Written evidence submitted by Baobab Women’s Project (RTS5091)
Baobab Women’s Project work with Refugee and Migrant Women in the UK, advocating and encouraging better policy in practice, particularly in relation to health, welfare and legal issues. We work in partnership with others in the sector. We are the only specialist refugee women’s advocacy organisation in the West Midlands. We are well placed to comment on issues affecting women as we see around 350 women a year.
Many women that Baobab work with arrive in the UK on boats, or they have over-stayed a visa and have become undocumented. Almost all have experienced sexual and gender based violence (SGBV), a number of women contributed to the SEREDA research about refugees and SGBV. We assist women through there undocumented journey to prove a need for protection or exercise family rights to stay in the UK. We also support those when they are newly settled and have updates from older members about their settlement journeys when on a renewable visa route, right through to becoming British nationals.
Potential impact of changes to pathways to settlement
Pathways to settlement in the current government’s approach to migration are clear to those who are educated enough to access this information. We hear from many women who rely on community information which is often unreliable and seeks to exploit and abuse refugees and migrants at various stages of their journeys.
Longer routes to settlement will deter those with the privilege of money or education and skills from coming to or staying in the UK. We hear from women that employers are already restricting applications and opportunities from those on a pathway to settlement when they are renewing their visa’s. When employer contracts are not renewed or new workers are not considered for positions, there are higher employment costs to businesses, employers lose skills of valuable workers, bearing the training costs, moral within the organisation and productivity falls when workers are not valued.
What is the likely impact of longer routes and stricter requirements for settlement on migrant households already in the UK? This could include:
It will make those on a longer route, who are working people suffer financial difficulties as they are restricted in the job market. Women have reported being unable to move job as many employers do not understand their visa’s and as such refuse to offer them work.
People are being told they cannot or should not access benefits, but for single mothers with young children, where are they meant to place their children when they go to work? We see some women struggling to care for children affected by Autism or other learning disabilities. There primary person to care for is their family. They must have access to benefits, to get basic needs of housing and food.
Personally people feel excluded and undervalued. Workers that are employed in manual and physical jobs, work hard and it has a physical toll on their bodies. Care workers tell me about bad backs as they are constantly lifting people and also the violence and racism they face in the workplace from managers and those they care for.
Women at times do not eat as they are prioritising feeding their children when they are saving for visa renewal fees. Women do not feel able to rest, or take holidays as they are focused on working to fulfil criteria to gain settlement.
Women report feeling worried and stressed about renewals, there is a mental health impact. Even when it’s a procedural certainty, for example they are renewing a family visa, as they are the sole carer of a British child, and they have been in the UK 7.5 years, worked, are of good character, they worry that their right to reside may be withdrawn or refused.
This policy creates division between communities. Those who survived the asylum and immigration system and became British, or got ILR move on with their life . They are able to live, work, travel and be part of a community.
The judgement within communities between those with and without status has a negative impact on those eligible for settlement. Those without status are easily exploited financially and through their labour by others. They are also mentally harmed, through the way they are treated as worthless and without value. Having a class of people not allowed to feel they have no dreams or hope is divisive and harmful to us all. Many people who came through difficult immigration process themselves, feel the harm of the systemic exclusion for many years after they settle. Extending the period of settlement will create negative effects on individuals and the wider communities.
Where people go to the doctor to talk to others to cope with barriers to integration, they are medicated and this can have a lifeltime effect on the ability to integrate as they are then drug dependent on anti-depressants or sleeping pills, which is all the doctor can prescribe to cope with societally created mental problems.
How the new earned settlement rules could work
People should be free to learn and practice their skills in an inclusive and supportive environment. Judging people, and rewarding those who fit into a westerm capitalist mould, with settlement, based on contribution is dangerous, some people are more socially adaptable and able to integrate. Penalising the vulnerable and less able to assimilate will create division and fear in communities.
We need to live in a country that recognises the value of social and community positives, many people regularly contribute to charities and others wellbeing through activities every day. This shouldn’t be a pathway to settlement as some people must work to provide food for their families. The rich can afford to be socially and community minded, others need a wage, we should not use social positives and a divider.
People all want to do something that they feel is important and valuable. We need to have more jobs for those with caring responsibilities, or see these caring responsibilities as jobs. We must not exclude mothers and carers from pathways to settlement.
People should be given the right to work regardless of status. People should be enabled to travel freely to and from the UK. Until we tackle the illegal trade of people, trafficking and smuggling, corruption of governments, international inequality, fair migration rules cannot exist.
The rules allow much sexual and domestic violence to occur to mostly women. Rules makes undocumented people, asylum seekers and migrants, dependent on those who have power and control over travel routes and finance to survive. You cannot exempt all women from the rules, so you must find different rules. Restrict benefits to those who contribute, unless there’s disability or exceptional need, but let people move freely. This is a human right.
Dec 2025