Human Rights watch
Women, Asylum and the UK Border Agency
Gauri van Gulik
The Home Office Minister Meg Hillier said on the BBC's Woman's Hour programme that the UK Border Agency ensures that very complex cases brought by women asylum seekers do not go through the UK's so-called “detained fast-track” asylum process, a route designed for straightforward asylum claims that can be decided quickly.
The experience of Laura from Sierra Leone suggests otherwise. According to her asylum claim, Laura witnessed her father's beheading, was raped several times, was imprisoned, was forced to have an abortion by having her stomach cut open, and was trafficked into the UK. Cases are rarely more complicated than Laura's. Yet she was still sent into the “detained fast-track” system designed for straightforward claims.
Human Rights Watch's new report “Fast-Tracked Unfairness: Detention and Denial of Women Asylum Seekers in the UK”, looks at how women end up being locked up in Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre in the “detained fast-track” system, despite complex claims, and what they go through once they are there. We did not assess the validity of claims but simply looked at whether these women are getting a full and fair examination of their asylum claim which is everyone's right under international law.
The conclusion of the research is that women with complex asylum claims are regularly put into a system designed for straightforward ones. The claims involve female genital mutilation, trafficking, rape and domestic violence.
They are complicated for two reasons. Firstly, the majority of women claim asylum based on violence inflicted on them by their husbands, relatives or other non-state people. That means that they also have to prove in their asylum claim that their home country does not offer them protection from that violence. These claims are legally complex and require expert evidence.
Secondly, these types of claims require sensitivity, time to build a basic level of trust, and knowledge of women's rights and how they react to trauma. That's why the fast-track rules already make an exception for torture and trafficking claims. The same exception should apply to claims based on sexual and gender-based violence.
We're talking about a small group of about 500 women a year, all from countries outside Europe, including Nigeria, Iran, Pakistan, Uganda, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo, places where women have suffered profound violations of their human rights.
The system is too fast to be fair. There is a general lack of information on women's rights in the countries they come from, women's credibility is sometimes wrongly assessed, and not enough time is allowed to talk about sensitive issues such as rape and other forms of gender-based violence. On top of this the asylum claim takes place while the claimant is locked up in detention.
Human Rights Watch's main recommendation is that the screening process should improve drastically so that cases that do not belong in a fast-track asylum system stay out of it.
The writer is a Women's Rights Researcher. The article was published in Reuters UK, March 2, 2010.
Global economic crisis exposed rights violations
THE top United Nations human rights official said on March 3, 2010 that the economic and financial crises have exposed existing violations and increased the number of victims of abuse and hardship.
“The financial and economic downturns together with food shortages, climate-related catastrophes and continuing violence have shattered complacent or over-optimistic notions of expanding security, prosperity, safety and the enjoyment of freedoms by all,” High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in her opening statement to the 13th session of the Human Rights Council, which runs until 26 March
She recalled that she addressed the Council for the first time last year against the background of worsening financial and economic crises.
“These sudden and cascading upheavals exposed and exacerbated existing violations of human rights. They also widened the areas and increased the number of victims of abuse and hardship,” she noted.
The UN General Assembly created the Council in 2006 with the main purpose of addressing situations of human rights violations and make recommendations on them.
“To counter deeply rooted and chronic human rights conditions in many countries, such as repression, discrimination, and strife, as well as rapidly unfolding man-made and natural challenges to human welfare, such as those we have recently experienced, five years ago the United Nations initiated a process of reform that proposed several innovations, including the creation of the Human Rights Council,” said Ms. Pillay.
“This new institution was conceived as a forum where responses to inequality, repression, and impunity could be crafted and advocated to help build a world in larger freedom,” she told the 70 dignitaries in Geneva for the 1 to 3 March high-level segment.
“The review of the Council, now forthcoming, would help the international community to assess whether the fundamental principles of this body's mandate had been solidly and consistently upheld,” she added.
Ms. Pillay praised the Council's accomplishments thus far, including the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) which involves a review of the human rights records of all 192 UN Member States once every four years.
Despite its accomplishments, the High Commissioner noted areas of improvement for the Council, including improved coordination among various human rights mechanisms and the Council's ability to influence policy change in human rights situations.
“No matter how well intentioned, determined, and incisive the Council's action is, this body cannot by itself or through remote control, change realities on the ground. Producing this change is, primarily, the responsibility of States which need to act in partnership with civil society and national protection systems,” she said.
Source: UN News Centre.
