Women Against Rape

The Welfare Reform Bill, currently going through Parliament, seeks to abolish Income Support and instead make almost everyone seek jobs as a condition of receiving benefits. The government says 30% of women have suffered domestic violence. Income Support is a crucial entitlement ensuring the basic human right to survive -- for mothers who are victims of domestic violence, their children, and other vulnerable people, young and old. This Bill would force traumatised women escaping domestic violence to look for a job or face sanctions, denying them time to recover. As a result of lobbying, the government agreed a three-month respite from job-seeking after domestic violence, but this is not enough. A single mother active in WAR who fled domestic violence describes how it took many months to get herself together after leaving her violent partner.

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.
 

Research we helped carry out found that 70% of women detained in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre are rape survivors*. Most women detained there can’t get the independent medical or psychiatric reports needed to document their experiences and have poor or no legal representation. Women report lack of medical care, even where serious health problems are concerned, as well as racism and abuse from staff. BWRAP and WAR help run a daily rota of volunteers who help women in detention to pursue their claims and access services they desperately need. We helped a woman win £38 000 in compensation after she had been unlawfully detained. We have stopped removals of women and their families, often at the last minute.
*A Bleak House of our times, Legal Action for Women, 2005

70% of women seeking asylum in the UK have suffered rape and other sexual violence. But women seeking safety for themselves and their children face the same uncaring injustice as women who are raped in the UK. Despite national and international legal precedents recognising gender-based persecution, rape victims still face great obstacles in claiming protection.

Rape survivors are often denied expert reports which could corroborate their claims and are frequently accused by the authorities and Immigration Judges of fabricating their account of what has happened to them. See our research documenting this. Most women also experience bad legal representation.

If you have suffered rape or assault, like any other victim of crime, it is your right to apply to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) for compensation for your injuries and to help with your recovery. Throughout the legal process our sexual and medical histories are often used to humiliate, demean and dismiss us. Our 'character and conduct' can similarly be used to deny us compensation by the CICA, thus discriminating against rape survivors who may have unrelated convictions for prostitution, shop-lifting or possession of cannabis. We have had to challenge the CICA for refusing or reducing awards on these grounds, and we are pressing for their discretion to make such judgements to be curtailed.

If you have been denied compensation and/or want to support this campaign, contact us.

The conviction rate for rape has fallen from one in three reported cases in 1977 to 6.5% in 2010. All survivors of sexual violence are up against entrenched institutional sexism from the legal, immigration and compensation authorities. We are disbelieved and treated disrespectfully throughout the legal process, including when:
• Evidence is not gathered or presented properly by the police or the Crown Prosecution Service – beginning with the woman’s statement to the police.
• Women are pressed to withdraw, or find their case was dropped.
• The victim never meets the person presenting her case;
• If the case ever reaches court the woman is put "on trial", and not defended by the prosecuting barrister;

After the tragic murders of five young women sex workers in Ipswich we joined the Safety First Coalition, which was set up by the English Collective of Prostitutes. The Coalition has broad support including from the Royal College of Nursing, probation officers, members of the Church, trade unions, peers and MPs. The Coalition promotes the safety and welfare of sex workers. We have taken up the cases of several women who due to discrimination were unable to get protection from violence. Read more about the Coalition at www.prostitutescollective.net
 

In rape trials, victims of rape have traditionally been questioned about their sexual history. Defence barristers imply that if you have slept with several men, or if you have a “reputation” or, for instance, if you are a young single woman who has a child, then you are more likely to have consented to sex with the accused. The Youth Justice & Criminal Evidence Act 1999 introduced some restrictions on such questioning, which trashes the rape survivor’s character in front of the jury. The Act could have protected the right to a fair trial of both the victim and the defendant. But the government, ignoring the protests and lobbying of our grassroots women’s campaign, instead brought in a complicated law, which is often manipulated or simply ignored, without the judge or prosecution even protesting.