Mother's Campaign

Jeto Flaviah
Mothers’ Campaign of the All African Women’s Group
Women speak out in Parliament against detention, deportation, privatisation and profiteering. 14 January 2010
Report of meeting and more speaches

Our campaign is a campaign of mothers who are claiming asylum in this country and who were forced to leave our children behind when we fled here. The problem we face is that mothers are not recognised as mothers when we don’t have our children with us.

 Winning compensation for unlawful detention of rape survivor

You may have heard about the case of Ms PB who was recently awarded £38,000 for unlawful detention including £6000 “aggravated damages”  for the suffering caused to her as a victim of rape and other torture. Ms PB first spoke about the rape she suffered to her first lawyer, who told her not to raise it in court. It was not until she read the material we sent her, including WAR's Rights Sheet for Rape Survivors Seeking Asylum, and spoke to one of our volunteers, that she felt able to speak about it again. Our rota of volunteers continues to be a life-line for women in Yarl’s Wood who can get help nowhere else. For many women it has been the only way they have found the courage to speak about rape.

“ Many of you may be familiar with my story but in case you aren’t I tell some of it here. In November 2007, I won the right to stay after four long years of fighting even to get my asylum case heard. My four children were lost in Burundi where I was forced to leave them when I fled for my life after being imprisoned, raped and tortured.

“Winning my case was not the end, it was just the beginning. It is a victory and a part of me wants to be happy but I can’t be happy because of my children. If I feel happy I feel guilty because I don’t have them with me.

"It took all my strength and emotions to win. I was drained and so tired  because every little thing is a fight. But mainly I was at the end of my strength because of my constant thoughts of my children I had to leave  behind. My life has gone ahead but my wounds have become deeper all this  time.

OCTOBER 2007 As a result of this financial appeal, Ms M raised enough money so that a reliable person could start looking for her children. He eventually found them in Uganda in July 2008.

ACTION ALERT: DONATIONS NEEDED TO HELP TRAUMATISED MOTHER FIND HER CHILDREN

Ms Peace Musabi has not seen or heard from her four children for over four  years. She doesn’t know whether they are alive or dead but like any mother  is desperate to find out. Her oldest son disappeared and she was forced to leave the other three behind when she fled from Burundi to the UK in fear of  her life in 2003. She needs money to search for them and all the money she  managed to scrap together for this purpose has run out. We are urgently  asking for your help.

Background

Women reunited with their children

5 March was one of the happiest occasions of this past year for many of us.  Betty A, a longstanding and much loved volunteer was reunited with the four children whom she was forced to leave behind when she fled Uganda.  The full and heart-rending story is still to be told but the reunification of this family is the culmination of an extraordinary effort over two years by Betty herself, WAR and our dedicated supporters. More