Survivors seeking asylum

It is estimated that 50% of women seeking asylum in the UK are rape survivors.  If you suffered rape or other sexual violence in your country of origin, what happened to you and its impact on you and your loved ones are a vital part of your asylum claim.  It is crucial that the full details of everything you have suffered are given to the immigration authorities as soon as possible. We include here important guidelines and case law which can help you pursue your claim.

For Asylum Seekers and their Supporters: A Self-Help Guide against detention & deportation
This accessible step-by-step guide puts together information that is not usually available so that anyone determined to get protection and justice can find out how to do it. 

By Legal Action for Women

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The UN resolution to classify rape as a weapon of war is a victory for the thousands of individual rape survivors and organisations like ours that have campaigned for official recognition of rape as torture and persecution.

Our petition with this demand has been circulating since October 2006 and collected thousands of signatures, including from prominent people like Caroline Moorhead, Gareth Peirce, Juliet Stevenson and Benjamin Zephaniah.

Misjudging Rape: Breaching Gender Guidelines and International Law in Asylum Appeals
A Dossier of how adjudicators (now known as immigration judges) flout international law and even their own guidelines when they consider the asylum claims of women and girls seeking safety and protection from rape.
£3.00 individuals; £5.00 organisations;
£10.00 professionals/institutions

Order from All Women Count website

Two months ago, G2 told the story of Mary, a refugee seeking asylum in Britain with her young daughter after experiencing horrific torture in Uganda. Their rights to appeal exhausted, they now face imminent deportation - and new danger. Caroline Moorhead reports on the fate that awaits them and others like them on their return

Guardian, Caroline Moorhead Wednesday August 23, 2006

Published by NICE in a 2005 guideline to the NHS on post traumatic stress disorder

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) – the body that recommends which treatments the NHS should use for specific illnesses and conditions - invited WAR to help develop guidance for the care and treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as part of a group of health professionals, patients and carer’s representatives and technical experts. WAR became a ‘special adviser’ to the group. In 2004, WAR and BWRAP gave the group a presentation on Rape Trauma Syndrome, along with two women rape survivors seeking asylum who had used our services. They spoke compellingly about their health and general situation. The following is the testimony given by one of the women, which was published in the NICE guideline on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in 2005.