No Recourse: No Safety Public Meeting - 23 April 2008

Pragna Patel - Southall Black Sisters

• Human Rights Matter and Not an Immigration Matter

Access to safety and protection from abuse and violence against women is not an immigration matter but a basic human rights matter. The UK should pride itself on the efforts it is making to address the problem of violence against women - but one dark mark against these efforts is the exclusion of women with insecure immigration status from the raft of protective and support measures that are available for women in the wider society.

One reason why this day of action was necessary was because we need to draw attention to the fact, there is a humanitarian crisis unfolding and it is not just the usual suspects - black and minority women's groups who are frustrated but essential mainstream front line services that are struggling to cope with the problem of hundreds of women (possibly up to 1000 or more) who are abused but who cannot rely on public welfare services for protection. Most services have an ethos which is to protect and uphold the dignity of all women in the face of abuse, yet the no recourse situation is compromising that ethos and distorting service provision in the UK. More and more women want to come forward to report violence and even take proceedings against perpetrators or to protect themselves but can't because there is no safety net - nowhere to go and no means by which to feed themselves or their children due to their uncertain immigration status. Most women cannot even access refuges for abused women, let alone local authority accommodation and benefits for basic survival. This sense of frustration is growing and this and action around the country today bears witness to what is occurring - it really is nothing short of a humanitarian crisis.

• No Options: Discrimination

When we examine the options that women in the wider society have compared to women with insecure status, we can see that the domestic violence agenda is also discriminatory. How?

• Because women with uncertain status, although more often than not, legally here, are forced to stay in abusive situations. Their experiences therefore become distorted - they are more likely to face starvation, mental health difficulties, imprisonment, extreme forms of violence for long periods and even death. Because they are trapped.
• Women have to prove they are victims of DV and meet quite high evidential thresholds in order to stay in the UK indefinitely - The DV rule has got better but the quality of decision making from the HO is very poor and this leads most women to appeal.
• Women have to show local authorities that their needs arise not solely from destitution - this is very difficult to do, to access local authority help. But in most cases, they are turned away with or without children - only a few LA's will be consistently interventionist, creative and supportive.
• Women have to fend for themselves - they have to rely on neighbours, distant friends or relatives and strangers to accommodate and feed them
• More and more women are forced to rely on religious institutions - that are not appropriate for support let alone long term rehabilitation.

Would any of this be acceptable as solutions for domestic and other forms of gender-based violence for women in the wider community?

Lack of Specialist organisations will compound the problem

Of course the situation is going to get a great deal worse - specialist services like SBS and other groups are facing funding cuts because of a misguided application of equality and cohesion policies by local authorities and funding bodies that are using the injunction against single group funding to address budgetry constraints. In the process they deny the need for specialist domestic violence services. This is going to compound the crisis that is unfolding. The need to fund specialist domestic violence services must also be urgently addressed. If we find solutions to no recourse, but there are no specialist refuges and resource centres to refer women to, women will be in a worse position than now.

3.Find a permanent solution: Humane and compassionate framework

For all these reasons, we must all make a more concerted effort to find a permanent solution to the problem of no recourse.

We really welcome the fact that cross party support for this is building and that the government has made an announcement that it is developing specific proposals to address the problem. But we really urge the government to listen to those of us who know exactly what is required to keep women safe. We have years of experience and we know what will work and what won't.

Retrospective funding is one proposal that is put forward but it also raises a series of problems, not least of which is how are specialist services already facing closure and cuts going to find the funds up front to support women until they are reimbursed for up to 20 days? Contrary to what the government thinks, dv cases alonse on average take 6 months or a year or more to be determined by the BIA, partly because the quality of Home Office decision making is very poor, partly because women often don't have the requisite evidence to show that they have been abused (part of the problem of no recourse means that they cannot report violence because they have nowhere safe to go and no means of survival. And if they cannot report, they cannot demonstrate they are victims of violence. Thus it becomes a vicious circle. It therefore it takes longer for them to demonstrate that they have in fact been abused - This usually involves fact finding exercises by the courts. Also, other reasons are because their immigration position is complicated or that they were ill advised or didn't know where to go for help or received no legal advice and so on. Only a small number of cases are straightforward enough to be decided positively within 3 months. How will payment in retrospect for 20 days be viable as a solution? We understand the good intentions but it creates more problems than it solves.

Urge the government to work with us to finding solutions that are more directed to protection than to rebutting criticism that it has gone soft on immigration.

This is one area therefore where we therefore urge the government to work with us in the same way that we did to bring about the DV Rule. Together we can end the misery that is inflicted on women and on front line service providers by the existence of the no recourse problem. We could find solutions that show other countries how to address domestic violence for all women within a humane and compassionate framework that does not compromise on the human rights of those most vulnerable.

Briefing document (1,200 words) issued 28 Apr 2008