RAPED, TORTURED… But denied asylum by the UK Home Office

Cristel Amiss of Black Women’s Rape Action Project: ‘It’s harder for women to get asylum cases recognised Addressing how the specific persecution women face is not explicitly addressed under the UN Convention on Refugees and that makes it even harder for women to get asylum cases recognised, as reported in The Voice, July 2006. Sara …

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Rape victims denied refuge in Britain

Letter published in The Independent, 24 May 2006   Sir: The “soft targets” for deportation are first of all women and children who find it hardest to “disappear” in the system. (‘Soft targets’ picked on for deportation, say refugee campaigners”, 18 May). Just last week, a young woman was removed to an African country after …

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Government says rape victims are “not vulnerable” to deny asylum seekers legal representation

Correspondence between government Minister David Lammy and Black Women’s Rape Action Project & Women Against Rape published in The Guardian Letters page Erosion of asylum rights Monday July 12, 2004, The Guardian, Letters Rape survivors are vulnerable and find it difficult, often impossible, to speak about the violence they have suffered. The law acknowledges this, …

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Racism against asylum seekers

The Guardian article below came about as a result of Legal Action for Women’s National Gathering on Saturday 3 July 2004. Kamwaura Nygothi was one of a number of women who raised the racism they were suffering in the North East of England. As a result of the article we have received many sympathetic responses, …

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Response to Refugee Council’s letter in Times

Basic protection to people targeted for torture and persecution, does not go far enough. Dear Letters Editor, That three main organisations supposed to protect the human rights of asylum seekers broadly welcome Blair’s views (7 May 01) on asylum is frightening and potentially life threatening. The 1951 UN Convention on Refugees gives basic protection to …

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Legal precedent for rape victims seeking asylum

Legal precedent for rape victims seeking asylum

 

We were centrally involved in winning this important legal precedent for rape survivors seeking asylum in the Royal Courts of Justice, London back in 1997.

Mr Justice Sullivan ruled that the previous Home Secretary had been wrong not to consider new evidence provided by a young woman about the multiple rapes and other violence she suffered from soldiers as a fresh claim for asylum.