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The Step Up Migrant Women coalition welcome the Bill but warn it risks leaving behind migrant and BME women who have experienced abuse.
Campaigners have welcomed the government’s reintroduction of the Domestic Abuse Bill to Parliament but warn it will fail to be a truly ground-breaking piece of legislation unless it provides proper safety and protection for migrant and BME women.
The Step Up Migrant Women campaign – a coalition of more than 40 BME specialist frontline services, migrant and human rights organisations – is concerned that the Bill falls short on its commitment to support all survivors to safely escape domestic abuse.
Currently, the Bill does nothing to ensure migrant women who have experienced domestic abuse will have their safety put first. Women with insecure immigration status are often blocked from seeking help from the police for fear they will be reported to the Home Office and detained, deported or made destitute. Additionally, migrant women are predominately barred from refuges therefore denied a safe place to sleep because they cannot access public funds. The Bill must set out clear measures to ensure the safety of all domestic abuse survivors, no matter where they are from, the Step Up Migrant Women Coalition has said.
Sandhya Sharma, Group Coordinator at Safety4Sisters Manchester, said: "The Domestic Abuse Bill must provide meaningful support for migrant women with insecure immigration status within its parameters. Without access to safety, protection and justice women with no recourse to public funds are at serious risk of further abuse.”
Pragna Patel, Director of Southall Black Sisters said: "The failure to include proper and meaningful protection for BME and migrant women in the Bill represents a huge setback for the government’s attempts to show that it cares about all victims of abuse and violent crimes. We are aware that an internal review on the issue of the ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ condition is currently being undertaken but we have had no information about this and worry that proposals will fall far short of the government’s commitments under the Istanbul Convention, including the need to protect all women without discrimination, irrespective of their migrant status. We call on the government to make the review process more transparent, to make public its terms of reference and to provide a long-term sustainable solution that enables abused migrant women and their children to report their abuse and live in security and dignity.”
