All African Women’s Group (AAWG), Global Women Against Deportations (GWAD) and Women Against Rape (WAR) oppose the government’s earned settlement proposal because it is inherently sexist, racist and discriminatory. It imposes conditions for permanent residence on income and paid employment yet doesn’t count women’s unwaged work and contributions. It ignores pay inequity which sees women and particularly women of colour and immigrant women paid approximately a third less than men. It fails to take into account the long-term trauma many women suffer as a result of rape, other violence and the long-term debilitating trauma of mothers forced to leave their children behind for their safety.  It will put women at greater risk of ongoing exploitation and further abuse.

Evidence from women in AAWG — a 100‑strong group of women asylum‑seekers and refugees, the majority of whom are mothers, carers, as well as survivors of sexual violence — shows that these proposals will:

• Penalise women for the sexist and racist discrimination they face in pay, income and workload -- this is discrimination that the government has systematically failed to address.
• Ignore women’s unwaged caring work that is essential to society and the economy – women are the primary carers everywhere. [Women’s unpaid work is worth an estimated £1.1 trillion to the UK economy, or around 56% of GDP. Despite women’s unpaid work being critical to the functioning of the economy, the system of national accounts does not identify it as “productive”. Instead, women doing unpaid work are counted as being economically inactive.]
• Increase women’s vulnerability to poverty, exploitation, rape, domestic violence, trafficking, and homelessness.
• Entrench sexist and racist inequalities in immigration status for women and their children.
• Punish mothers, particularly migrant and refugee mothers, and violate children’s rights.

These proposals must be understood in the context of the sudden and very unfair withdrawal of refugee family reunion policy in September 2025. The proposals on earned settlement will further erode the chances of women being able to be reunited with their children in the UK – and possibly even to visit their children in their countries of origin after they have been granted status. Mothers are left grief stricken and traumatised and this undermines their ability to function in society including by getting and keeping a waged job.

This submission draws on testimony from a December 2025 webinar attended by over 70 participants, where women spoke directly about the lived impact of income thresholds, temporary status, benefit restrictions, and delayed settlement.

1. “Earned Settlement” is sexist and racist because women, and particularly women of colour, earn less as a result of deliberate government action.

Women earn less than men. Recent international figures show that when unpaid work is included, women’s total hourly income is only about 32% of men’s, compared with about 61% when only paid work is counted. [i]

In addition, because of discrimination in the jobs market, women are more likely to be pushed into low‑paid, insecure, and part‑time work, and be excluded from higher‑paid work because of their caring responsibilities, trauma, disability, and immigration status.

One woman said:

“It’s not easy for me to be able to start working as soon as I win my status so that I can bring my daughter over, because as someone who’s been through trauma, it takes years for you to heal. This is not fair because we can’t raise this amount of money when you have been mentally broken.”

Women of Colour/Global Women’s Strike add:

As women of colour, we are pushed into the lowest-paid and most insecure jobs because racism and sexism shape how we are treated in the job market. This has to be acknowledged and fixed before any policy is brought in that depends on earnings. If it isn’t, the government is guilty of deliberately locking in discrimination into law and opening itself up to a legal challenge.

Women on the webinar also explained that the income thresholds attached to settlement and family reunion are unattainable, for a number of reasons: many are single mothers so cannot take on full‑time waged work, some are caring for disabled children which means that waged work is out of the question altogether, others are traumatised survivors of rape and other violence and need time to recover. For women who want to and are able to take on waged work, realistically they are trapped in a cycle where their insecure immigration status makes it harder to get waged work that pays enough to meet this income threshold and therefore they will be denied the possibility of winning permanent status in the UK.

For as long as the government allows pay inequity and sexist and racist discrimination in the job market to exist then it cannot justify a law that forces people to “earn” their right to be here.

2. Unwaged Caring Work Is Essential to Survival and to Society — yet not counted as a contribution

Women in the webinar described caring work that includes: raising children, caring for disabled children and elderly relatives and work that sustains families and the community and enables waged workers (usually men) to go out to work. This work therefore is lifesaving, saves the government money [ii], and underpins the waged economy.

One woman stated plainly:

“Raising kids, especially children with a disability, is very hard. It's a hard work. As mothers, we need to be recognised because it a full-time job. I can't believe that the government wants us to go out to go look for jobs. How can I do that when I have a disabled child that I need to take care of. I don't trust anyone with my child because he's very vulnerable. If I'm not able, to take care of him, the social workers will be involved, and they will take away my son. How am I going to be mentally, physically, emotionally -- how am I going to be?”

Another speaker emphasised:

“Women raise children, but this is not seen as a contribution. We have done this work for decades and it is not recognised.”

To ignore unwaged work is sexist discrimination, because women are the primary carers everywhere. This includes before they came to the UK. The enormous amount of unwaged work that women in countries of the Global South do, for example raising children, farming, informal work as street sellers . . . means in many cases women have had no experience of the formal job market in their countries of origin. This further reduces the chance of them finding high paid work in the UK.

3. Temporary Status Forces Women into Exploitation and Prevents Integration

During the webinar, women explained that temporary status and a settlement policy that depends on earnings increases their vulnerability to exploitation and violence because employers take advantage and women who fear losing their status/path to settlement cannot challenge bad bosses or exploitative and unsafe conditions. Women are therefore locked into low wages by fear and by dependency on their boss for their job. Earned settlement therefore institutionalises exploitation.

As one woman explained:

“There are big problems with only having temporary status. It makes us more vulnerable to violence and exploitation by other people. If we do get a job outside the home, how can we fight for higher wages and against bad bosses if they know that we only have temporary status and depend on our job to get the right to stay here. We will be trapped in poverty and men who take advantage of us. Men know it is harder to say no to their demands when we have children to feed.”

Another spoke about being left in limbo for decades and paying thousands of pounds in fees to renew their status:

Previously, refugees stayed five years before applying for indefinite leave to remain. Now, status is granted for 30 months, requiring repeated renewals and huge fees.”

Also, what does it mean for mothers with children? At the moment when children have been here for seven years the Home Office accepts that children are settled.

One woman spoke about her child:

My daughter wants to go to college, but if she only has temporary status then she will not be able to do this as she can’t get a loan. We and our children will never feel that we belong.

4. Income Thresholds Punish Mothers and Separate Families

Women described the devastation caused by the removal of refugee family reunion policy and the switch to income‑based family reunion rules. Mothers spoke of being separated from their children for years and that now they are facing the prospect of permanent separation. Those with refugee status won’t be able to travel to even visit their children. Women couldn’t recover from trauma whilst they knew their children continued to suffer without their protection. This was a barrier to surviving let alone doing waged work.

One mother said:

“Without my daughter, I'm not complete. My mind is always halfway, like in both places. It's here with my other daughter that I have here, and it's also with my other daughter in Namibia. Every time when I call my daughter, she's saying, Mummy, when can you come and pick me? Sometimes she doesn't want to even talk to me because she's saying, I left her behind, but it's not by choice.”

Another stated:

“Even if I have 100 million it's worth nothing more than my children. I need my children close to me. I can't live without them. Leaving a mother without her children is like taking a whole life out of a mother. Like taking out the whole hope out of the mother. It is unfair to us all. The bond between mother and her child is everlasting. Please don't take our joy from us.”

5. Poverty Is Used Against Women as Evidence of “Worthlessness”

Women described how poverty and enforced destitution created by government policy is then used to criminalise and stigmatise them. They spoke about how claiming benefits is treated as a “stain” on character, how poverty is seen as neglect and puts them at risk of losing custody of their children. The proposals unfairly penalise women for claiming benefits, significantly lengthening the time it takes to get status. Even claiming benefits for less than a year is punished. This completely ignores the often devastating obstacles, including destitution and other discrimination they have suffered in the asylum process. This unfairness is compounded by the collapse in legal aid provision which means they haven’t been able to access legal advice to prepare their cases effectively which adds to the delay in winning status

As one speaker warned:

“When mothers live in poverty, social services judge us and say we are neglecting our children.”

As Support Not Separation[iii] says:

“Stop taking children on the basis of ‘neglect’ conflated with poverty… mothers’ poverty, especially single and/or disabled mothers, often of colour, who are among the poorest and most likely to be targeted for intervention.”

6. The “Earned Settlement” proposal discriminates against survivors of rape and other violence

Women who spoke on the webinar were survivors of rape and other violence, including domestic violence, trafficking, war and state persecution.

They explained that trauma and disabilities that come from the violence they have suffered are barriers to them taking on waged work. Yet they are targeted and blamed for this instead of getting support.

Women Against Rape comments:

“Women who have suffered rape and other violence face disbelief and hostility from the Home Office, leaving them even more traumatised and unable to put their lives together again. The long-term impact of rape, including the difficulties women have in speaking about their experiences, are ignored. This attitude continues in the ‘Earned Settlement’ proposal which punishes women for claiming the benefits they are entitled to. Also, survivors of rape are more at risk of future violence. The stress of temporary status will exacerbate trauma and women and their children will be left more vulnerable to abuse.”

This proposal ignores what the government has already acknowledged in a recent study: that rape survivors and other vulnerable groups are further damaged by the asylum process and this undermines their ability to integrate after being granted status. [1]

7. Women are Already Contributing — The Government is Benefiting

Women highlighted that migrant women sustain the NHS, care sector, and service economy; women from the Global South are recruited after being raised and trained through unwaged labour in their home countries; the UK benefits economically while denying recognition and security.

As one speaker noted:

“Britain recruits many nurses and health care workers from Africa. But these professionals are not people who've been raised and cared for and brought to adulthood by Britain. They're raised by unwaged women. It's women that do that work raising children often without basics like clean water, health care and proper housing. What it takes to train a nurse here in Britain is £50,000 to £70,000 pounds over three years. But to get someone from Africa costs much less. So they're making a huge profit which is completely invisible. And those health workers that keep the NHS going are often vilified and on low wages. They are treated as if they have no right to be here. They themselves are having to pay NHS fees when they're keeping the NHS going. The new proposals will make this even worse”

NB: Any requirement that women from Africa and the Global South generally must “earn” settlement also ignores the long history of theft of people and resources -- trillions of dollars have been stolen during slavery and colonial rule. And that theft continues to this day. For example, in the Democratic Republic of Congo enormous profits were extracted in the form of rubber, copper, cobalt and other minerals—wealth that fuelled European industrialisation—while millions of Congolese people were killed or forced into labour and local economies were destroyed. The consequences are still shaping poverty, displacement and migration today. And the theft from the Global South continues through debt arrangements that force countries to repay many times what they borrowed. So it is an insulting injustice to demand that women from former colonies should earn their right to stay in the UK when they and their ancestors created much of the wealth that the elite in the UK benefits from today.

One woman spoke about this horrific injustice:

“British colonialism stole a lot from Africa… The British came [to Kenya] and stole our land… My grandfather was pushed off his five acres, and forced to seek work as a cook for the British… Some were put into concentration camps… Women and children have suffered most… We are owed for what we have suffered, and what has been stolen. This is why we have every right to be here.”

8. Conclusion: The Earned Settlement proposal is Sexist and Racist

Earned settlement discriminates against women because it values men’s waged labour over women’s unwaged work, ignores the rape and other violence and subsequent trauma that women disproportionately suffer, entrenches poverty and punishes mothers and their work ensuring the survival of their children. Leaving people with temporary status fuels racism.

Women from the All African Women’s Group spoke about the chilling impact on them and their children of the rise of racism in a recent statement. They described open abuse, threats and hostility — in supermarkets, on buses and trains, and on the streets. Many expressed deep fear for their children, who were being targeted by racism including in schools.[iv]

We note that the government has failed to publish the Equality Impact statements for these proposals. We believe this hides evidence that exists about the scale of the impact of the proposals and makes the consultation unfair and unlawful. Also, despite the government saying there will be protection for “vulnerable” groups, the proposals fail to explain what this will mean in practice in relation to protected groups such as people with disabilities, etc. So they are failing to consult effectively on a crucial element of the proposal which makes this consultation procedure unfair and unlawful.

We therefore call on the government to:

1. Scrap this earned settlement proposal
2. Publish their evidence about the impact of the proposals
3. Recognise unwaged caring work as a social and economic contribution
4. End pay inequity
5. End income thresholds for settlement and family reunion
6. Grant secure status independent of income, employment, or marital status
7. Ensure women’s safety and family unity are not conditional on earnings

It is time that the government recognised the contribution that women in particular make to society by their unwaged work and pay a care income. This would transform how women, race and immigration are seen in that mothers’ work would be acknowledged as making a vital contribution to society entitling them to resources, payment and support. This has happened in some other places for example a Guaranteed Care Income pilot in San Francisco gave 10 low-income single mothers $2000 a month for a year and the result was a dramatic improvement in both mothers and children’s health, welfare, safety and ability to avoid and escape violence. Why can’t this be replicated here?

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/understanding-asylum-seeker-and-refugee-vulnerabilities-and-needs-2022/understanding-asylum-seeker-and-asylum-route-refugee-vulnerabilities-needs-and-support-2022#integration-understanding-the-long-term-impact-of-unmet-need-and-vulnerabilities

[i] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/dec/10/women-workplace-equality-gender-world-un-report?utm_source=chatgpt.com

[ii] Unwaged work performed by women in the UK saves the government and the wider economy an estimated £700 billion annually, according to analysis of Office for National Statistics (ONS) data by the Young Women's Trust.

[iii] https://supportnotseparation.blog/

[iv] https://aawg.blog/2025/12/03/they-claimed-to-protect-women-and-children-but-they-terrorised-us/