, is that even when you have good representatives—good lawyers—women do not immediately come to a good lawyer and reveal their whole story. A particular case springs to mind: we had been dealing with a woman for three years but it was only six months ago that she revealed the most horrendous gang rape that had occurred to her. We have been sympathetic solicitors, representing her case, but she simply could not talk about that, which was extremely germane to her claim, because it was by the militia in the country. It took her that length of time to build up a relationship of trust, even with her solicitors, before she could reveal it. An adverse credibility finding based on the fact that it has come two years later is completely wrong. I could say more, but I am aware we are pressed for time. I do think just enforcing these guidelines and ensuring there is monitoring of their application would be a start.
Q91 Baroness Berridge: Article 61.1 requires parties to respect the principle of non‑refoulement in accordance with the existing obligations under international law. What is your view of the UK’s position on the recast European Union qualification and procedures directives in this regard?
Anna Musgrave: That is not something that the Refugee Council has been working on, so I do not really have anything to say. I could try to get a response from a specialist lawyer, if that would be helpful.
Saira Grant: It is the same with us.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: Refoulement is a very technical legal issue, so we could get assistance from lawyers on that.
Q92 Sarah Teather: I suspect that question 7, because it is drafted as a supplementary on the last one, is going to get the same answer. I will read it out to you, but I suspect it is going to be same issue. The UK must ensure that women victims of violence who are in need of protection, regardless of their status or residence, shall not be returned under any circumstances to any country where their life would be at risk or where they might be subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Is the UK complying with its obligations in this regard and how is this being monitored at present?
Natasha Walter: I will just make a short comment. It is beyond the remit of a small NGO to track what happens to the women we work with if they are returned, but we are very concerned about it. We have worked closely with Freedom from Torture, which has done excellent work on what happens to people who are returned to a couple of countries that we are very concerned about—Sri Lanka and the DRC. There is a real problem there about how failed asylum seekers, when returned, may be at risk of imprisonment, further torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. It is an issue of great concern to us. It is impossible for us to track what happens to women who return to situations of family violence, but we are very aware that it is happening. It is a concern, and we feel that the UK should do more to track and monitor what happens to women who are deported to these situations.
Anna Musgrave: I would reiterate much of that. We do not know what happens when people are returned, because there is no monitoring. I would agree that there is clearly a gap there. Freedom from Torture is an organisation that does some work on this and could maybe give you evidence on it. I would make one comment around the statistics. It was quite interesting to see the increase in the percentage of women granted asylum in the last three years. It has actually doubled: in 2010, it was 19% and it is now at 38%. One concern I have is that those women who were applying in 2010 will not have had the benefit of some of the improvements in guidance that we have seen in recent years. Some of those women may still be in the country, stuck between a rock and a hard place, choosing destitution in the UK over returning to the persecution they fear in their home country. It would be a useful exercise to get a caseworker to have a look at some of those cases of women from 2009‑10 under Section 4 to see whether their case would be seen differently in light of more recent guidance.
Saira Grant: I would like to add that, legally, under the refugee convention and the Human Rights Act, the UK should not be returning anybody who will be subjected to torture et cetera, upon return. The legal framework is there. The question then comes back to whether correct decisions are being made. We have given our view that often we think decisions are incorrectly made. In our experience, because we will fight those cases where we think incorrect decisions have been made, they do go through the judicial system and, fortunately, in most of our cases women are not returned and are given status, even if it is discretionary leave, at the end of that process. Where women are returned, again like Anna and Natasha, we have no means of tracking and no resources to track what has happened.
One thing I would point out that perhaps the Committee should look at is the Home Office’s response that you can internally relocate. Even though they accept that the woman cannot be sent back to the city that she maybe came from, she could move to a different part of the country. That is seen as a way of preventing any risk to her but, especially for women who have suffered gender‑based violence, it is not a very real alternative or option. That understanding really is not there. Internal relocation is often used as a standard response.
My final comment would just be that we have not covered trafficked women today. For trafficked women, it is a very different picture and a different scenario. They will get 45 days initially on a reasonable‑grounds decision—a reflection period. If they get a conclusive positive decision, they will get a year’s leave in the UK, but it is only 12 months’ leave. It can be renewed, but it is only a year and there is an active review of the circumstances. For that group of women—we deal with a lot of trafficked women in domestic servitude, who face a lot of violence, and for that group of women—first, it is very difficult to prove but, secondly, when they are returned, often the UK is in breach of its obligations because the understanding of the causes of trafficking is not there. There is of course no monitoring. In our experience, we have seen the same women retrafficked, which proves the point that they are being returned to a place where it is not safe.
The Chair: I have allowed everyone to ask a question except Baroness O’Loan, who wanted to ask a supplementary.
Baroness O'Loan: It was well covered in the later discussion, Chair. Thank you very much.
The Chair: This has been a very productive session from the perspective of this Committee. We would like to thank you very much for your evidence today, and thank you also to those of you who gave written evidence. As already indicated, if you feel that we have not covered all the ground, please write to us. As the Chair of this Committee, I place on record the thanks of this Committee for the essential and really important human rights work that all your NGOs are undertaking. Thank you very much.
Oral evidence: Violence against women and girls, HC 594 16