APPENDIX 5
Memorandum submitted by Asylum Aid
Asylum Aid is an independent, national charity
working to secure protection for people seeking refuge in the
UK from persecution and human rights abuses abroad. We provide
free legal advice and representation to the most vulnerable and
excluded asylum seekers, and lobby and campaign for an asylum
system based on inviolable human rights principles.
The Refugee Women's Resource Project (RWRP)
at Asylum Aid strives to obtain protection, respect and security
for women seeking asylum in the UK by providing specialist advice,
research and resources on asylum issues for women. In 2006 the
RWRP won the Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize Group Award, in recognition
of its groundbreaking work supporting women seeking protection
in the UK.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. Asylum Aid is concerned that the progress
made in dealing with victims of domestic violence within the criminal
justice system is not reflected in the treatment of women escaping
domestic violence abroad. This can be seen in the disparities
in the way such women are dealt with in relation to collecting
evidence, late disclosure, support and providing protection from
traditional and cultural practices. It is suggested that an integrated
violence against women strategy might remove these inconsistencies.
INTRODUCTION
2. Asylum Aid recognises that there has
been progress made in tackling domestic violence in the UK. However
the lessons learned from working with victims of domestic violence
within the criminal justice system have not been transferred to
dealing with women asylum seekers who have experienced domestic
violence abroad and come to this country to seek protection from
such human rights abuses.
COLLECTING EVIDENCE
3. Both in the criminal justice system and
in the asylum determination system, sensitive evidence needs to
be obtained from the victim of domestic violence. The police need
this for their criminal investigation whilst immigration staff
need this to consider the woman's asylum claim fully. In the criminal
justice system, the need for such victims to build up trust with
officials is recognised. However the speed of the asylum determination
process prevents such trust developing as interviews are generally
held within a week of entering the normal asylum determination
system and within two days in the fast track system.
4. The police now generally understand the
need to provide female officers to victims of domestic violence
to facilitate obtaining evidence. However at their asylum interviews
women asylum applicants are not provided with female caseworkers
as a matter of course. After a forceful campaign by NGOs, the
Border and Immigration Agency has now agreed to ask at screening
whether an asylum applicant has a preference over the gender of
their case owner, but it has yet to implement this. Cardiff is
the only region where women applicants are routinely assigned
to women case owners as the asylum team has purposely imported
the good practice of the police community safety unit.
Recommendation 1:
Female asylum applicants should be automatically
allocated to female case owners.
5. Women victims of domestic violence would
never be interviewed in the presence of their children in the
criminal justice system. Yet this happens routinely to women who
are claiming asylum. Lack of childcare arrangements impedes women's
ability to have a quality interview either through distraction
or because they cannot tell a full account of the domestic violence
they have experienced in front of their children. A UK-wide campaign
to persuade the BIA to provide childcare during asylum interviews
has resulted in one region (Cardiff) doing this but no other region
has followed suit as yet, despite this example of good practice.
Recommendation 2:
Childcare should be provided during asylum interviews.
LATE DISCLOSURE
6. The police and Crown Prosecution Service
generally recognise that a delay in reporting an allegation of
domestic violence does not reduce its credibility, yet in the
asylum determination system late disclosure goes against an applicant's
credibility. This is despite the Border and Immigration Agency's
(BIA) own gender guidance stating "If an applicant does not
immediately disclose information relating to her claim, this should
not automatically count against her."[10]
However the BIA has been found not to implement its own gender
guidance.[11]
Recommendation 3:
The BIA should fully implement the Asylum Policy
Instruction (API) on gender issues in the asylum claim.
7. Late disclosure of domestic violence continues
to effect credibility at the appeal stage. Judges in the criminal
justice system are expected to comply with the Judicial Studies
Board's Equal Treatment Bench Book which has a section on gender
inequality that covers domestic violence. In 2000, the Immigration
Appellate Authority published its own gender guidelines which
refers to domestic violence as a form of serious harm within the
meaning of the Refugee Convention.[12]
However in September 2006 the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal
(AIT) declared that these gender guidelines were not the policy
of the AIT.[13]
Recommendation 4:
Immigration Judges should work within gender
guidelines recognised by the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal.
Decisions at appeal should not contradict the Gender API.
SUPPORT
8. There are a range of support provisions
for women from this country who have been affected by domestic
violence. Similarly the BIA has a strong policy on domestic violence
when asylum seekig women experience this in the accommodation
they provide.[14]
However, the Home Office's own research found that some women
who had experienced violence in the family/community and marriage
related harm had been detained in their fast track system.[15]
Their report recognises that women who have experienced such gender
persecution should not be in this system, yet women who have experienced
domestic violence continue to be placed there, sometimes detained
for many months and experiencing difficulty in being taken out
of the system.[16]
Recommendation 5:
Procedures should be put in place to ensure
that women whose claims raise gender-based issues are not placed
in the fast track detention system or are removed from this system
as soon as such issues are identified.
TRADITIONAL AND
CULTURAL PRACTICES
9. The protection given to women in this
country from traditional and cultural practices within the family
also differs to that available to women from abroad seeking protection
from such practices. The UK government has legislated against
forced marriage and female genital mutilation and the police are
working on issues relating to so-called honour crimes, but women
fleeing such abuses abroad find it difficult to have their asylum
claims accepted in this country (for example, the case of a young
woman at risk of FGM in Sierra Leone had to go all the way to
the House of Lords).[17]
CONCLUSION
10. It is clear from the above that the
good practice of the criminal justice system in relation to domestic
violence has not been transferred to the immigration services.
We believe that the disparities described above demonstrate the
need for an integrated strategy to tackle violence against women.
27 September 2007
10 Asylum Policy Instruction "Gender issues in
the asylum claim" (London: Home Office, March 2004) http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/asylumpolicyinstructions/apis/genderissueintheasylum.pdf?view=Binary Back
11
S. Ceneda and C. Palmer, Lip service or implementation? Home Office
Gender Guidance and Women Asylum Seekers (London: Asylum Aid,
2006) Back
12
N. Berkowitz and C. Jarvis, Asylum gender guidelines (Immigration
Appellate Authority, 2000) Back
13
Note from C M G Ockleton, Deputy President, Asylum and Immigration
Tribunal, Issue 17 (2006), 25 Back
14
Policy Bulletin 70 Domestic Violence http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/accesstosupport/pb70?view=Binary Back
15
Home Office: Yarlswood Detained Fast-Track Compliance with the
Gender API, A report by the NAM Quality Team, August 2006 Back
16
S. Cutler, `Refusal factory' Women's experiences of the Detained
Fast Track asylum process at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre
(London: Bail for Immigration Detainees, 2007) Back
17
SSHD v K and Fornah [2006] UKHL 46 Back
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