This is the joint website of  Women Against Rape and Black Women's Rape Action Project. Both organisations are based on self-help and provide support, legal information and advocacy. We campaign for justice and protection for all women and girls, including asylum seekers, who have suffered sexual, domestic and/or racist violence.

WAR was founded in 1976. It has won changes in the law, such as making rape in marriage a crime, set legal precedents and achieved compensation for many women. BWRAP was founded in 1991. It focuses on getting justice for women of colour, bringing out the particular discrimination they face. It has prevented the deportation of many rape survivors. Both organisations are multiracial.

 

 

 

Home » Demanding an Inquiry into what happens to women removed from the UK

Demanding an Inquiry into what happens to women removed from the UK

Demanding an Inquiry into what happens to women removed from the UK

Though we and others have been able to help many women seeking asylum get released from detention and have their claims looked at again, some women and their families are removed from the UK without having had the legal help they needed. Many women are sent back because they are told they will be safe in another part of the country they fled. But those who have kept in touch with us report a very different experience: rape and other violence, including in detention; destitution; begging or prostitution are often the only way they can survive. We are in touch with several women in this situation, and are documenting the lack of support and the danger they face. The Home Office refuses to investigate what happens to those it removes. We demand an inquiry into what happens to the women, children and men the Home Office removes from the UK.
 

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Rape survivor deported to Uganda claims the UK breached her human rights

A heart-breaking case of a vulnerable rape survivor who was forcibly removed back to Uganda is being considered by the European Court of Human Rights. Final representations were submitted in June by a pro-bono legal team co-ordinated by Women Against Rape (WAR). The case turns on whether the court agrees that the UK government breached Articles 3 (Prohibition of torture*) and 8 (Right to respect for private and family life**) of the European Convention of Human Rights when they insisted on deporting Ms FN despite overwhelming evidence and an immigration judge’s decision that her rights would be breached if they did.

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First person: 'I was illegally deported from Britain'

In the Media
Photo of Mary

Mary, 40 Interview by Cheryl Gallagher, The Independent Saturday, 17 April 2010

Mary says: 'The immigration escorts dragged us to the plane. They were pulling my hair and my braids fell out'

In the run-up to the 2001 elections in my country in East Africa, I was campaigning for an opposition group when some government soldiers kidnapped me in front of my children. I was raped and tortured and they starved me. After about a month, one of the soldiers accidentally left the door open and I escaped. I decided that I had to leave the country with my children.

After we had been in England for a few years, we were woken up at 5am by a loud bang at the door. A man shouted: "Open up! Immigration." We'd had no warning we were going to be deported. We were caged in the back of a van like prisoners and they wouldn't let me take my medication for depression.

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Landmark compensation for torture victim and her family

Mary and her five children have won a precedent-setting, six figure compensation award from the Home Office for abuse and injuries sustained during deportation to Uganda in 2006. Mary, a rape survivor, was supported throughout by Women Against Rape (WAR) who found legal representation to bring this case, through Leigh Day & Co. solicitors.

Injuries sustained
During the deportation, Mary and her children, the youngest of whom was just nine months old, suffered humiliating and degrading assaults that included Mary being punched and having pressure applied to her throat; being forcibly handcuffed with excessive force; threatened her teeth would be broken; being forced to keep her head between her thighs for half the flight.

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Some unbelievably good news – Betty and her children reunited

Success story
Betty

STOP PRESS: Betty and her children win compensation for unlawful detention and for violence and abuse from Immigration Guards!!!


Some of you may know Betty A, a regular volunteer at the Centre where Women Against Rape (WAR) is based, who has been fighting for asylum for eight years.  Betty is a rape survivor and mother of five.  In July 2006, two months after Betty was illegally deported to Uganda with her five children, she was kidnapped and tortured by security agents.

She escaped from the boot of the car taking her to be killed, and eventually managed to make it back to Britain.  Tragically she had no choice but to leave her children behind.

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