Refugee Women in Britain and France [1 ed.] 9781847792600, 9780719071225

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Refugee women in Britain and France

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Refugee women in Britain and France Gill Allwood and Khursheed Wadia

Manchester University Press Manchester and New York distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave Macmillan

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Copyright © Gill Allwood and Khursheed Wadia 2010 The right of Gill Allwood and Khursheed Wadia to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distributed exclusively in Canada by UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN

978 0 7190 7122 5 hardback

First published 2010 The publisher has no responsiblility for the persistance or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset by Helen Skelton, Brighton, UK Printed in Great Britain by MPG Books Group, UK

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Contents

List of tables List of abbreviations Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Policies and practices: international, European and national frameworks 2 Migration contexts, demographic and social characteristics: refugee women in Britain and France 3 Refugee women in Britain 4 Refugee women in France 5 Refugees, gender and citizenship in Britain and France 6 Refugee women and NGOs Conclusion Bibliography Index

page vi vii xiii 1 13 49 73 96 129 152 171 179 198

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List of tables

2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4a 2.4b 2.5a 2.5b

Quantitative evolution of immigration to Britain: 1950–2008 Quantitative evolution of immigration to France: 1945–2008 EU asylum applications: 1985–2006 Principal applicants – distribution by age and gender Dependants – distribution by age and gender Principal asylum applicants – distribution by age and gender Principal asylum applicants – distribution by gender and civil status 2.5c Estimates of refugees 2001–2007

55 58 62 65 65 68 69 71

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List of abbreviations

ACSE ADEMAF AFAVO AfRW AISF AIT AME ANAEM ANAFE ANPE APAMED APIs APS ASFAD ASTI ATA AVRE BID BMA BME CADA CADAC CAEIR

Agence Nationale pour la Cohésion Sociale et l’Egalité des Chances Association pour le Développement Economique et la Micro-Activité des Femmes Association des Femmes Africaines du Val d'Oise Action for Refugee Women Amnesty International Section Française Asylum and Immigration Tribunal aide médicale d’etat (state medical aid) Agence Nationale de l’Accueil des Etrangers et des Migrations Association Nationale d’Assistance aux Frontières pour les Étrangers Agence Nationale pour l’Emploi Association pour l’Aide aux Mères en Difficulté Asylum Policy Instructions autorisation provisoire de séjour Association de Solidarité avec les Femmes Algériennes et Démocrates Association de Solidarité avec les Travailleurs Immigrés allocation temporaire d’attente Association pour les Victimes de la Répression en Exil Bail for Immigration Detainees British Medical Association black and ethnic minority Centre(s) d’Accueil pour Demandeurs d’Asile Coordination des Associations pour le Droit à l’Avortement et à la Contraception Comité d’Aide Exceptionelle aux Intellectuels Réfugiés

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Abbreviations

CAFDA CAI CARA CEDAW CEDRE CEME CERE CESEDA CFDA CFDT CGT CMP CMU CNA CNDA CoE COFECH COI COMEDE CPH CPPIH CRA CRAN CRE CRR DATV DDASS DFT DNA DoH DPM DRC DWP ECHR ECRE ECRI ELR ENAR ERF ESOL

Coordination de l'Accueil des Familles Demandeuses d’Asile Contrat d’Accueil et d’Intégration Council for Assisting Refugee Academics Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women Centre d’Etude, de Documentation et de Recherches Commission des Eglises auprès des Migrants en Europe Conseil Européen sur les Réfugiés et les Exilés Code de l’Entrée et du Séjour des Etrangers et du Droit d’Asile Coordination Française pour le Droit d’Asile Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail Confédération Générale du Travail Centres Médico-Psychologiques couverture médicale universelle (universal medical coverage) Commission Nationale d’Admission Cour Nationale du Droit d’Asile (see also CRR) Council of Europe Collectif des Femmes Chiliennes country of origin Comité Médical pour les Exilés Centres Provisoires d’Hébergement Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health Centres de Rétention Administratives Conseil Représentatif des Associations Noires Commission for Racial Equality Commission des Recours des Réfugiés (see also CNDA) Direct Airside Transit Visa Direction Départementale des Affaires Sanitaires et Sociales Detained Fast Track dispositif national d’accueil (national asylum reception framework) Department of Health Direction de la Population et des Migrations Democratic Republic of Congo Department of Work and Pensions European Convention on Human Rights European Council on Refugees and Exiles European Commission against Racism and Intolerance Exceptional Leave to Remain European Network Against Racism European Refugee Fund English for Speakers of Other Languages

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Abbreviations

EUMC EWL FAAR FASILD FASTI FGM FLE FMA FNSF FRESA FRY FSU FTDA GFAMS GISTI GRAF GSF HARP HCI HP HRA IAA ICAR ILO ILPA INED INSEE IOM IRC KRWO LAWAR LDH LFPR LMS LRA MDM MFVT MIIINDS MPSG

European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia European Women’s Lobby Formation, Accueil des demandeurs d’Asile et Réfugiés Fonds d’Action et de Soutien pour l’Intégration et la Lutte contre les Discriminations Fédération des Associations de Solidarité avec les Travailleurs Immigrés female genital mutilation Français Langue Etrangère Français Musulmans d’Algérie Fédération Nationale Solidarité Femmes Framework for Regional Employment and Skills Action Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Fédération Syndicale Unitaire France Terre d’Asile Groupe Femmes pour l’Abolition des Mutilations Sexuelles Groupe d’Information et de Soutien des Immigrés Groupe Asile Femmes Gynécologie sans Frontières Health for Asylum Seekers and Refugees Portal Haut Conseil à l’Intégration Humanitarian Protection Human Rights Act Immigration Appellate Authority Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees International Labour Organisation Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association Institut National d’Etudes Démographiques Institut National pour la Statistique et Etudes Economiques International Organisation for Migration Immigration Removal Centre Kurdish Refugee Women’s Organisation Latin American Women’s Aid Refuge Ligue des Droits de l’Homme labour force participation rates Labour Market System Locaux de Rétention Administratives Médecins du Monde Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture Minister for Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development member of a particular social group

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Abbreviations

MRAP NASS NAM NGO NHS NIACE NRIF Oasis OCRTEH OECD OFII OFPRA OMCT OMI ONI ONS PCT PS PSG PTSD Rajfire RAM RCN RCO RESEDA RIES RMI RSD RWA RWLG RWRP SDFE SECR SSAE SUNRISE TCN UCIJ UKBA UMP

Mouvement contre le Racisme et pour l’Amitié entre les Peuples National Asylum Support Service New Asylum Model non-governmental organisation National Health Service National Institute of Adult Continuing Education National Refugee Integration Forum Observatoire pour l’Accueil des demandeurs d’asile l’Office Central pour la Répression du Trafic des Etres Humains Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Office Français de l’Immigration et de l’Intégration Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture (World Organisation Against Torture) Office des Migrations Internationales Office National d’Immigration Office for National Statistics Primary Care Trust Parti Socialiste particular social group post-traumatic stress disorder Réseau pour l’autonomie des femmes immigrées et réfugiées Refugees and Asylum Seekers Mass Media Royal College of Nursing refugee community organisation Relative à l’Entrée et au Séjour des Etrangers en France et au Droit d’Asile (law) Refugee Integration and Employment Service revenu minimum d’insertion refugee status determination Refugee Women’s Association Refugee Women’s Legal Group Refugee Women’s Resource Project Service des Droits des Femmes et de l’Egalité semaine d’éducation à la citoyenneté contre le racisme Soutien, Solidarité et Actions en faveur des Emigrants Strategic Upgrade of National Refugee Integration Services Third Country Nationals Unis Contre une Immigration Jetable United Kingdom Border Agency Union pour un Mouvement Populaire

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Abbreviations

UNFPA UNHCR USS VPF WAN WAR WAST WHO ZEP

United Nations Populations Fund Agency United Nations High Commission on Refugees Union Syndicale Solidaire Vie Privée et Familiale (residence card scheme) Women’s Asylum News Women Against Rape Women Asylum Seekers Together World Health Organisation zones d’éducation prioritaires

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Acknowledgements

Many people have contributed in all sorts of ways to the completion of this book. We would like to thank in particular Claudie Lesselier for the huge amounts of information, dialogue, unpublished material, contacts, documents and advice she has given us; Jérôme Valluy for correspondence, contacts and information; Danièle Lochak for answering legal questions and for mobilising her contacts; Commission femmes de la section française d’Amnesty International for discussion and contacts; The Collectif des femmes algériennes for conversations; Patrick Delouvin, Amnesty International Section Française for useful discussion and contacts; Jane Freedman; Audrey Lenoël for conducting interviews with refugee and migrant women’s associations in Paris, in 2006; to all the respondents to our NGO questionnaire; Angèle Malatre for carrying out interviews with NGO representatives in Paris, Lyon and Bordeaux and for organising two round-table meetings, in Paris in October and December 2005, attended by representatives of refugee NGOs and community associations. The round table participants included Sibel Agrali and Cécile Henriques (Association Primo Lévy); Philippe Aidan (COMEDE); Dr Thierry Baubet (Hôpital Avicienne); Marie-Jo Bourdin and Christophe Paris (Association Françoise Minkowska); Frédérique Bourgeois, Corella Damiani and Séverine Masson (Forum Réfugiés); Antoine Decourcelle (CIMADE); Samuel Hanryon and Dieudonné Ngaba (Médecins sans Frontières); Ali El Anizi (Association AMI); Dr Hervé L’Hostis (AVRE); Loéva Madec (Hôpital Le Vésinet); Dr Marc Wluczka (ANAEM); Anne Le Hérou (Comité Tchéchénie); Khava Djamakhanova (Inter Service Migrants); Sophie Perdrier (Association Marc, Marie, Lazare et les Autres); Juliette Roussel (CAFDA). We would also like to express our thanks to the following for kindly agreeing to be interviewed: Maryam Rafii, Croix Rouge française; Christophe Lévy, GAS; Anna Reisenberger, Refugee Council; Sarah Haywood, Employability Forum; Ceri Butler, UCL for information and

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answers to queries; Elaheh Rambarzini, Women’s Development Officer, Refugee Council; Anja Rudiger, Refugee Council; Judy Arceviera, British Red Cross for sending information; Sophia Ceneda, RWRP; Asther Hagos, Refugee Action; Debora Singer, RWRP; Sade Hormio, Oxfam UK Poverty Programme, for information and answers to queries; Catherine Hine, Oxfam; Dr Marc Wluczka, ANAEM; Dr L’Hostis, AVRE; Fadil at ASFAD; Clara from Rajfire; Zeynep Kerherve, Association Femmes de Turquie (Assemblée Citoyenne des Originaires de Turquie); and the refugee women we met in Britain and France. Finally we would like to thank Tony Mason and all the editorial staff at Manchester University Press who have been involved in this book; Nick James for preparing the index; friends and colleagues at the University of Warwick and Nottingham Trent University and, of course, Dave, Krissi, Caitlin, Ben, Rustom and Zubin.

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Introduction

In the theatrical performance ‘Cris d’Exil’, produced by the women’s commission of the Association de Solidarité avec les Travailleurs Immigrés (ASTI) of Valence, Marie-Claire, a 30-year-old woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo is dumped with her toddler at a mainline station in Paris by a people-smuggler. Marie-Claire had escaped what has been called Africa’s first world war (1998–2004), having suffered the loss of family and friends and rape at the hands of soldiers and security servicemen of the Kabila government. Marie-Claire’s torment does not end with her arrival in France. She has no money, no shelter and no identity or travel documents. Her and her child’s basic needs are met by refugee support organisations but she feels isolated and deeply depressed. These feelings are compounded when she hears of her mother’s death and the disappearance of the daughter she left behind in the care of her parents.With the help of the Valence ASTI women’s commission, Marie-Claire begins a journey of recovery from her ‘internal exile’ and while waiting to hear about her claim for asylum, she becomes involved, with local associations, in the fight for asylum seekers’ rights. Marie-Claire’s story ends hopefully in that she obtains exceptional leave to remain in France and finds a place for herself and her child in French society (Schwertz-Favrat 2004). In real life, the circumstances of Sara’s flight from danger are not dissimilar to those of Marie-Claire but unlike the latter’s story, Sara’s is not an optimistic one: Sara’s life all changed the day her pharmacy in Uganda was raided by soldiers. She was taken to a ‘safe house’, where she was kept in a tiny cell and repeatedly raped and tortured whilst facing interrogation. Although freed after several days she was again to face the same ordeal when the soldiers came back to find her and her husband. Forced to flee Uganda she came to England where despite this continued persecution, her asylum case has been refused. Even a medical report stating that ‘the medical evidence gives strong support for the history of repeated

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rapes leading to life threatening gynaecological complications necessitation [sic] major surgery’. Moreover, Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and the government themselves all attest to the use of rape against women in Uganda as a means of coercion. Sara claimed asylum in 2003 and was forced into destitution in December 2004 when her appeal was turned down. Sara lived rough for many months. She now stays with an English woman and lives off Red Cross parcels, while she tries to find a solicitor to take up her case and put in a fresh claim using new evidence that she has been able to recently gather. Sara also has had no news about her husband and children and prays they are safe. (WAST 2008).

The fictional and real-life stories of Marie-Claire and Sara represent those of thousands of women who flee conflict, violence and discrimination perpetrated by states, private agents, local communities and families. Women and girls constitute at least 50 per cent of any refugee population in the world today (UNHCR 2008a: 12). Many undertake long, often perilous journeys on their own, sometimes accompanied by small children. Others pay peoplesmugglers, desperate to reach a place of safety by any means.At best, they will face overbearing or indifferent officialdom or verbal harassment and abuse from male travelling companions; at worst they risk sexual violence, being trafficked for prostitution, physical harm, serious illness and in extreme cases death. A small proportion of these journeys will end in Britain or France. It is worth noting that the vast majority of people who flee their country end up in neighbouring states, that consequently they remain within their region of origin and that, in fact, only 14 per cent of the world’s refugee population resides in Europe (UNHCR 2008a: 7). Women come to Britain and France to avoid being caught up in war and situations of political conflict.They may flee to escape repression by governments who view them as subversive political agitators. But many arrive because they risk gender-related persecution such as forced marriage, ‘honour’ crimes or female genital mutilation (FGM). However, for most of these women, arrival in Britain or France marks the start of a new phase of problems and troubled circumstances, beginning with public hostility and xenophobic attitudes towards asylum seekers and refugees, procedural difficulties involved in claiming asylum and refusal by the state, in both countries, to recognise certain types of gendered persecution or acknowledge the reality of danger and conflict in particular countries as a means of deterring unfounded and fraudulent claims. Moreover, recent moves towards ‘managed’ or ‘selective’ migration (immigration choisie) by the British and French governments place women asylum seekers in an even more disadvantaged position as managed migration favours skilled labour migrants while excluding family migrants and asylum seekers.The sum of these attitudes were contained in a speech made by Nicolas Sarkozy in 2005, at a UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire) conference entitled ‘Selective Immigration for Successful Integration’. He declared:

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‘Bogus’ asylum claims, marriages of convenience, fiddled family reunification, lapsed tourist visas. I want it to be understood that for France to remain the generous and welcoming nation that she has always been, one must now demonstrate proof of commitment to her in place of all those who flout her generosity by subverting it. I want France to choose immigration rather than have it imposed. After all it is natural to want to welcome those immigrants we need rather than those for whom we have neither work nor accommodation. (Nouvel Observateur, 11 June 2005).

Unsurprisingly then asylum application rejection rates in Britain and France are high and relatively small numbers of women, whether primary asylum applicants or dependants, are accorded refugee status or humanitarian protection. Despite their small numbers, in both countries, refugee women come up against numerous barriers preventing their integration into the labour market and other spheres of society. Asylum-seeking and refugee women, and particularly those who are newly arrived or unable to communicate in English or French, are highly dependent on refugee support non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and refugee community associations1 which fill the gaps left by the state in the provision of vital services. Activist refugee networks, groups and community associations emerge out of the resourcefulness of asylum-seeking and refugee women while NGOs encourage them to participate in civil society structures and civic action as a way of combating their isolation and of feeling empowered enough to fight for certain rights and of eventually gaining an equal status and voice with other members of society. The study of asylum-seeking and refugee women

The study of asylum-seeking and refugee women in post-1945 Europe does not have a long history. Early research which was carried out in response to the increasing visibility of women in international refugee migration flows, their arrival in west European countries and to debates and discussions about the ‘gender neutrality’ of asylum and immigration policy-making and implementation, included studies by Bhabha and Shutter (1994); Bloch, Galvin and Harrell-Bond (2000, 2001); Callamard (1999); Crawley (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001); Indra (1989, 1999); and Spijkerboer (2000). However, these studies focused either on critiquing the masculine bias within the field of refugee studies or the lack of a gender thinking and approach in immigration and asylum policy-making and legislation. More recent work commissioned by some of the larger refugee support NGOs has explored asylum-seeking and refugee women’s experiences in particular areas of destination society life. For example, Dumper (2002b) has written on the wastage of refugee women’s skills and barriers against their insertion into the British labour market while the Maternity Alliance in Britain has published reports on

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pregnant women’s experiences during the asylum process and in detention (McLeish 2002; McLeish, Cutler and Stancer 2002). In addition, a number of English- and French-language academic studies on the consideration of gender-based persecution in European refugee status determination (RSD) procedures,2 on migrant and refugee women’s activism and on refugee women and the labour market have appeared over the last five years (Bassel 2007, 2008; Bloch 2005; Freedman 2007, 2008b, 2008c; Freedman and Valluy 2007; Hunt 2008). Few European studies have considered all the main stages of the journey of asylum-seeking and refugee women from the time of their arrival in a destination country to the first steps taken to become part of that society (for example, Schlenzka, Sommo, Wadia and Campani 2004).3 Moreover, there is a lack of comparative accounts of asylum seekers and refugees in general and women more particularly which could answer certain questions. For example, why have gender guidelines become part of the asylum policy instructions issued to border officials and asylum application caseworkers in Britain but not in France; or why are refugee communities more widely scattered in Britain than in France; or why is it more difficult for women to set up a refugee community association in France than it is in Britain? Finally, in examining the experiences of asylum-seeking and refugee women in their interaction with statutory and voluntary agencies, the majority of studies either focus on what happens to asylum-seeking and refugee women or on how they react to what happens to them. Few studies look at how asylum-seeking and refugee women are affected by policies and their implementation as well as their responses (whether reactive or creative) in order to effect change for the better. Rationale and aims

Since the early 1990s, asylum seekers and refugees have attracted increasing attention within public debate so that many of the (mostly negative) traits attributed formerly to labour and family migration and the themes discussed in relation to the ability of immigrants to ‘fit in’ (citizenship, nationality, European-ness) are now overwhelmingly associated with asylum seekers and refugees and a dichotomy is constructed between ‘good migrants’ and ‘bad migrants’ in mainstream political and media discourses. The major EU governments, presenting refugee migration into and across western Europe as a new and alarming phenomenon, have sought to curb it and to control the lives and experiences of refugees from the time of flight from the country of origin to reception and settlement in the destination country through restrictive legislation. Public discussion of refugee migration has also included the production of a body of academic literature on refugee issues and has led to the emergence of an entire field of refugee studies. However, politicians, media and academics have largely ignored the

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gender dimension of refugee motives for flight, refugee movements, the gendered impact of public policy and the contribution of women refugee migrants to reception societies. The research on refugee migrant women, mentioned above, testifies to the efforts of feminist scholars to write women into the refugee ‘story’ in order to reformulate and complete public understanding of the reality of the refugee phenomenon.This study forms part of that effort and contributes to the growing literature on women refugees. The work presented in this book represents the first full-length study to focus not only on refugee migrant women as users of state and voluntary sector services in France and Britain, but also on their involvement in political and civic action and activism and as agents of change. Therefore, it does three things. First, it contributes to the literature on the reception and settlement of refugee women in destination societies in the West. It examines asylum-seeking and refugee women’s interactions within and with processes and structures related to asylum and immigration (including detention) and those to do with housing, health, education and training and employment. Second, as there are no substantial studies on political activity as a vector of settlement and citizenship-building in destination societies, a significant part of this book is devoted to asylum-seeking and refugee women’s political activity and activism.The book as a whole brings into question yet again the meaning of ‘politics’ and the relation between the personal and the political. The ‘political refugee’ was, for many years, assumed to be a man. Now this assumption is challenged.The collectives and associations of refugee women (from Southeast Asia, Latin America, Iran, North Africa) which have formed over the past thirty years are at the crossroads of feminism and refugee activism. Lesselier (2007) argues that their desire to organise separately shows that women have specific needs and concerns and that they want to combine their activism in relation to the country of origin with their reflections on their position as women. She also argues that awareness of gender persecution and the demand for asylum for women persecuted as women contributes to the reconceptualisation of ‘politics’.The figure of the refugee now includes not only political activists, but also those who fight, in any way, for women’s rights, those who breach social norms in their countries of origin, and those who flee sexual violence and are not protected by their state. Finally this book eschews what Griffith et al. criticise as ‘a certain parochialism of vision’ by adopting a comparative framework (2005: 21). Britain and France are selected because both countries consider themselves guardians par excellence of the democratic principles and practice of equality, justice, freedom of speech and action. It follows therefore that they are presented as a ‘safe haven’ or pays d’asile for those who are denied rights based on these principles. However, they are also the leading architects of ‘Fortress Europe’ in which ‘good migrants’ are needed and welcomed but from which

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‘bad migrants’ should be kept out. Urban unrest among communities of migrant origin in both countries and the rise of far-right parties, particularly in France, have challenged the established (British) multiculturalist and (French) universalist frameworks governing relations between the majority population and those of immigrant and ethnic minority backgrounds and have fuelled debates about ‘French-ness’, ‘British-ness’, ‘European-ness’ on the one hand and the ‘other-ness’ of refugee migrants on the other hand. Besides, Britain and France are amongst the major refugee-receiving countries within the EU and their colonial history makes them natural destinations for people from former colonies. Despite their geographical proximity and the fact that their governments must adhere to common international and EU conventions, they also display differences in asylum and immigration policy, in their respective approaches to the reception and settlement of refugee migrants and in the political and civic rights accorded to non-nationals. Britain and France therefore provide different but representative examples of West European refugee destination countries from which useful comparisons may be drawn. Methodology and methods

This study of asylum-seeking and refugee women’s lives and experiences of participation in Britain and France attempts to combine, though not uncritically we hope, a number of frames of feminist thinking. First, it draws inspiration from established, second-wave feminist thinking whereby it places women at the centre of accounts of refugee migration and migrants in a bid to discover all the stories that can be told. Second, it aims to show that refugee women’s stories can form the basis of enquiry and add new knowledge and understanding to the existing body of work in contemporary international migration. In doing the first two things, this study presents different ways of envisioning some key concepts used in the study of migration and migrants in destination countries such as Britain and France. For example, the concepts ‘refugee’ and ‘persecution’ are reconceptualised using gender as an important category of analysis (Chapter 1) while the traditionally accepted boundaries of what constitutes citizenship and participation (in political life) are extended through gendered analyses of refugees’ experiences and lives (Chapters 5 and 6). The qualitative and quantitative information gathered and presented in this book is obtained from a number of sources including academic literature, newspaper and periodical sources, government agency statistics, ‘grey’ literature, internet sources, interviews with key informant and asylumseeking and refugee women, a survey questionnaire and two round-table meetings (held in Paris in October and December 2005) bringing together key informants in the area of refugee migration. It should be noted that this

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book does not in any way constitute an empirical study but that data from pilot interviews, the survey questionnaire and from the round-table events has been used to sharpen our interpretations of textual material used. As far as the academic literature is concerned, secondary sources consulted covered the main areas of migration history in Britain, France and Europe; women, international and European migration; women, political participation and citizenship; feminist activism among women from immigrant and ethnic minority communities in Britain and France. The literature pertaining to gender, refugee migration/migrants is discussed in the section above on ‘The Study of Asylum Seeking and Refugee Women’. Newspaper and periodical sources provided important primary material. Newspaper articles relating to government policy, immigration and asylum law and the refugee experience in Britain were taken mainly from quality broadsheets. The majority of articles consulted presented non-gendered commentaries and analyses. Amongst periodical sources, one title stands out in terms of the vast scope of issues it covers in relation to asylum-seeking and refugee women and hence of its usefulness for this study: Women’s Asylum News, a campaigning monthly bulletin of the Refugee Women’s Resource Project (RWRP) provides gender-specific information on refugee women’s NGOs, associations, projects, events; local- and national-level government policy; the implementation of asylum law and its effects; empirical and other studies on asylum-seeking and refugee women. Other useful titles include Refugee Women’s News, published briefly between July 2004 and October 2005; Proasile, a semestrial review published by France Terre d’Asile; Savoirs et Formation, published quarterly by the Fédération Nationale des Associations pour l’Enseignement et la Formation des Travilleurs Immigrés et de leurs Familles; La Lettre d’Information du GAS, newsletter of the Groupe Accueil et Solidarité; and Maux d’Exil, a newsletter published by the NGO COMEDE. Grey literature has also been heavily consulted in the course of this research and mainly includes the annual and one-off reports published by refugee NGOs and statutory agencies. These are listed under bibliographical references. In-depth, qualitative interviews were conducted during the course of this study with key informants in the field of refugee reception and settlement, in Britain and France and with refugee women in both countries. Key informants included representatives of statutory bodies, refugee support NGOs, refugee community associations. Interviews were conducted on a face-to-face basis and by telephone and lasted at least 40 minutes. Information gathered during interviews has been used to corroborate arguments and evidence already identified in written sources. Interviews also revealed previously unknown information and were useful in yielding documents not available elsewhere. Finally, the expression of refugee women in interviews was a crucial element in implementing the approach of ‘placing

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women at the heart’ of our account of the refugee experience and in comparing the perceptions of service providers with those of service consumers. In addition to individual interviews with key informants, some of the insights into the experience of refugees generally and women more specifically came from two round table meetings held in Paris on 20 October and 12 December 2005. The meetings brought together representatives of refugee support NGOs and community associations in discussion of the themes of asylum seekers, refugees and trauma; legal framework and institutional responses. These meetings were held as part of an EU Commission funded project (2005–06) on ‘Traumatised Refugees in Europe: Analysis of institutional Developments, Identification of Protection Systems, Best Practices and Recommendations’. Note on terminology

Some comment and clarifications need to be made about the use of terminology in relation to the asylum-seeking and refugee women who form the subject of our study. First, we use the term ‘asylum seeker’ to refer specifically to someone who has made an application for asylum under the terms of the 1951 Geneva Convention, but who has not received a final decision from the relevant authorities on that application. Also included in this category are those who claim humanitarian or subsidiary protection; for example, under the terms of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and those whose asylum claims have failed and who are in the process of appealing, asking for a re-examination of their case, in detention or who have not left the country but are asking for a regularisation of their situation through a collective amnesty or other means.The term ‘refugee’ is used in this study to refer to a person who has had a positive decision on her asylum claim, which allows her to remain (under the terms of the 1951 Geneva Convention) in the destination country. Furthermore, ‘refugee’ includes those who have been given humanitarian or subsidiary protection and those given discretionary leave to remain. It should be noted that we sometimes use the terms ‘refugees’ and ‘refugee migrants’ in the generic sense to cover both asylum seekers and refugees. Second, asylum seekers and refugees form part of the broader category ‘immigrants’. However the term ‘immigrant’ is used differently in Britain and France. In Britain this term is used infrequently. Strictly speaking it applies to anyone who crosses an international border with the intention of long-term (12 months at least) or permanent residence. Hence, asylum seekers and refugees, labour and family migrants, students on a 12-month plus visa, undocumented migrants can all be considered sub-categories of immigrant (Castles et al. 2002: 120). There is no general agreement among policymakers or academics about how the term ‘immigrant’ should be used. Once

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it was applied universally to people from New Commonwealth countries who came to Britain to work or constitute a family. It was even used to refer to their British-born children. However, it is no longer used to define those who have settled in Britain over a long period of time. As a result of the shift, in the late 1960s, towards a multiculturalist race relations paradigm, longsettled migrants in Britain (of whom many acquire British nationality) are referred to as black and ethnic minority (BME) communities or populations in legislative and policy documents and in academic writing. If the term ‘immigrant’ is used at all, it is to refer to ‘new’ or ‘third wave’ migrants to Britain – i.e. labour migrants from the EU, labour migrants from third countries recruited to plug a skills shortage in a particular sector of the economy and to asylum seekers and refugees (see Chapter 2). Third, in France two terms are in frequent use:‘étrangers’ (foreigners) and ‘immigrés’, or immigrants.‘Foreigners’ are defined solely in relation to nationality. Hence any person who lives in France but who is not a French national is defined as a ‘foreigner’. All asylum seekers and the overwhelming majority of refugees are foreigners. Those who eventually acquire French nationality are divested of the label ‘foreigner’ and are counted as French for census and other purposes. ‘Immigrants’ are defined in relation to nationality and place of birth. According to the French High Council for Integration, France’s immigrant population comprises people who live in France but who were born abroad and were not French nationals at the time of birth. The fact of being a foreigner at the time of birth abroad, remains an immutable characteristic and an individual continues to be defined as an immigrant even if s/he adopts a different nationality (HCI 2005). Not all foreigners are immigrants as many foreigners are born in France. Similarly not all immigrants are foreigners because many obtain French nationality. However, the overwhelming majority of France’s immigrant population is composed of foreigners. For this reason, we have used the term ‘(im)migrant’ throughout when referring to non-French nationals, alongside asylum seekers and refugees. In addition, the differences in the way ‘immigrant’ is used in Britain and France were borne in mind during the writing of this book, particularly in the presentation of quantitative data in Chapter 2. Chapter outlines

This book is organised in three distinct parts.The first, comprising Chapters 1 and 2, provides a background to the study of asylum-seeking and refugee women in Britain and France. For instance, important contextual knowledge about international and European legal frameworks, policies and rules relating to asylum and immigration as well as about the composition of refugee migration flows should enhance the reader’s understanding of the

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chapters which follow. Chapters 3 and 4 are country specific and are designed to give the reader a detailed insight into what happens to asylumseeking and refugee women once they arrive in the destination country, claim asylum and attempt to make a new life for themselves. Finally, Chapters 5 and 6, making up a third section, examine the participation of asylumseeking and refugee women in non-statutory organisations, namely NGOs and community associations and their interaction with other groups of social actors in actions and movements for positive change.The selection of NGOs and community associations as sites of activism is based on the opposition between the former as ‘invited spaces’ and the latter as ‘autonomous spaces’ (see discussion in Chapter 5). Chapter 1 outlines the legal framework within which asylum decisions are made, and which determines the conditions of refugee reception and integration or removal.This framework consists of international refugee and human rights law; European immigration, asylum and human rights law; and national policy and practice. The 1951 Refugee Convention, which is still the basis for international refugee law, contains no reference to gender, and was for many years interpreted in a way that assumed political refugees were men. Awareness of gender-specific and gender-related persecution has increased since the early 1990s and has begun to have an impact on refugee status determination. This chapter discusses the measures introduced to address gender issues in asylum decisions, refugee reception and integration in Britain and France. Chapter 2 sets the in-migration of asylum-seeking and refugee women to Britain and France within the broader context of migrations into and across Europe and in doing so it considers the various historical, political and economic factors which have influenced the development of these migrations and that of female refugee migration in particular. In addition, this chapter provides data relating to the demographic and sociological traits of female refugee migrants with the aim of enabling the reader to obtain as clear a portrait as possible of the refugee women who form the focus of this book: whether they are principal asylum applicants or part of a family group; what are their countries of origin/previous residence; their occupational and age profiles; what skills, qualifications and other resources they possess. Chapter 3 is a synthesis of available information on the lives and experiences of refugee women in Britain from their arrival to their asylum decision and subsequent integration, removal, or continued, but insecure, presence in the country as a ‘failed’ asylum seeker who cannot be returned to their country of origin. It finds a gap between policy and practice in terms of a gender-sensitive approach to refugee status determination; the accommodation of newly arrived refugees; detention, including the detention of pregnant women and mothers with young babies and older children; and health care, including maternity services. It reveals some recognition of the

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needs of refugee women on the part of decision-makers and service providers, largely as a result of research-based campaigning and lobbying by refugee and other non-governmental organisations, but it also reveals areas in which these needs are yet to be met. Following a similar structure to the chapter above, Chapter 4 presents information on asylum-seeking and refugee women’s circumstances of arrival in France, their experiences of legal and administrative processes relating to refugee status determination, detention and removal, the difficulties presented in seeking shelter, educational provision for their children, access to health, social and cultural resources and services and how they may overcome obstacles.This chapter also discusses the relations between asylumseeking and refugee women and members of their family, community and majority society and the specificity of these relations in the context of exile. It reveals that an understanding of the need to support vulnerable groups of asylum-seeking and refugee women has been developed and promoted by certain refugee NGOs in spite of government policy which targets resources at the reduction if not cessation of refugee migration from third countries. Finally, this chapter presents some elements of comparison between the situation of asylum seeking and refugee women in Britain and France. Chapter 5 considers the action and activism of asylum-seeking and refugee women in refugee and migrant community associations in Britain and France as a means of creating conditions for a participative citizenship and of eventually gaining certain formal rights. Moreover, it demonstrates that their activism also serves as an affirmation of their presence in communities which would otherwise rather ignore them and of the importance of simply engaging publicly with other individuals and institutions as part of a citizenship-building process. In doing so, this chapter aims to show that refugee women's experiences and action have contributed to the challenges currently posed to the exclusive model of citizenship developing at EU level and to the concomitant undermining of rights-related entry, reception and settlement of certain migrant categories. We suggest that refugee women's experiences and activism contribute to a fuller understanding of the nature of refugee communities and of their contribution to the politics and civic culture of destination societies. Chapter 6 focuses on the participation of refugee women in NGOs, highlighting their agency and countering the perception that they are passive victims of their circumstances. It examines both the opportunities available for this form of participation and the obstacles that nevertheless remain. It focuses on NGOs which have been particularly active in the triple role of providing material support and advice to refugee women; advocating on their behalf; and encouraging their active participation. It presents information, on the one hand, about these NGOs, their involvement with refugee women, and the knowledge they have accrued as a result and, on the other

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hand, about the individual refugee women, their motivation for participation and the benefits that result from it. It finds that NGOs have played an important part in bringing gender issues onto the policy agenda and have offered rare opportunities for refugee women to contribute actively to their reception society in a way that produces both individual and collective benefits. Notes 1 Refugee community associations are increasingly being referred to as refugee community organisations (RCOs) within the literature on refugee migrants.We have preferred to use ‘refugee (community) associations’ and ‘refugee women’s (community) associations’ because these terms do not implicate formally constituted organisations only but allow inclusion of more loosely established groups and networks emerging from refugee and the wider migrant communities. Besides, the term ‘association’ is most commonly used in France to describe such structures. 2 ‘Refugee status determination’ (RSD) procedures are also referred to as ‘asylum determination’ procedures. 3 This study (funded by the European Commission) compares the experiences of asylum seeking and refugee women in the processes of reception and settlement in Germany, Italy, Britain, Canada and the USA.

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Policies and practices: international, European and national frameworks

International, European and national policies and practices on refugee status determination and settlement/integration have changed over time in response to broader economic, political and social stimuli. Refugee and asylum policy is not simply a response to a recognised need on the part of those fleeing persecution; it is intricately connected to broader international politics (for example, during the Cold War, it played a part in asserting the ideological superiority of the West), to domestic concerns with migration control, to local racism and xenophobia, heightened by competition for scarce resources. Asylum and refugee policy is currently high on the political agenda in France and the UK, as it is at the EU level.1 This chapter has two aims. The first is to set out the international, European and national framework for refugee status determination, reception and settlement.What is striking is the rapid increase in measures introduced since the 1990s in Britain and France, many of which are intended to restrict access to asylum.The second aim of the chapter is to highlight the gendered impact of apparently gender-neutral policies and practices, to outline various measures which have sought to address this, and to discuss their effectiveness. In this way, it establishes one of the contexts in which the study of refugee women in Britain and France is situated. International legal framework

The basis of international refugee law is the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (28 January 1951) and the New York Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (31 January 1967). The 1951 Convention defines as a refugee any person who ‘owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, MPSG or political opinion, is outside his country of origin and is unable, or, owing to such fear is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or

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who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it’ (Article 1(A)). The essential elements of recognition as a refugee are therefore a wellfounded fear of persecution for one of the five reasons listed in the Convention and a lack of state protection from it. States party to the Convention committed themselves to the principle of ‘non-refoulement’ (Article 33). In other words, they agree not to return refugees to the country in which they fear persecution. They also agree not to impose penalties on those who enter the country illegally or are present without authorisation, ‘provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence’ (Article 31). Interpretation of the Convention has varied widely since its adoption, and has been influenced by national and international economic and political considerations. During the post-war economic boom in western Europe, the Convention was interpreted liberally, and many refugees were admitted and granted leave to remain without necessarily meeting its strict criteria. The economic recession of the 1970s with its accompanying closure of many borders, along with the rise in the number of people seeking protection outside their country of origin, increased tensions around asylum in western Europe. States sought to restrict access to asylum and began to interpret the 1951 Convention as strictly as possible (Joly 1996: 10–11). States have increasingly stressed the need to distinguish between refugees and economic migrants, a distinction which is not always straightforward, given the complexity of many migrants’ motivation for fleeing their home country. The 1951 Convention is a product of its time and does not necessarily meet the requirements of today’s forced migrants. It nevertheless remains for the moment the main instrument of international refugee law and plays a central part in particular in refugee status determination. It establishes a basic minimum standard of international obligation in relation to refugee protection. In recent years, the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) has been criticised for abandoning attempts to uphold universal principles and instead becoming increasingly pragmatic. This manifests itself in the replacement of a commitment to protection with attempts to find solutions to refugee problems, whether this is humanitarian aid for internally displaced persons or support for ‘voluntary’ repatriation programmes (Barnett 2001: 31–3; Loescher 2001: 28–9). With support from refugee-receiving countries, the emphasis has shifted from refugee protection to reducing the flow of refugees.While eliminating the causes of refugee flows is positive, it could nevertheless impinge on the rights of refugees to claim asylum in another country (Barnett 2001: 33). There are a number of problems with the Convention which have become increasingly obstructive as states have sought ways to restrict access

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to asylum. First, the Convention hinges on the notion of persecution, but there is no universally accepted definition of this term and its interpretation has varied widely. Second, it is necessary for the claimant to demonstrate a causal link between the persecution and one of the five grounds, and this can be difficult to prove, not least when the claimant is suffering trauma. Third, the persecution must be targeted at the individual, rather than being the result of generalised violence. The existence of a well-founded fear of persecution is fundamental to recognition as a refugee, but in a climate in which attempts are being made to restrict access to refugee status, the tendency is to limit the definition as much as possible. According to the UNHCR Handbook (1979), a ‘threat to life or freedom’ on one of the five enumerated grounds is always persecution and ‘other serious violations of human rights, for the same reasons, would also constitute persecution’ (Crawley 2001: 39).There is broad academic and legal agreement that violations of basic human rights constitute persecution. It is necessary, therefore, to establish which human rights are protected under international law (Crawley 2001: 40). James Hathaway’s hierarchy of rights is often used as a reference to establish when an abuse of rights constitutes serious harm which, if combined with a lack of state protection, would then be defined as persecution. Genocide, slavery, assassination, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention are among the human rights violations that are the most widely accepted as falling within this category. In addition to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, it may be possible to invoke the various Articles of the ECHR to ensure that applicants are not returned to countries where they risk being tortured (Crawley 2001: 40). The Convention reasons mean that persecution is not enough; it must be for one of the five reasons given (race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group (PSG), or political opinion). Establishing the link between the persecution suffered or feared and one of the Convention grounds can be problematic: written applications for asylum and asylum interviews do not always produce the most accurate accounts of the persecution suffered or feared; refugees’ lives and experiences are complex; and trauma makes the status determination process even more difficult. Victims of generalised violence and wars, and victims of indiscriminate human rights violations are excluded from the Convention definition of the refugee, regardless of their need for protection (Joly 1996: 9–10). However, they may be protected by UNHCR through a procedure known as ‘good offices’ (Joly et al. 1992: 13–14), and the UN 1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is also of relevance, preventing states from returning someone to a situation in which they risk torture (Joly 1996: 10).

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Gender and the international legal framework

Refugee law is ostensibly gender neutral. However, interpretations of it rest on gendered assumptions about refugees, the activities they engage in, and the forms of persecution they suffer. In recent years, awareness of genderrelated and gender-specific persecution has grown, and asylum claims based on them have in some cases been taken more seriously. Some international and national NGOs have campaigned and lobbied specifically on this issue, the UNHCR has issued gender guidelines, and Canada, the US, Australia and the UK have all introduced some form of guidelines for the status determination of women making claims on this basis. The UNHCR introduced Gender Guidelines in 2002 in order to draw attention to the discrepancies between the representation of the political refugee and the experience of women in some societies, and to encourage decision-makers to take gender into account during the RSD process.2 Women may experience specific forms of persecution (serious harm combined with a lack of effective protection from the state) and they may be persecuted for gender-related reasons. The forms of harm experienced by women are not always recognised as constituting persecution. They may be considered private (for example, domestic violence, rape, female genital mutilation) (UNHCR 2003b: 109). It may be considered that state protection exists (for example, laws against domestic violence and FGM), but this may be completely ineffective (UNHCR 2003b: 113). It may be considered that the perpetrator of the harm is a private actor or a state agent acting in a personal capacity (for example a soldier committing rape) and is therefore not considered an agent of persecution (Crawley 2001: 80). Women may be persecuted for the same reasons as men or for genderrelated reasons. Gender-related reasons include transgressing social, religious or cultural mores, including gender roles.Women who refuse to wear a veil, to marry a man chosen against their will by their family, or to accept population policies which impact directly on their bodies (Crawley 2001: 31) and are persecuted for doing so, are not persecuted solely because of their gender, but often because of their political opinion or religion. Recognising their actions, or their refusal to act, as political rather than private, is an important factor in establishing gender-sensitive RSD. Women are more likely than men to be engaged in the type of activity which some decision-makers fail to recognise as political, for example, the provision of food for rebel soldiers or, conversely, the refusal to provide food for government troops. The UNHCR Gender Guidelines state that activities are not inherently political or non-political; the context in which they take place is crucial to understanding how they are perceived by potential agents of persecution, both state and non-state.The Gender Guidelines state that:

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country of origin information should be collected that has relevance in women’s claims, such as the position of women before the law, the political rights of women, the social and economic rights of women, the cultural and social mores of the country and consequences for non-adherence, the prevalence of such harmful traditional practices, the incidence and forms of reported violence against women, the protection available to them, any penalties imposed on those who perpetrate the violence, and the risks that a woman might face on her return to her country of origin after making a claim for refugee status. (UNHCR 2002a, para. 36 (x), in Crawley and Lester 2004: 129).

The Gender Guidelines also offer guidance in establishing which forms of gender-specific harm can constitute persecution: International human rights law and international criminal law clearly identify certain acts as violations of these laws, such as sexual violence, and support their characterisation as serious abuses, amounting to persecution. In this sense, international law can assist decision-makers to determine the persecutory nature of a particular act. There is no doubt that rape and other forms of gender-related violence, such as dowry-related violence, female genital mutilation, domestic violence, and trafficking, are acts which inflict severe pain and suffering – both mental and physical – and which have been used as forms of persecution, whether perpetrated by State or private actors. (UNHCR 2002a para. 9, in Crawley and Lester 2004: 33).

Sexual violence is now recognised within international human rights law as falling within the definition of persecution. In 1992, the European Resolution on Temporary Protection for Bosnians specified sexual violations as a relevant criterion. This was the first time in a regional instrument that women had been identified as a group in need of protection if they had been subject to sexual assaults (Joly 1998: 57). The 1993 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) prohibits gender-based violence in the family, the community and workplace and at the hands of the state. Physical, sexual and psychological violence are all recognised as coming within the scope of the prohibition. In addition, the Rome Statute for an International Criminal Court includes an expanded definition of crimes against humanity that recognises gender-based persecution and crimes of sexual violence, including forced prostitution, forced sterilisation and forced pregnancy, as coming within its scope. Decision-makers frequently recognise that women have suffered serious harm and that the failure of effective state protection means that this constitutes persecution. However, women’s asylum claims often fail because this persecution is not believed to have taken place for one of the enumerated grounds. Some have argued in favour of introducing gender as a separate ground. Others have called for the recognition of women, or sub-groups of women, as a PSG. Crawley (2001: 62–3) argues, however, that the Convention already contains the means necessary to recognise as refugees women

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who have experienced gender-specific and gender-related persecution. This is often for reasons of actual or imputed political opinion.Women frequently find themselves attributed with the political opinions and allegiances of their male relatives and can be persecuted for this reason.Their refusal to conform to social, religious or cultural mores is also an expression of a contrary political opinion or may be perceived as such by agents of persecution, including members of their community or family (Crawley 2001: 80). Accelerated procedures also make it more difficult for women to recount their experiences (Joshi 2004: 14–15). It is therefore not just a question of refining or expanding the definition of the refugee; there are procedural issues too. European framework

Asylum came relatively late to the EU agenda, but prior developments meant that when it did arrive, it was framed as a security, rather than a rights, issue and closely linked to immigration control. Co-operation on internal security matters in the 1970s, notably member states’ responses to terrorism, expanded in the 1980s to include immigration, which was increasingly represented as a threat to the European Community.The goal of achieving a frontier-free Europe, which was embodied in the Schengen Agreement (1985), was claimed to require compensatory immigration and asylum measures, creating strong external borders around a single European space. The Ad Hoc Group on Immigration (comprising the ministers of justice and immigration of the then 12 member states of the EC) was established in London in 1986 in anticipation of the ratification of the Single European Act (1986). From this emerged the Dublin Convention (1990), which identifies the member state responsible for examining a particular asylum application and prevents asylum seekers from submitting claims for asylum in more than one member state. On 11 December 2000, the Council adopted a regulation (2725/2000/EC) concerning the establishment of ‘Eurodac’ for the comparison of fingerprints for the effective application of the Dublin Convention. Much of the early co-operation took place between interior ministers and officials outside the formal treaty structures. By 1997, the Schengen Agreement, which was originally made in 1985 between France, Germany and the Benelux countries, comprised 13 member states (all except the UK and Ireland) and two non-members (Norway and Iceland). In 2008, it comprised 22 EU members (not the UK and Ireland, nor the new members: Cyprus (2004), Bulgaria (2007) and Romania (2007)) and two non-EU members: Norway and Iceland.

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Common European asylum system

The commitment to establish a common EU policy on asylum and immigration was made at the first European Council Meeting on Justice and Home Affairs in Tampere in 1999. At this meeting, European leaders promised that a common European asylum system would be based on ‘the full and inclusive application of the Geneva Convention’. They underlined their ‘absolute respect of the right to seek asylum’ and reaffirmed that nobody should be sent back to persecution (Refugee Council 2003b). Four main legal instruments were adopted: The Reception Conditions Directive (Directive 2003/9/EC) to guarantee minimum standards for the reception of applicants for asylum in member states; the Procedures Directive (Directive 2005/85/EC) on minimum standards on procedures in member states for granting and withdrawing refugee status; the Qualification Directive (Directive 2004/83/EC) on minimum standards for the qualification and status of third country nationals or stateless persons as refugees or as persons who would otherwise need international protection and the content of the protection granted; and the Dublin Regulation (Regulation (EC) 343/2003) introducing a new set of criteria for determining which member state is responsible for a particular asylum claim. The Qualification Directive provides a common EU definition of who is a refugee and who is in need of subsidiary protection. It defines the rights of those whose need for protection is recognised. It recognises non-state actors of persecution, thus removing one of the differences between member states’ interpretations of the 1951 Convention. It also allows for the recognition as a refugee of those who have a well-founded fear of persecution on account of their sexual orientation or gender. However, it also refers to ‘non-state agents of protection’, opening up the possibility for the return of refugees to situations where the state is unable or unwilling to provide protection (Oxfam 2005a: 22). The Procedures Directive gives asylum applicants the right to remain in the EU country while the claim is assessed and gives basic guarantees in relation to examination and decision-making. UNHCR expressed concerns that the Procedures Directive could undermine international refugee law and drive down standards to the lowest common denominator (UNHCR 2005b). Concerns include the wide scope for accelerated procedures with limited rights of appeal, and limits to guarantees for the examination of applications at the border or in transit zones; and the determination of ‘safe third countries’ (UNHCR 2005b; see also Morris 2005; Oxfam 2005a: 24). Many states already keep ‘white lists’ of countries considered safe and routinely find applications from these countries ‘manifestly unfounded’. ‘Apart from the lack of transparency and the poor quality of information used, the very idea that a country can be deemed safe for everyone is problematic. It runs counter to the principle of asylum and the reality that individuals and certain

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groups may face persecution in seemingly safe places, and that ‘safe’ places may become rapidly ‘unsafe’ (Oxfam 2005a: 26). The Procedures Directive goes further, removing access to asylum procedures from those who have travelled through ‘safe third countries’. It also obliges member states to agree on a common list of safe countries, although agreement on this list has so far been fraught with difficulties. Critics claim that these measures threaten the right to a fair hearing and the fundamental principle of non-refoulement.They also threaten to shift responsibility for processing asylum claims to countries outside the EU, where standards of procedure and guarantees of protection may be lower and resources may be lacking (Oxfam 2005a: 24–5). Agreement of the Procedures Directive was difficult, and during the negotiations the UN High Commissioner for Refugees stated: ‘If Member States’ main preoccupation is to ensure that the Directive includes exceptions which safeguard their own national asylum provisions and objectives, I fear that this Directive will be reduced to a catalogue of optional provisions, including significant departures from accepted international refugee and human rights law’ (Oxfam 2005a: 24). The political will which drove the adoption of the 1951 Convention bears no comparison with the agendas of today’s EU member states’ ministers for immigration and asylum. Despite declarations of wholehearted support for the international protection of refugees, all are driven by concerns with restricting entry. Andrew Geddes (2003) argues that, by moving decision-making on immigration and asylum from the national to the European level, member states have been able to avoid domestic democratic scrutiny and apportion blame to a distant and poorly understood policy source. EU law takes precedence over national law in areas where it has jurisdiction, but this is not to say that it is imposed on the member state governments by an autonomous supranational body, particularly in areas as closely connected to national sovereignty as immigration and asylum. A study of the impact of the transposed Qualification Directive (Council Directive 2004/83/EC) found that in areas such as subsidiary protection or the use of the exclusion clauses, the directive has not reduced the level of protection provided to asylum seekers in the EU. Non-state actors of persecution have been recognised for the first time in some states. However, in some areas, standards have been lowered, particularly in relation to the definition of PSG or insufficient safeguards against refoulement (ECRE and ELENA 2008). The Hague Programme

The Hague Programme, adopted by the European Council in November 2004, set up the second phase instruments of the Common European Asylum System with a view to completion by 2010. It emphasises practical

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co-operation between member states and the external dimension of asylum (including Regional Protection Programmes, developed with UNHCR, intended to encourage protection in regions of origin and a resettlement programme). The European Pact on Immigration and Asylum was adopted in October 2008, committing the member states, amongst other things, to building ‘a Europe of asylum.’ This involves the creation in early 2009 of a European support office in order to unify asylum procedures and legal systems.A single asylum procedure is to be introduced by 2012 (Ministry for Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development 2008). Integration has risen up the EU agenda and is now clearly framed as a social cohesion issue. EU ministers responsible for integration met in Vichy in November 2008, as part of a series of initiatives on integration stimulated by the Hague Programme (2004) which stressed the need to coordinate national integration policies and EU measures.3 The European Ministerial Conference on Integration,Vichy, 3–4 November 2008, produced a declaration approved by the representatives of the member states. It states: The first common basic principle states that ‘integration is a dynamic, two-way process of mutual accommodation’ between immigrants and the host society, and that principle also highlights the proactive character of integration policies and generates rights and duties for the migrant as well as the need for a real effort on the part of the host society. (Council of the European Union 2008: 2)

The declaration allows for significantly different policies between member states, but sees the success of these policies guaranteeing ‘social cohesion and mutual enrichment for each member state of the EU’. Gender and the European framework

A 2004 survey of 41 European countries revealed that not one had incorporated the UNHCR gender guidelines into their own domestic law and policy (Joshi 2004: 4). Only two countries – Sweden (2001) and the UK (2004) – had produced their own gender guidelines, and eight had incorporated some gender-related points into their own policy (Norway, Lithuania, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Germany and the Czech Republic) (RWRP 2005a). Measures taken at the European level have addressed gender and asylum, but as is so often the case, those initiatives which have been the most radical in content, have been those which are the least binding in practice. They include European Parliament resolutions, Council of Europe recommendations, and NGO position papers. As early as 1984, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling upon member states to consider women who have been the victims of persecution as belonging to a ‘particular social group’ within the definition of the Refugee Convention and therefore qualifying for refugee status. This had

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little, if any, impact. In 1996, another European Parliament resolution urged all member States to adopt guidelines on women asylum seekers as agreed by the UNHCR executive committee, and emphasised that it is ‘crucial that sexual violence be recognised as a form of torture, particularly given the use of rape as a weapon of war and the cultural traditions of certain countries which involve gender persecution’ (Crawley 2001: 14–15). In 1997, the umbrella group of refugee NGOs, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), published a position paper on asylum seeking and refugee women. It argues that the interpretation of the 1951 Convention refugee definition should be reconsidered so that the claims of women are not precluded. It stresses that both political opinion and MPSG (membership of a particular social group) can and should provide a legal basis for recognition of women fleeing persecution as Convention refugees, and proposes that European guidelines on gender issues in asylum cases should be developed (ECRE 1997). Amongst the key conclusions, ECRE states that ‘a gender perspective should always be incorporated into decision-making regarding the “safety” of a country of origin; conditions justifying use of the cessation clause;[4] and the existence of an “internal flight alternative”’ (ECRE 1997). It calls for consultation with refugee women at all stages of policy and programme planning and calls on European governments to support the development of refugee women’s fora, associations and co-operatives. A Council of Europe recommendation urged member states to gender mainstream all work concerning migration in Europe and ensure that the specific needs of women migrants are taken into account (Recommendation 1732 (2006) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe). Recent concerns with integration have also prompted calls for action from the Council of Europe (Resolution 1478 (2006) on the Integration of Immigrant Women in Europe); the European Commission (Communication on ‘A Common Agenda for Integration: Framework for the Integration of TCNs in the European Union’ COM (2005) 389) and the Council of Ministers (Council of the European Union 2008). In contrast to these non-binding measures, the Qualification and Procedures Directives, which attempt to standardise decisions across the EU about who qualifies as a refugee and the procedure by which this decision is made, must be transposed into the law of each EU member state. The Directives have implications for women refugees.The Qualification Directive recognises sexual violence and gender-specific acts as persecution, and it recognises non-state agents of persecution. For EU countries in which this was not the case previously, this is a positive change.The implications of the Procedures Directive for women’s asylum claims appear less positive, however. Evidence introduced at a late stage can be evaluated negatively.This fails to take into account the difficulty that asylum seekers may experience in discussing evidence of sexual violence or gender-specific harm. This is

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aggravated by: the lack of provisions within the Directive for ensuring confidentiality, including in relation to male relatives; the extensive provision for the use of accelerated procedures, including in cases of sexual violence; and the provision for asylum applications to be submitted by one person on behalf of his or her dependants. Although this requires the consent of the adult dependant, in practice, women are unlikely to insist on submitting their own applications against the will of their husband, father or other male relative, especially if this would entail the disclosure of sexual violence or gender-related persecution (Joshi 2004). In 2007, the EU-level umbrella organisation for women’s NGOs, the European Women’s Lobby (EWL), and the UK organisation, RWRP, launched a project aimed at establishing EU-wide gender guidelines for asylum claims.The project argues that transposing the EU Qualification and Procedures Directives into national law will not on its own guarantee a gender-sensitive approach, and that the UNHCR gender guidelines should be adopted. The project has published a document explaining to member states how to use the UNHCR gender guidelines to interpret the EU directives (EWL and RWRP, Asylum is Not Gender Neutral: Protecting Women Seeking Asylum, EWL November 2007). UK

Until 1993, Britain had no statutory law on asylum. Entry and settlement in Britain were relatively unrestricted until the late nineteenth century, as a result of the need to replace the large numbers of emigrants to the colonies and the United States; and in response to the demand for labour during the industrial revolution. In addition, as Schuster and Solomos argue, granting asylum ‘fitted the dominant ideology of political and economic liberalism in Victorian Britain’ (Schuster and Solomos 1999: 52). Asylum served both economic and political interests and did not entail any costs. However, this approach changed after 1880, as British capitalism entered a period of decline, and economic crisis and high unemployment reduced the demand for labour.The 1905 Aliens Act was the first attempt to regulate the flow of entrants into Britain. Although it did not mention refugees specifically, it stated that entry should be permitted to those who sought it ‘solely to avoid persecution or punishment on religious or political grounds or for an offence of a political character or persecution involving a danger of imprisonment or danger to life or limb, on account of religious belief ’ (Schuster and Solomos 1999: 54). Asylum in Britain has always been an ex gratia act, granted at the discretion of the Home Office. Therefore it is susceptible to the whims of the holder of that office and of the government of the day. Schuster and Solomos (1999: 54) argue that this ‘reinforces the image of the British state as liberal

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– it does not have to grant asylum but it does – and implies that Britain is prepared to underwrite certain costs for the sake of certain liberal values’. This means, however, that the refugee is perceived as a burden to be tolerated for the sake of liberal values, rather than as a person who can make a positive contribution to society. Pressure to control immigration, by now largely from Commonwealth countries, grew in the 1950s, and the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 responded to this. By this time a distinction was being made between refugees (white and European) and immigrants (black and from the Commonwealth), and this distinction affected policy decisions about particular groups of arrivals in the 1950s and 1960s (Schuster and Solomos 1999: 57–8). Britain ratified the 1951 Convention in 1954, but did not introduce any legislation to anchor it in domestic law. Successive Conservative governments after Margaret Thatcher’s election in 1979 tightened restrictions on immigration and increased the power of the Home Office to control entry. Visa requirements were introduced for refugee-producing countries. The Carriers’ Liability Act 1987 made carriers liable for passengers who travel without papers or with incorrect papers, contravening ‘the spirit, if not the letter, of Article 31 of the 1951 Convention, which prohibits the imposition of penalties for unlawful entry’ (Schuster and Solomos 1999: 61).There was a growing discourse of ‘bogus asylum seekers swamping Britain’ and ‘sponging off the generous welfare system.’The recession of the early 1990s created a climate in which refugees were portrayed as illegal immigrants and benefit scroungers (Schuster and Solomos 1999: 64–5), and a series of increasingly restrictive laws was introduced: the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act (1993); Asylum and Immigration Act (1996); Immigration and Asylum Act (1999); Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act (2002); Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc.) Act (2004); and the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act (2006). UK law on refugees and asylum is currently contained in the 1951 UN Convention and its 1967 Protocol (Refugee Convention); the 1998 Human Rights Act; and the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act (2006). Current policy documents can be consulted on the website of the UK Border and Immigration Agency, which replaced the Immigration and Nationality Directorate in 2007. Entry to UK territory

The 1951 Refugee Convention explicitly states that refugees who have gained entry illegally or without the correct travel documents should not be penalised, since this is unavoidable for many people forced to flee and in fear of persecution. Since then and in particular since the mid-1970s, increasingly restrictive border controls have made it extremely difficult to enter many countries, hence the increase in reliance on smugglers and other illegal forms

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of entry. A series of measures introduced in UK law since 1993 have attempted to control the entry of asylum seekers.These measures: • • • • • • •

• •

•

•

•

introduced carrier sanctions (1993); permitted the fingerprinting of all asylum seekers and their dependants (1993); introduced a ‘white list’ of countries deemed safe (1996); created a new offence of knowingly assisting someone to gain entry or leave to remain in the UK using deception (1996); increased the powers of the police and immigration officers (1996); extended carrier sanctions to lorries and ships (1999); introduced a safe third country list including all EU countries, Canada and the US, Switzerland and Norway (1999) – asylum seekers who have travelled through one of these countries can be returned to it; introduced new visa requirements for people travelling to the UK from Zimbabwe (November 2002) and Jamaica (January 2003); introduced new technology for port operators to search freight containers and lorries bound for the UK in Calais and Coquelles and Vlissingen, Ostend and Zeebrugge (2003); introduced a requirement that a further 16 nationalities (June 2003) and 6 nationalities (October 2003) had Direct Airside Transit Visas (DATV) for the period of time spent waiting in the departures area of UK international airports for an onward connecting flight.At present, nationals of 43 countries or territories require a DATV to transit the UK.The list is under regular review and new countries are added where appropriate; enabled immigration officers to decide the admissibility of passengers prior to embarkation for the UK from the key ports of Calais, Dunkirk and Boulogne (February 2004); introduced two new offences: being undocumented without a reasonable explanation and failing to comply with the redocumentation process (September 2004).

Refugee status determination

Claims for asylum can be made either at the border or ‘in-country’.The way in which these claims are processed depends on where they are made, where the asylum seeker has come from, and whether or not the case is considered ‘manifestly unfounded’. Measures have been introduced to speed up decision-making. Legislation passed since 1993: • •

introduced fast-track schemes (1999); introduced ‘one-stop appeal’ where asylum seekers must raise all asylum, human rights and humanitarian issues relevant to their application at the same time (1999);

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•

• •

certified applications by ‘safe country’ (‘white list’) applicants as ‘clearly unfounded’ with no in-country right of appeal (2002).These applicants are fast-tracked through Oakington reception centre and, in most cases, appeals must be lodged within 28 days from the country of origin or a ‘safe’ third country; replaced two-tier adjudicator and tribunal appeals with a single Asylum and Immigration Tribunal in force since April 2005 (2004); created new criminal offences of not having, or having destroyed, travel documents (2004).

The ‘safe country list’ initially comprised EU accession states, but was extended to seven new countries in February 2003 (Albania, Bulgaria, Jamaica, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro) and a further seven in June 2003 (Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Ukraine).The designated countries are (2008) Albania, Jamaica, Macedonia, Moldova, Serbia and Montenegro, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, South Africa, Ukraine and India. Bangladesh was removed from the list in April 2005 following a legal challenge. Sri Lanka was removed in December 2006. In October 2005, the Home Office announced it would be further expanding the list to include Mongolia, Ghana (male applicants only) and Nigeria (male applicants only) (ICAR 2008). NGOs have questioned the safety of a number of these countries, as well as arguing that no country is safe for all at all times. The Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) implements the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950 (ECHR) and applies to all decisions made by immigration officers. It is particularly relevant in providing protection to people who risk being tortured should they be returned to their country of origin (Dumper 2005: 9). It has also been used to support claims for the protection of the family and the right to appeal. The New Asylum Model (NAM) was set out in the government’s fiveyear strategy, Controlling our Borders: Making Migration Work for Britain (February 2005). The strategy contained an outline plan for the reorganisation of the entire asylum determination process. It aimed to make the asylum determination process faster and fairer and to facilitate the deportation of asylum seekers whose claims are rejected. In the NAM, each case is assigned to a ‘segment’, defined by its probable success, whether it involves children, and how easy it is to remove the applicant if the application fails. The segment determines the timetable for decision-making, the type of accommodation offered and the system of monitoring. Each application is dealt with by a single case worker who makes the initial asylum decision, arranges accommodation and or support and refers the applicant on to integration services or return/removal services at the end of the process. The 2002 Act

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expedited the process of removing those whose claims have been refused. In September 2004 the prime minister pledged to double the number of failed asylum seekers removed from the UK by the end of 2005, and asylum was one of the key issues on which the 2005 parliamentary election was fought. Until April 2003, those whose need for protection was recognised, but did not meet the criteria stipulated in the Refugee Convention, could be granted Exceptional Leave to Remain (ELR) or Temporary Protection.5 They had similar rights to Convention refugees, but had no long-term residence rights and were expected to return. ELR was replaced in April 2003 by ‘Humanitarian Protection’ (HP) or ‘Discretionary Leave’ (DL). HP is granted when there is real risk of death, torture, or other inhuman or degrading treatment which falls outside the 1951 Convention. It is normally accompanied by leave to remain for three years, along with access to mainstream welfare and permission to work in the same way as someone with refugee status.At the end of the three-year period, the case is reviewed, and the period of protection may be extended, through Discretionary Leave or Indefinite Leave to Remain, or leave may be refused (Refugee Council 2003a). DL is granted to an applicant who does not qualify for refugee status or HP but cannot be removed. This may be because they have a serious medical condition making travel or return dangerous, or because removal would contravene their human rights. There may also be other practical or legal obstacles making removal impossible. DL is normally granted for a period of three years, but, as with HP, can be granted for shorter periods. For example, when an unaccompanied child under 18 is refused, a period of DL is granted for the period up until their 18th birthday. Those with DL also have full access to mainstream welfare and employment during the period of protection and are normally eligible to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain after six years (Refugee Council 2003a). These temporary forms of protection do not offer the same security as refugee status. This was illustrated in February 2005, for example, when an Albanian teenager, Blerim Mlloja, was arrested for deportation following his 18th birthday (Blake and Kirby 2005). Welfare and support

Measures introduced since 1993 have: • • • • •

removed benefits from in-country applicant (1996); removed access to child benefit (1996); restricted access to local authority housing (1996); restricted employment (1996) and then removed the right to work after six months (2002); introduced sanctions for employers employing someone using false or no documentation (1996);

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• • • •

established the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) and asylum support at 70 per cent of income support (1999); introduced dispersal (1999); refused NASS support to in-country applicants, if they do not apply ‘as soon as reasonably practicable’ (2002); denied support to families whose claims are refused (2004).

The 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act, based on the 1998 White Paper, withdrew asylum seekers from mainstream welfare provision and set up a separate asylum support system at 70 per cent of income support available to all asylum seekers whether they make their claim at a port or in-country.The NASS was established to administer the support. It introduced a voucher system, which was later withdrawn, and dispersal of asylum seekers away from London and the south-east, where demand for accommodation was deemed unsustainably high. Dispersal was intended to make the UK less attractive to asylum seekers and deter unfounded applications. After the withdrawal of the voucher system in April 2002, asylum seekers who would otherwise be left destitute received one of two types of package: a cash-only weekly allowance if they arranged to stay with relatives or friends, or a support package with accommodation in a designated dispersal area (Gill and Crawley 2003: 4). Section 55 of the 2002 Act, which came into force on 8 January 2003, prevented asylum seekers from receiving support from NASS if they had failed to apply for asylum ‘as soon as reasonably practicable’, even if that left them in danger of destitution (as they were not allowed to work6). In some cases, those who had applied within two days of their arrival were refused. There was no right of appeal (Kyambi 2005). The administrative court then had to make a high number of orders for the interim payment of benefit to asylum seekers refused NASS support and at risk of destitution. The voluntary sector was also put under additional pressure to provide support to those in this situation. A number of judicial reviews were lodged resulting in a partial defeat for the government concerning its obligations under Article 3 of the ECHR, which guarantees shelter as a ‘basic amenity’.The government appeal against the decision on 18 March resulted in a further clarification of the ‘as soon as reasonably practicable’ criteria that NASS was operating and an overhaul of NASS procedures as a result. In July 2003, a High Court judgement ruled that the failure of the Home Office to offer support to three asylum seekers amounted to a breach of its obligations under Article 3 of the ECHR. The Home Office was again given leave to appeal. The appeal, held on 21 May 2004, upheld the original ruling that Section 55 was illegal and in contravention of Article 3 of the ECHR (Griffiths, Sigona and Zetter 2005: 48–9). In November 2005, the House of Lords held that the home secretary was breaching the fundamental human rights of asylum seekers by denying them

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welfare support if they have not applied for asylum within a ‘reasonable’ delay.They found that this policy subjected asylum seekers to ‘inhuman and degrading treatment’ (RWRP 2005c). All asylum seekers whose applications have been refused and whose appeal rights are exhausted are required to leave the UK. Where this is not immediately possible, for example for medical reasons, they can apply for support under Section 4 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Section 4 ‘hard cases’ support provides accommodation on a no-choice basis, and food or vouchers, but no cash. It is intended to alleviate some forms of destitution, but is conditional on an agreement to take ‘all reasonable steps to return’ (Women’s Asylum News 69, Sept/Oct 2007: 5; Refugee Action 2006: 26). Detention

Detention is an administrative process and not a criminal sanction. Asylum seekers and migrants, including children, can be detained at any stage of their claim to remain in the UK, for any reason and with no time limits. A UNHCR study suggests that the UK detains more people for longer periods and with less judicial supervision than any comparable country in Europe. The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 further extended powers to authorise and prolong detention by allowing Home Office caseworkers to decide to detain someone (Gill and Crawley 2003: 5). On 29 December 2007, 2095 people were detained in the UK solely under Immigration Act powers, 1820 of whom were male, 275 female, and 35 children (Council of Europe 2008: 4). Of these 1455 had sought asylum at some stage (Council of Europe 2008: 2). The commissioner writes, ‘it is of particular concern that current UK legislation provides for no maximum time of administrative detention under Immigration Act powers and no automatic judicial oversight of the detention prolongation’ (Council of Europe 2008: 4). Amnesty International claims that, despite the decline in the numbers of people claiming asylum in the UK (UNHCR reported a 61 per cent decline in 2003–05), ‘the number of those detained solely under Immigration Act powers in the UK who have claimed asylum at some stage, including families with children, has increased. Between 1997 and 2005, capacity in immigration detention facilities, excluding short-term holding facilities, trebled’ (Amnesty International 2005: 3). Amnesty argues that detention is not only used as a last resort, as the Home Office claims. It states: ‘Detention is an extreme sanction for people who have not committed a criminal offence. It violates one of the most fundamental human rights protected by international law, the right to liberty’ (Amnesty International 2005: 6). The introduction in 2000 of a new asylum determination procedure, Detained Fast Track (DFT), has increased the use of detention. In 2003, a system sometimes referred to as ‘super fast track’ was set up for men at Harmondsworth IRC

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(immigration removal centre) and in 2005 for women at Yarl’s Wood IRC. In this system, people remain in detention throughout the asylum application and appeals process. The government’s five-year strategy, published in 2005, contained plans for up to 30 per cent of new claimants to be processed in detention. The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Thomas Hammarberg, expressed concerns about DFT and whether these complex decisions could be made this quickly. He also expressed concerns about the UK Border Agency’s commitment to expanding immigration detention facilities, and encouraged the UKBA to pursue further its efforts to provide alternatives to detention for families and children (Council of Europe 2008). He also stressed that asylum seekers should be kept in reception centres, not in detention or removal centres. He noted that ‘the UK does not apply to detention centres the Council Directive 2003/9/EC on minimum standards for the reception of asylum seekers’ (Council of Europe 2008: 4). This was contested in the response by the UKBA, however. In addition, the government’s suicide prevention strategy for prisons does not apply to detention and removal centres. Between 2002 and 2007, fifteen people committed suicide in immigration detention. Independent inspectors repeatedly criticise health services in these centres, which do not meet the standards within the prison service (Athwal and Bourne 2007: 106). UK integration

UK integration policy and practice over the last 40 years has been situated within a context established in 1965 by Roy Jenkins, then Labour home secretary, when he claimed that integration could not take place without guaranteeing equality of opportunity and the promotion of a culturally diverse society. Current UK debates on integration focus not only on newly arrived migrants but also on established ethnic minority communities and particularly the country’s Muslim communities due to the events of 7/7 (2005) and the outbreaks of urban violence which took place in 2001 in the northern English towns of Oldham, Bradford and Burnley, in areas with large Muslim populations. The British debates, focusing on the apparent incompatibility between Islam and liberal democracy or Muslims and British society, have had the effect of revealing a shift in government thinking so that today the onus for integration is being placed squarely on the shoulders of immigrant and ethnic minority communities and particularly on those of Muslim background. Integration is seen more as a one-way process in which immigrants must fit in with the majority population in order to prove their ‘Britishness’. The government conceptualisation of integration has moved away from Jenkins’s liberal, multiculturalist orthodoxy towards more assimilationist thinking. Since 2002, a series of UK policy documents has addressed the question

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of social cohesion directly. The 2002 White Paper ‘Secure Borders, Safe Haven’ referred explicitly to the 2001 disturbances in Bradford, Oldham and Burnley, which showed ‘fractured and divided communities, lacking a sense of common values or shared civic identity to unite around’ (Griffiths, Sigona and Zetter 2005: 214).The 2001 Cantle Report commissioned by the home secretary in the aftermath of the riots in Oldham and Burnley in 2001; the Denham Report, Building Cohesive Communities: A Report of the Ministerial Group on Public Order and Community Cohesion; and the 2003 Crick Report, The New and the Old: The Report of the ‘Life in the UK’ Advisory Group, all suggest that the main obstacles to social cohesion are a lack of shared values and the ‘fragmentation and polarisation of communities’. They all stress the importance of participation in voluntary associations in order to achieve social cohesion (Griffiths, Sigona and Zetter 2005: 216). This will be discussed in more detail in Chapters 5 and 6. In 2004, the head of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE),Trevor Phillips, first delivered what many regarded as a ‘bombshell statement’ when he declared that multiculturalism should be scrapped because it encouraged separateness and that there was an urgent need to ‘assert a core of Britishness’ throughout migrant/ethnic minority communities (Baldwin and Rozenberg 2004). Since then Phillips has followed up these first remarks denouncing multiculturalism with more controversial views, stating that Muslims who favoured Sharia (Muslim) law should leave Britain (Bowcott 2006) and that Britain’s ethnic minority communities were ‘sleepwalking [their] way to segregation’ (CRE 2005) . Phillips’s statements caused shock and dismay among migrant support organisations and community associations, not because no-one had said these things before but because, as head of the CRE, his brief was to champion multiculturalism through the elimination of race discrimination, the promotion of equal opportunities and the fostering of good relations between Britain’s diverse communities, and also because of a largely unspoken sense of betrayal that one of the few black men in a highly visible position in British society had used that position to make the kind of attacks long associated with racist and far-right groups. Phillips’s comments were taking up themes of segregation and integration that had underpinned the official, government-commissioned report into the northern city riots of 2001 (Home Office 2001). Since the 7/7 London bombings, the debates over multiculturalism, segregation and integration have intensified. The Home Office paper ‘Full and Equal Citizens’ (2001) indicated a number of areas where integration is to be encouraged, although without offering a formal definition of the term. Stephen Castles writes,‘There is no single, generally accepted definition, theory or model of immigrant and refugee integration. The concept continues to be controversial and hotly debated’ (Ager and Strang 2008: 166). Ager and Strang argue that it is

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problematic to see achievement in areas such as employment, education, housing and health solely as ‘markers’ of integration, and that they also clearly serve as potential means to support the achievement of integration. The Home Office has nevertheless identified eight indicators of integration, covering each of the three themes: achieving full potential; contributing to communities; and accessing services. The indicators relate to employment, English-language attainment, volunteering, contact with community associations, take-up of British citizenship, housing standards, reporting of racial, cultural or religious harassment, and access to education. (Home Office 2005: 9) The Refugee Integration Strategy was set out in Full and Equal Citizens (2001) and updated in Integration Matters (2005). It stresses the importance of training, employment and English language skills. The government established the National Refugee Integration Forum (NRIF) in 2000 and introduced measures aimed at improving access to the labour market for new refugees, who are even more likely than other ethnic minorities to be unemployed or clustered in sectors with low pay and poor employment prospects (Bloch 2004: 11).The Refugee Integration Strategy also stated that participation in the community contributes to refugee integration. Finally, it drew attention to the negative impact on integration of racism, hostility and negative media coverage. Critics argued that this is not surprising given the nature and tone of immigration and asylum policy which attempts to deter asylum seekers at every stage, refuses to instigate any integration measures until they have received a positive decision, and contributes to a hostile and fearful climate of distrust towards asylum seekers (Griffiths et al. 2005: 55–6). The term ‘integration’ began to replace ‘settlement’ in UK legislative and policy documents in the mid-1990s, appearing in the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act and the policy documents outlining a Refugee Integration Strategy. It was then gradually and reluctantly adopted by NGOs.The 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act introduced a national policy framework which increased the role of NGOs and the voluntary sector, accorded a minor role to refugee community associations, and charged local authority consortia with administering dispersal and developing regional integration strategies (Griffiths et al. 2005: 53). The Refugee Integration Strategy has developed since 2000 and emphasises the importance of empowering refugees to ‘achieve their full potential as members of British society, to contribute fully to the community, and to become fully able to exercise their rights and responsibilities that they share with other residents’. Sunrise (Strategic Upgrade of National Refugee Integration Services) was a pilot project introduced to deliver the Home Office Refugee Integration Strategy, Integration Matters (2005). Within this scheme, new refugees worked together with a voluntary sector caseworker for 28 days to manage the transition from asylum seeker to refugee, and focusing in

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particular on housing, health, child education, benefits and employment.The key objectives of the scheme were, according to the Home Office, ‘to facilitate smoother and quicker integration’ and to enable them ‘to meet their full potential and contribute to the community as soon as possible’ (www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/ind/en/home/laws___policy/refugee_integra tion0/sunrise__strategic0.html). Sunrise projects ran from 2005–08 in Glasgow, Leeds/Sheffield, West London and Manchester, and were then replaced by a national Refugee Integration and Employment Service (RIES), which offers 12 months support to people granted refugee status or HP. It has three elements: an advice and support service for help with education, housing and benefits; an employment advice service; and a mentoring service. The UKBA introduced in 2007 an integration loan scheme for new refugees and those granted HP (but not Indefinite Leave to Remain).The interest free loans are intended to be spent on the deposit for accommodation; essential items for the home; vocational training; tools of a trade, etc. The training and employment subcommittee of the NRIF is chaired by Employability Forum, an independent umbrella organisation which promotes the skills and experience of refugees in the UK. It brings together employers, government departments and agencies, voluntary and refugee associations to explore practical initiatives to support the integration of refugees into the UK labour market. It aims to influence public policy on refugee integration and employment; to develop a strategy for the training and employment of refugees; and to promote understanding about the employment of refugees in the UK. The employment subgroup has representatives from national and local government, voluntary and refugee associations, further education colleges and employers. The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) laid out its key strategies for helping refugees into the labour market in its document ‘Working to Rebuild Lives: A Refugee Employment Strategy’. It outlines the local development of stakeholder partnerships to plan and deliver employment services to refugees. It introduces measures to move more unemployed refugees into Jobcentre Plus support quickly after they receive refugee status; and to ensure that Jobcentre Plus gives them the help they need to find sustainable work. It also stresses the role of the voluntary sector in developing opportunities to help refugee professionals towards work appropriate to their skills’ (DWP 2004: 9). Measures in place from April 2004 include the introduction of Immigration Status Documents, which confirm permission to work; the issuing of National Insurance numbers with the Home Office decision letter; the coordination of the Home Office, Jobcentre Plus and the voluntary sector support agencies to ensure that the Gateway Protection Programme Refugees access the Jobcentre Plus service as soon as possible after arrival; the

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introduction by Jobcentre Plus of a voluntary refugee marker on its Labour Market System (LMS); and the screening of all customers for literacy, numeracy and language needs (DWP 2004: 28). Refugee and other NGOs insist that integration begins on the day of arrival and should include immediate access to English language classes, vocational training, and the right to work. The Refugee Council writes, ‘Paradoxically, assistance with integration also gives people the confidence to choose voluntary return where and when that is appropriate’ (Refugee Council 2004b: 14).A 2008 High Court ruling which states that current laws preventing an asylum seeker from working are incompatible with the ECHR could set a precedent for other asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected, but who cannot be returned to their home countries because they are considered too dangerous (Hinsliff 2008). UK gender

In a comparative study published by the UNHCR in 2004, Crawley and Lester found that, on paper, the UK had ‘one of the most explicitly gendersensitive approaches to refugee status determination in Europe’, but in practice, ‘protection for those claiming gender-related persecution may not be as forthcoming as this evidence suggests’ (Crawley and Lester 2004: 3). The UK publishes gender-differentiated statistics on asylum applications and first-instance decisions.There are gender guidelines for interviewing officers and decision-makers. Case law recognises non-state agents of persecution and defines MPSG. However, studies of the implementation of these measures and the attitudes of relevant decision-makers show that much remains to be done. The introduction of gender guidelines was the result of pressure by civil society organisations. The Refugee Women’s Legal Group, comprising women lawyers, case workers and advisers from a number of NGOs, produced a set of Gender Guidelines for the determination of asylum claims in the UK in 1998.These drew on the US, Canadian and Australian Gender Guidelines, and in turn formed the basis of the Immigration Appellate Authority (IAA) Gender Guidelines which were published in 2000 (Crawley and Lester 2004: 27). The IAA was, until the law of 2004, responsible for hearing appeals against asylum decisions. Crawley and Lester (2004: 29) describe the IAA Gender Guidelines as: the most comprehensive official Gender Guidelines in Europe: They refer to legislation, case law and academic sources to address gender sensitive interpretations of persecution (including by non-State agents), Convention grounds and procedural issues, including equal access to procedures, sensitive interviewing techniques and assessment of credibility.

However, it should be noted that first-instance decision-makers are not

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bound by the IAA Gender Guidelines, and, in contrast to Canada, where decision-makers are required to refer to the national Gender Guidelines, there has been some debate about whether UK appeals decision-makers have to refer to them. A study of the implementation of the IAA Gender Guidelines found that they were not being integrated into the mainstream asylum decision-making process even at appeal level: ‘The majority of legal representatives interviewed said that the guidelines were to be used in specific cases and none of them, amongst the cases observed, referred to the guidelines as a matter of course’ (RWRP 2005b). In 2004, the Home Office published guidance on gender issues in the asylum claim as part of its Asylum Policy Instructions (APIs) for interviewers and caseworkers. This guidance on assessing claims also refers caseworkers and interviewers to the IAA Gender Guidelines for further information. Again, this guidance draws heavily on the guidelines produced by the Refugee Women’s Legal Group in 1998 (Crawley and Lester 2004: 29–31). In theory, then, the Home Office guidance on gender issues in the asylum claim (2004), which forms part of the APIs for interviewers and caseworkers, together with the IAA Gender Guidelines (2000), provide a gender-sensitive approach to refugee status determination. They recognise gender-related and gender-specific forms of persecution; the seriousness of sexual violence, which can constitute persecution; discrimination as potentially constituting persecution; non-state agents of persecution; and the wide range of activities that may constitute political acts. They recognise that failure to conform to religious or social mores can constitute the basis for a successful asylum claim (IAA 2000). It can result in persecution for religious reason or political reasons, whether real or imputed.This includes resistance to gender oppression and to institutionalised discrimination against women. The Home Office (Gender Issues in the Asylum Claim 2004, paragraph 43) notes that non-conformist behaviour in certain cultures such as refusing to wear a veil, pursuing an education or choosing a partner could lead to a woman having a political opinion attributed to her. UK case law also contains ground-breaking decisions in gender-based cases. The House of Lords decision on the Shah and Islam case (1999) defined MPSG in UK law and is referred to in the Home Office APIs and its guidance on Gender Issues in the Asylum Claim. It found that Shah and Islam were persecuted for belonging to a PSG of women in Pakistan who are discriminated against and as a group are unprotected by the State (Crawley and Lester 2004: 74-5).The House of Lords found that this group, whose unifying characteristics included gender, suspicion of adultery and lack of protection, existed independently of the persecution (Crawley 2001: 77). It established that members of a PSG are defined by an immutable characteristic; that members of a PSG do not need to be cohesive; nor do all members need to be persecuted; and that the PSG cannot be defined by the persecution it faces, but

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discrimination faced by the group can be considered part of what defines it (Crawley and Lester 2004: 93). However, the decisions of the courts demonstrate that there is still a reluctance to recognise the link between the often undisputed serious harm and one of the Convention grounds. For example, although the UK courts recognise the seriousness of rape, they do not always recognise its link with a Convention reason, even when it takes place in detention (Crawley and Lester 2004: 44). The case of Rose Najjemba (2003) has gone some way towards changing this view. This was the case of a Ugandan woman whose claim for asylum on the basis of rape by the soldiers who then took away her son was initially rejected on the grounds that it was an act of sexual gratification on the part of the soldiers. Following a campaign by Women Against Rape (WAR) and intervention by the government minister, Beverley Hughes, Ms Najjemba was accorded refugee status on the grounds that the rape was not an act of sexual gratification but a form of serious harm perpetrated by agents of the state and constituting persecution under the terms of the Convention (Dumper 2008: 14–18). FGM is recognised as a form of serious harm which, if accompanied by failure of effective state protection, constitutes persecution. The link with a Convention ground, MPSG, has been recognised in a number of influential court rulings, which have accorded refugee status to women and girls at risk of FGM in their country of origin (for example, Fornah v. Secretary of State for the Home Department 20057).Two UK cases which came before the AIT (Asylum and Immigration Tribunal) in 2007, however, took into account options for internal flight as an alternative to asylum. In FK (FGM) Risk and Relocation Kenya CG (2007), the AIT found that relocation was an option and asylum was refused. In FM (FGM) Sudan CG (2007) UKAIT00060, the AIT found that there was a serious risk of FGM for the appellant’s two daughters if they were returned to Sudan and that internal flight was not an option in this case (Dumper 2008: 14–18). Non-state agents of persecution are formally recognised where the state is unable or unwilling to provide effective protection, but asylum refusals analysed by RWRP in 2003 found that one of the most frequent reasons for rejecting an asylum claim was that the abuser was not a state agent or was a state agent acting outside his authority (Ceneda 2003: 107). The RWRP concluded in its analysis of asylum decisions (2003) that Home Office decision-makers display ‘an inability or unwillingness […] to accept a broader definition of political opinion or imputed political opinion to include opposition to social mores and other forms of institutionalised discrimination against women [or to] interpret such opposition as a political act’ (Ceneda 2003: 111). In 2006, RWRP published an assessment of the implementation of the Home Office guidance on Gender Issues in the Asylum Claim added to the

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APIs for caseworkers in March 2004 (Ceneda and Palmer 2006: 11). It found that: A few examples of good practice were identified but the overwhelming impression was one of a lack of awareness of gender issues and of the Guidance not being followed by decision-makers; in the view of respondents, there was generally a poor understanding by decision makers of the Refugee Convention, particularly in relation to women’s experiences. There was also a lack of knowledge of women’s situation and status in countries of origin, which was exacerbated by the generally poor quality of country information provided to decision-makers on women’s issues; many problems were identified with the interviewing procedures including lack of provision of female interviewers and interpreters. This had a serious impact on the ability of women to tell their stories in full, especially when they had experienced sexual violence; respondents identified a culture of disbelief at the Home Office, which, when combined with ignorance or bias against women, had a particularly severe impact on fair decision-making. The effects of trauma on recounting events were often not taken into account and in fact were occasionally used against claimants.

In 2006, the Home Office revised a number of APIs, partly in response to the European Council Directive (2004/83/EC) of 29 April 2004 on minimum standards for the qualification and status of third-country nationals or stateless persons as refugees or as persons who otherwise need international protection (the Qualification Directive). This Directive has been transposed into UK law through the Refugee or Person in need of International Protection (Qualification) Regulations 2006 as well as changes to the immigration rules. It applies to all asylum and human rights claims since 9 October 2006. The revised APIs recognise sexual violence, discriminatory acts and acts of a gender-specific nature other than sexual violence as persecution.They also recognise non-state agents of persecution (Women’s Asylum News, 64, October 2006, 5–7). In September 2006, the AIT removed from its website the asylum Gender Guidelines adopted by the IAA in 2000. According to the AIT’s president, Henry Hodge, the guidelines are not, and never have been, the policy of the AIT (Women’s Asylum News, 66, January/February 2007, 8–9). In response to a question in the House of Lords, parliamentary under-secretary of state for constitutional affairs, Baroness Ashton, stated that, ‘The gender guidelines produced in 2000 are out of date in respect of reference to the law and have been replaced by a growing body of jurisprudence. The guidelines were originally designed to provide guidance for the Immigration Appellate Authority (the predecessor to the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal) in considering asylum seekers’ claims under the refugee convention.They have not at any time had binding authority on the AIT’ (Ashton 2007).

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All public bodies have had to comply with the Gender Equality Duty since April 2007. This requires them to consider whether their policies and services have a different impact on women and men and to make adjustments accordingly. The UKBA produced a Diversity Equality Scheme and Action Plan in April 2007 as a first step in meeting its obligations. Asylum Aid has called on UKBA to build on this to ensure women asylum seekers’ needs are met (Asylum Aid 2008). Access to procedures

Women’s access to asylum procedures is not guaranteed and can be inhibited by a number of factors. In contrast to France, where each adult family member is required to lodge their own asylum claim, in the UK, this is optional.Assumptions by the Home Office and by husbands or male relatives that women do not need to make their own claims, combined with lack of information on the right to privacy and confidentiality, difficulties accessing good legal representation and the need for child care, mean that women can be deprived of separate access to asylum procedures, even when their claim is more likely to succeed than that of their husband or male relative (Ceneda 2003; Crawley and Lester 2004: 103–4). Women may be particularly harshly affected by measures introduced in the Immigration and Asylum Act 2004, which make it a criminal offence not to possess, without ‘reasonable excuse’, a valid document showing identity and nationality when first interviewed by an immigration officer after arriving in the UK. Any person found guilty of this offence may face a fine and/or imprisonment for up to two years. Children over the age of ten can be prosecuted. In addition to the difficulties faced by all those fleeing from persecution, which include the impossibility of obtaining a passport from the authorities responsible for these acts of persecution, women are less likely to have access to their own travel or identity documents.They are also less likely to be able to obtain a passport, as they commonly need permission of their husband/father/brother (Refugee Council 2004b: 2–3). Asylum applicants from countries deemed ‘safe’ by the UK government are fast-tracked in a way which makes it difficult for women to gain enough confidence to report rape and torture (Refugee Council 2005a: 3). If they are fast-tracked and their claim is rejected, they have no right of appeal in the UK. However, many of the countries on the ‘white list’ have a severe trafficking problem and some fail to protect women from human rights violations (ICAR 2007: 8). RWRP research finds that Home Office country of origin information pays little, if any, attention to the extent and nature of gender-based persecution. RWRP also finds that in many countries, information on access to protection against women’s rights abuses is generally scarce.The RWRP argues that in the Home Office reports, the specific risks for women are masked by the overall description of the country as one

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where ‘there is in general … no serious risk of persecution’.The country is thus considered ‘safe’, whilst ignoring evidence which shows that women asylum seekers generally face disproportionate lack of protection in their countries of origin due to the lack of women’s rights in general.This lack of information on women’s rights and access to protection often leads to a failure of protection in the UK, especially but not exclusively at initial decision-making level. Often only on appeal can this failure to provide them with international protection be redressed. In ‘Women asylum seekers in the UK’, RWRP showed that in two-thirds of cases protection was only granted after appeal (RWRP 2004: 13).This means that attacks on the right to appeal may have particularly harsh effects on women. France

Initially a religious prerogative, asylum was gradually secularised during the sixteenth century, and the crime of lèse majesty (treason) acquired a positive meaning if committed against a tyrant. The 1793 Constitution accorded asylum to foreigners banished from their land in the defence of liberty (OFPRA 2005b).As nations were constructed during the nineteenth century (Italy, Poland, Spain, Portugal), France welcomed a number of ‘exiles’ as they were called before the introduction of the term ‘refugee’ in the 1830s. France signed the Geneva Convention in 1952 in line with the principles laid out in the preamble of the 1946 Constitution: ‘Tout homme persécuté en raison de son action en faveur de la liberté a droit d’asile sur les Territoires de la République’ (OFPRA 2005b). Law no. 52-893 of 23 July 1952 established the Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides (OFPRA) and its appeal court, the Commission des Recours des Réfugiés (CRR).The Ordinance of 2 November 1945 set out the conditions of entry and residence of foreigners in France, and was amended by the Acts of 1981, 1984, 1986, 1989, 1992, 1993 and 1994.The Act of 11 May 1998 transferred all the provisions related to the right to asylum from the Ordinance of 2 November 1945 on the conditions of entry and residence of foreigners in France to the Act of 25 July 1952, defining the status of the OFPRA, which was renamed the Asylum Act.The law of December 2003 modified the law of 25 July 1952 and led to the creation of the Code on the Admission and Residence of Foreigners and the Right to Asylum (CESEDA). This came into force on 1 March 2005, bringing together all aspects of the law on the entry and residence of foreigners and asylum, and replacing the Ordinance of 2 November 1945. The legal basis for asylum consists of: •

the Preamble of the 1946 Constitution, reiterated in the current Constitution of 1958;

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• •

•

the Geneva Convention of 1951 and the New York Protocol of 1967; the Schengen Agreement and the Dublin Convention. A new section was added to the French Constitution by the Constitutional Act of 25 November 1993, whereby asylum applications submitted in France may not be examined when they fall within the scope of these agreements. Dublin II (Regulation CE343/2003) determines the EU state responsible for considering the asylum claim of a TCN; the CESEDA, resulting from the law of 10 December 2003 (Loi de Villepin) and the law of 26 November 2003 (Loi Sarkozy), a number of decrees in 2004 and 2005, a circular in 2005, and the reforms of 2006 (Loi Sarkozy) and 2007 (Loi Hortefeux).

Refugee status can be granted in accordance with the 1951 Refugee Convention or in accordance with the constitution, according to the Asylum Act of 11 May 1998 and granted by OFPRA or the CRR to persons ‘fighting for freedom’ but not qualified as Convention refugees. Territorial asylum, which was introduced in 1998 and removed in December 2003, was granted, at the discretion of the minister of the interior, to a person whose life or freedom are at risk or who fears treatment contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Subsidiary protection was introduced by the law of 10 December 2003, modifying that of the 25 July 1952 on the right to asylum (Article L. 712-1). OFPRA may accord this protection to asylum seekers whose claim it deems not to fall within the criteria of the Geneva Convention, but who can prove that they risk death, torture or degrading or inhuman treatment if they return to their country of origin. Subsidiary protection is considered together with refugee status in one hearing. It is granted for one year in the first instance and is renewable. Those who are granted it receive a temporary residence permit for themselves, their spouse and underage children, and are allowed to work (OFPRA 2004a). Asylum claims can be made at the border or in-country. Since 1992, undocumented asylum seekers arriving at an airport or seaport can be kept in a ‘waiting zone’ and held in detention. In 1994, the concept of ‘waiting zones’ was extended to railway stations and international traffic.These spaces are outside French territory, and decisions on admissibility to France and to the asylum process are made there. In the report on his visit to France as Council of Europe (CoE) commissioner for human rights, Gil-Robles (2006: 48) comments that ‘the authorities seemed to take the view that they were not part of French territory […] a circumstance which gives these zones an uncertain legal status which should be remedied as soon as possible so as to dispel the legal ambiguity with which they are surrounded.’ Applications are examined by an OFPRA official who decides whether they are ‘manifestly unfounded’ or not. This decision is the basis either for

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admission to France and to the asylum procedure or for immediate expulsion. In June 2005, only 18.7 per cent of those who tried to enter the country in this way were admitted (Gil-Robles 2006: 51–2). Amnesty has criticised the difficulty gaining access to asylum procedures, with many decisions made at the border, refusing entry, asylum application and appeal (Amnesty International Section Française 2005: 2). Article L. 741-4.2 of CESEDA states that asylum seekers from countries of origin considered safe will not be admitted to the country, although they will have their claims examined. In 2005, OFPRA adopted a list of 12 ‘safe’ countries of origin. A year later, five more countries were added. Included on the list were countries which had recently produced a high number of recognised refugees, such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, which had produced 2000 asylum seekers in 2004, 67.4 per cent of whom were recognised as refugees (UCIJ 2007: 56). Concerns about whether countries could be considered safe were expressed by NGOs and Gil-Robles (2006: 58). Carriers’ sanctions, introduced in 1992, and transit visas, in 1995, have reduced the number of undocumented asylum seekers who arrive at the French border. Fast-track procedures are used for asylum seekers whose applications the OFPRA has refused to register and who have been notified they are not allowed to stay; who are in a holding centre; or who come from countries regarded as ‘safe’. In 2002, 8.3 per cent of applications were treated in this way; in the first five months of 2005, 18 per cent. In this procedure, deadlines are short, applications are dealt with quickly, and, until 2007, appeals did not have a suspensive effect on expulsion (Gil-Robles 2006: 59). The reform initiated by the law of 10 December 2003 and the decree of 14 August 2004 profoundly changed the procedure for examining asylum claims, increasing the number of exceptions and shortening time limits (UCIJ 2007: 55).Accelerated procedures are instigated when applications are considered fraudulent or abusive, when they are made in detention, when the applicant comes from a ‘safe’ country of origin (Article L. 741-4 of CESEDA). In this procedure, applicants do not receive benefits, and their claim is considered within 15 days (four days for those in detention). The decree of 30 May 2005 removes the right to an interpreter, even though the form must be completed in French (Amnesty International Section Française 2005: 4). Until 2007, appeals against these decisions were non-suspensive. Since the ruling of the ECHR in April 2007,8 asylum seekers refused entry to the French asylum procedure at the border have had 48 hours to appeal against this decision.The appeal must be written in French.The prefectures have a lot of discretion in deciding whether or not to fast-track individual claims, which means they are effectively making decisions in the place of OFPRA and the CRR/CNDA. Gil-Robles found that these accelerated procedures lack the same guarantees as the main asylum procedure and severely limit applicants’ chances of success (Gil Robles 2006: 53-4):

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This means that applicants who do not have the necessary language skills have to employ a translator at their own expense, which is a very costly process. Asylum seekers who have no French, or not enough to draft a coherent, structured text, have drastically reduced chances compared to French-speaking applicants.

NGOs have long demanded quicker decision-making, which used to take up to two years.The decree of 14 August 2004 reduced the time limit in which asylum claims must be lodged with OFPRA to 21 days for normal procedure; 15 days for priority procedure; 5 days for claims made in detention and 8 days for re-examination. On 20 November 2005, the Comité interministériel de contrôle de l’immigration announced the reduction of the time limit for an appeal to the CRR from one month to fifteen days (Amnesty International Section Française 2005: 5). These time limits make it very difficult for asylum seekers to gather the information and legal advice they need. Non-French speakers are particularly disadvantaged, as the claim must be made in French and all evidence translated at the expense of the asylum seeker. The decree of 30 May 2005 requires asylum seekers in detention to pay for their own translators in order to complete the OFPRA form, which since August 2004 has had to be submitted in French (Stewart and Giovannoni 2005). The 2007 law on immigration and integration transferred competence for asylum decisions from the minister for foreign affairs to the minister for immigration, integration, national identity and co-development (MIIINDS). It also introduced the possibility of appeal after rejection of application at the border within 48 hours and with suspensive effect.This replaced non-suspensive appeal with no time limit. Finally, it replaced the CRR with a Cour nationale du droit d’asile. Welfare

Cutbacks in welfare provision since the late 1980s, combined with more restrictive asylum policies, have reduced the rights of asylum seekers, who in 1991 lost their automatic right to work. Until 2006, asylum seekers were able to choose to accept welfare benefits which contributed to their living expenses or to accept accommodation, where available, in Centres d’Accueil pour Demandeurs d’Asile (CADA). CADA were largely managed by the NGO, France Terre d’Asile. Accommodation in the reception centres was neither compulsory nor automatic. The number of places was severely limited and applicants were placed on a waiting list if they could produce a temporary residence permit granted by the local authorities. Asylum seekers were not entitled to housing benefit because this required the possession of a six-month residence permit, and they could only obtain a three-month renewable one. Food and shelter in the reception centres was provided free

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of charge.The government had a policy of dispersing asylum seekers amongst the CADA throughout the country. Given limited facilities, many asylum seekers lived outside the CADA where they were free to choose their area and accommodation.They received social security and medication, wherever they lived. All asylum seekers were entitled to a ‘waiting allowance’ paid in one instalment, and those who lived outside reception centres were entitled to a monthly integration allowance for a maximum of 12 months (Zetter et al. 2003). Prior to 2004, immigrants with no legal status were entitled to aide médicale d’etat (AME, state medical aid) as part of couverture médicale universelle (CMU, universal medical coverage) which gave them access to health care. Reforms in 2004 and 2005 reduced access to AME, introducing requirements based on length of stay, except in the case of life-threatening emergencies. Following reactions by numerous organisations and the European Commission of Social Rights, the French government stated in a circular in March 2005 that all hospital care provided to minors was regarded as an emergency, but in practice it seems that access to care is obstructed (GilRobles 2006: 60). Patients have to prove they have been living in France for three months. This ‘may deprive them of access to care or delay treatment, thus jeopardizing its chances of success’. Gil Robles ‘call[s] on the French authorities to reverse this provision, which can have tragic consequences, without delay’. Since 2006, benefits for asylum seekers have been removed, effectively forcing them to live in CADA, even when this means separation from friends and relatives.The 2006 Loi de finances replaced the allocation d’insertion with an allocation temporaire d’attente (ATA), bringing French law into line with the EU directive on reception of asylum seekers (Directive 2003/9/CE, 27 January 2003). In contrast to the allocation d’insertion, which was only paid for one year, ATA is paid for the duration of the asylum determination procedure. However, it does not take into account the size of the family, and minors are excluded, as are asylum seekers in accelerated procedures and those affected by Dublin II.The first payments are typically made six to eight weeks after arrival and are therefore not available when the asylum seeker needs to pay for translations, photographs, etc. Pressuring asylum seekers to live in CADA makes it easier for the authorities to arrest and deport those whose asylum claims are unsuccessful. Only asylum seekers in the normal (non-accelerated) procedure have access to CMU. Even they may have difficulty accessing care, largely because of ill-informed gatekeepers at the caisses de sécurité sociale and GPs.Those in accelerated procedure have access only to AME which cannot be accorded during the first four months in France. Article 20 of the Directive on reception states that victims of torture, rape and serious acts of violence must receive the treatment necessitated by these

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acts. However, treatment for asylum seekers suffering trauma is very limited outside Paris and a small number of other cities. Integration

In France, recognised refugees have the same rights as French citizens to employment, social security, housing, property, education, free movement, and association. Their political rights, however, are those of foreigners, in other words, they do not have the right to vote (France Terre d’Asile 2005). Recognised refugees have the right to family reunion, but this is a complex, long and drawn-out procedure that often takes several years. Recognised refugees are entitled to family benefits backdated to their arrival in France, but are rarely informed of this. Recognised refugees have difficulty accessing revenu minimum d’insertion (RMI). Those benefiting from subsidiary protection cannot access RMI until they have been in the country for five years. Asylum seekers are excluded from employment and training opportunities and often have limited access to language classes. French immigration policy has had two main components: measures which attempt to control immigration and measures aimed at integrating immigrants. The increasingly restrictive, hostile and suspicious nature of the first component has had a negative impact on the second (Lochak 2006). Integration became a policy issue in the mid-1970s, with the realisation that some immigrants were not merely temporary migrant workers, but were settling in France. During the following thirty years, various terms went in and out of fashion and were adopted differently by the left and the right. ‘Assimilation’ was the most closely associated with colonial ideas, assuming that immigrants would fully embrace the culture of the host society. ‘Insertion’ was the most multicultural term, assuming that migrant communities would preserve their own cultural identities and links with their countries of origin.This was often based on the assumption that they would return to their countries of origin.‘Integration’ falls somewhere between the two, although its meaning has varied widely, and has been the dominant term in French public policy since the late 1980s, when the brief Parti Socialiste (PS) experiment with the ‘right to difference’ was brought to an abrupt end by the emergence on the electoral scene of the extreme right Front National and by the headscarf affair, which prompted a reassertion of Republican values, especially laicité.The headscarf affair prompted the institutionalisation of integration, with the appointment in 1989 of a general secretary for integration, the creation of an Interministerial Integration Committee and a High Council for Integration. In 2003, inspired by initiatives in Quebec, a Contrat d’Accueil et d’Intégration (CAI, Contract of Reception and Integration) was introduced by the Interministerial Integration Committee. It formalises the relation between the state and legally present foreigners, who must demonstrate their

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willingness to integrate into society and to respect its fundamental values. The state commits itself to providing the means of integration, including 200–500 hours of language tuition if necessary, a compulsory one-day civic introduction and an optional information day on practical aspects of life in France.The contract became compulsory on 1 January 2007, and during that year, 100,000 were signed. The contract does not guarantee a residence permit, but is supposed to make it easier to obtain one. Integration, which was once facilitated by secure legal status, in the form of a resident’s permit, has now become a precondition for obtaining such a permit. France – gender

In France, there are no gender guidelines in place and no systematic consideration of gender in asylum seeker reception or status determination. However, there have been some individual rulings, particularly by the CRR in cases concerning a lifestyle judged to transgress social mores, forced marriage and FGM. The CRR has identified the ‘social group of women seeking to avoid FGM’ and ‘the social group of women refusing forced marriage’ (Rajfire 2005: 7). This creates legal precedent, but only for those admitted to asylum procedure, and gender persecution cases have not been very successful in clearing this first hurdle. Only five per cent of those who claim asylum having arrived at a French border without the correct documentation succeed in gaining access to French soil and to the asylum process. Those whose claim is considered manifestly unfounded by the OFPRA’s Asylum at the Border office are deported without their case being heard. Gender-specific persecution is not considered a relevant criterion for admission at this stage, and CRR case law, which has recognised FGM as a ground for asylum, is not taken into account. The criteria by which ‘manifestly unfounded’ claims are filtered at the border are thus more restrictive than those which apply during the process of RSD, and this may be particularly unjust in the case of refugee women (Rajfire 2005: 4). Cases which are considered manifestly unfounded are not considered for subsidiary protection. Brocard, Gueguen and Lacaze (2006: 3) find that women seeking protection from gender related persecution are more likely to receive subsidiary protection than refugee status, and this brings with it a lesser degree of protection.An analysis of CRR rulings finds that women victims of domestic violence and of human trafficking are more likely to receive subsidiary protection than refugee status. Refugee status has been accorded to women fleeing FGM or honour crimes. The status accorded women fleeing persecution on the basis of sexual orientation or forced marriage has varied.The CRR has recognised three social groups: the social group of people persecuted because of their sexual orientation, regardless of their gender; the social group of women trying to escape FGM; and the social group of women

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trying to escape forced marriage, on condition that their behaviour is perceived by all or part of society as a transgression (Gueguen 2006). Brocard, Gueguen and Lacaze (2006) criticise the OFPRA and the CRR for according women Convention status on the basis of MPSG, for example, the social group of women trying to escape FGM for themselves or their daughters; trying to escape forced marriage or honour crimes; or refusing to submit to degrading rites of widowhood.They argue that it would be preferable to accord them refugee status on the basis of their political opinions, since it is their opposition to, or rejection of, ideas about the way society is organised and the behaviour expected of them that is the basis of their persecution. They argue that resistance is active, and to accord refugee status on the basis of MPSG obscures women’s political consciousness and agency, presenting them instead as helpless victims. Since 2004, a coalition of NGOs (AISF, la Cimade, la FASTI, Femmes de la Terre, la Ligue des Droits de l’Homme and Rajfire) calling itself the GRAF (Groupe Asile Femmes) has been campaigning for the introduction of gender guidelines (Brocard et al. 2006). In 2005, they published a text to this effect, calling for an improvement in procedures; the inclusion of forms of persecution directed specifically at women in the interpretation of the Geneva Convention; training of all personnel involved in reception and RSD in gender-related and gender-specific persecution and in interviewing women suffering from trauma; and access for women asylum seekers to trauma counselling, better accommodation and sensitive interviewing procedures (Rajfire 2005: 2–10). Since 2008, OFPRA has ruled in decisions on asylum on grounds of risk of FGM, that if both parents are illegally present, a girl at risk of FGM will receive subsidiary protection.The parents are not granted asylum, but are sent to the prefecture to have their status reconsidered in the light of their daughter’s protection. If one parent is legally present, and opposes the FGM, the daughter does not receive any protection, because the assumption is that she will stay with this parent. Only people arriving directly and recently in France and proving personal fear of persecution because of their refusal of FGM may be accorded refugee status.The GRAF has expressed its concern. Conclusion

International refugee law in the form of the UN Convention has remained unchanged since 1951 and 1967, but has been interpreted in ways that reflect economic, social and political circumstances. This explains the deluge of legislation and policies aimed at restricting access to asylum in both Britain and France since the early 1990s, with the result that the number of people applying for asylum in these countries has fallen dramatically, even though the number of people in need of international protection has not. Women

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and girls account for half of those in need of protection, but international, European and national law has been slow to recognise this.The EU is playing a greater role in asylum policy, which is no longer determined solely at the level of the member state. Concerns have been voiced that this will lead to a lowering of standards, but so far some gains have been made in terms of the recognition of non-state agents of persecution, for example. The first comparative observation that can be made is that British and French policies and practices are situated within different historical and institutional contexts and are internally complex, contradictory and incoherent. There can be significant gaps between policy and practice. As has already been noted, Britain appears on paper to have a very gender-sensitive approach to asylum decision-making, but does not always fulfil its promises in practice. A contributory factor here is that different rules and guidelines apply at different levels of decision-making. France in contrast demonstrates hardly any gender awareness on paper, but a number of appeals court rulings suggest some, if limited, attention to its impact on asylum claims. NGOs have played a crucial role in raising awareness in the UK of the relation between gender and asylum, in putting pressure on decision-makers to take this into account and in monitoring the implementation of policies and guidelines at different stages of the process. In France, NGOs, decision-makers and service providers have all shown far less interest in gender. The widely held attachment to republican universalism operates as an obstacle to attempts to draw attention to the needs and interests of particular groups. The gender of an individual is not supposed to have any bearing on their equality before the law and is therefore pushed out of public debate. The differences between the French and British approaches to integration can be attributed to their respective emphasis on assimilation and multiculturalism. Since the turn of the century, however, the gap has narrowed, as Britain has become more assimilationist. Ethnic minorities are now expected to prove their ‘Britishness’. Integration is measured in a number of Home Office reports according to indicators such as employment, English-language acquisition and volunteering. In France, the brief interest on the part of the socialist government in the ‘right to difference’ in the early 1980s was brought to an abrupt end by the rise of the extreme right, prompting the reassertion of Republican values and the institutionalisation of integration with the appointment in 1989 of a general secretary of integration, the creation of an Interministerial Integration Committee, and a High Council for Integration. The Reception and Integration Contract (2003) obliges foreigners to demonstrate their willingness to integrate into French society and respect its fundamental values. In both countries, there is a concern with reducing immigration, or at least managing it to eradicate unwanted immigration. At the same time, both countries claim to be a safe haven or a country of asylum. These two apparently contradictory approaches can

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co-exist because of the distinction drawn between genuine refugees and bogus asylum seekers. International refugee and human rights law, European immigration and asylum policy, and national asylum policies and practices constitute a critical contextual framework in which asylum decisions are made and integration takes place. Since the 1990s, a recognition of the gendered nature of refugee law and refugee experiences has led to the introduction of UNHCR Gender Guidelines, a varied attention to gender at the national level, driven by the campaigning activities of women and feminist lawyers, activists and refugee and other NGOs.This acts as a framework within which the analyses of the coming chapters are situated. Notes 1 MORI findings from April 2004 showed that 36 per cent of respondents believed race relations/immigration to be among the most important issues facing Britain, a significant increase since New Labour came to power in 1997 (Will Somerville, Success and Failure under Labour: Problems of Priorities and Performance in Migration Policy, Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, 2006: 7). 2 The UNHCR produced Guidelines on the Protection of Refugee Women in 1991. In 2002, it produced Guidelines on International Protection: Gender Related Persecution within the context of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees. 3 Ministers first met in Groningen, Netherlands, in 2004; the Commission submitted a Common Agenda for Integration in September 2005; and the European Fund for Integration was set up in June 2007. 4 The Cessation Clause (Article 1C of the 1951 Convention) sets out the conditions under which a refugee ceases to be a refugee. There are when Convention protection is no longer justified or needed because of changes in the individual’s circumstances or in conditions in their country of nationality or former residence. 5 Temporary Protection was introduced for Bosnian refugees as part of an agreement with UNHCR. 6 Until July 2002, asylum seekers had been able to apply to the Home Office for permission to work six months after their claim for asylum had been made. 7 The judges were unanimous in accepting that either ‘all women in Sierra Leone’ (wider definition) or intact or uninitiated women and girls who are in tribes in Sierra Leone which practice FGM (narrow definition), constitute a particular social group because women in Sierra Leone are discriminated against and seen as wholly inferior to men.The House of Lords pointed out that women in Sierra Leone who oppose FGM have no means to seek protection from state authorities or legal redress against the practice.This case establishes that women at risk of FGM can be seen as a particular social group within the meaning of the Refugee Convention’ (ICAR 2008: 14–18). 8 On 26 April 2007, the ECHR criticised France for returning people to their country of origin without the right to appeal against the decision. On 11 May 2007, the UN Committee against Torture found France in contravention of Article 3 of the UN Convention against Torture which prohibits states from returning a person to a country where s/he risks torture.

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Migration contexts, demographic and social characteristics: refugee women in Britain and France

This chapter introduces the reader to the landscape of international migration within which female refugee migrants are positioned. Its aim is twofold. First, it gives an overview of inward migration flows into Britain and France while bearing in mind both the general European context and processes of feminisation which have occurred over the last 50 years. Second, it presents, as fully as available data allows, the demographic and sociological characteristics of female refugee migration to the two countries concerned. Information about these characteristics is important in that it provides statutory and voluntary agencies dealing with female refugee populations with the knowledge and understanding required to assess the latter’s specific problems, needs and aspirations and therefore to offer them adequate protection and resources for their social, political and economic engagement in the destination country. It also helps such agencies in the effective lobbying of national legislators over the making of laws which respect international human rights principles and rules. It should be noted that because, historically, little attention has been paid to female asylum seekers and refugees, international and national agencies dealing with asylum and refugee populations either fail to generate genderdisaggregated statistics or often produce incomplete, inaccurate or highly confusing data. The UK and France are among those countries whose governments produce relatively detailed immigration and asylum statistics but it is only in recent years, following pressure from the UNHCR (and, in the UK, from refugee women’s support organisations) that a certain amount of gender-disaggregated data has been included in the respective annual reports of the British and French asylum agencies. Of the two countries under study, the UK produces the more easily accessible and comprehensive gender-disaggregated statistics on primary asylum claims, first-instance decisions, dependants, detainees and removals. French data includes gendered statistics on primary claimants and those accorded refugee status or human-

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itarian protection. Thus it remains difficult to extract and process strictly comparable data for the two countries concerned. However, this chapter represents the most thorough summary of gender-disaggregated data on female refugee migrants in Britain and France presented to date. Migration context 1: Europe

Were we to adapt Marx and Engels’ well-known observation from the Communist Manifesto (2006: 39), we could say that ‘the history of all hitherto existing [European] society is the history of migrations’. Furthermore, there has been a constancy of reasons as to why people have moved across (urbanrural or nation state) borders, ranging from environmental disasters to war between states, to conflict between social groups, and the human desire to improve one’s socio-economic conditions and experience different cultures. However, what has changed over time is the scale, type and patterns of migration. In order to summarise how migration into Europe has changed in the post-Second World War period, it is convenient to set it within a twostage time frame: 1945 to 1975 and 1975 to the present. For further information and in-depth analyses the following works are recommended: Bade 2003; Castles and Miller 2003; Geddes 2003; Messina 2007; Moch 2003. The 30-year period of economic growth (les trentes glorieuses as referred to by the French) following the Second World War saw the development of large-scale movements of people across and into Europe (see Wyman 1998). First, the destruction of land, property and lives caused by the war led to the displacement of European populations and movements of refugees across national borders during the early post-war period. Second, movements of people were also triggered as a result of labour market demand created by the restructuring of war economies in West European countries. This demand was met by northward and westward flows of human resources from states such as Italy and Spain, the Balkan countries and from Turkey to Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Manual, industrial workers (often accompanied by their families) went to work in West European factories, foundries and mines (Bacci 1972; Fassman and Münz 1994a; Münz 1996; Zolberg 1992).Third, this period witnessed the growth of labour migration movements from European colonies and ex-colonies in North Africa, South Asia and the Caribbean, brought about by the economic boom of the 1950s and early 1960s. Manual and service workers were encouraged by West European governments to fill large numbers of unskilled posts in manufacturing industries and to take up routine service and some skilled employment in the railways, hospitals and other tertiary sectors. The majority of workers from Europe’s (ex)/colonies were either male and single or men who had left families in their country of origin (Bohning 1984; Castles and Kosack 1973; Castles, Booth and Wallace 1984; Piore 1979). These two

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patterns of migration – intra-European and colonial/post-colonial – contributed the largest proportion of migrants (refugee and labour) in Europe until the mid-1970s. There were, however, other types of migration also taking place and this entire period featured smaller movements resulting from political conflict and upheaval in particular parts of the world. For example, political refugees from Chile, Vietnam and Uganda established migrant communities in a number of West European states. The 1973–74 oil crisis marked a turning point where immigration to Europe was concerned. It brought 30 years of economic growth to a close, forcing West European states to accommodate a ‘new international division of labour’ as owners/controllers of industry exported capital to the developing South and restructured labour processes in order to maintain rates of profit. Policies designed to stop labour migration flows into Europe formed a major aspect of restructuring labour processes and the labour market. The cessation of non-European migrant labour activated a new flow of family reunification migrants after 1975. The latter, mainly women and children from former colonies in Africa and Asia, arrived in Europe to join husbands and/or fathers who had abandoned return home plans, opting instead for permanent settlement once West European states had decided to bolt the door on any more inward labour migration.The once-temporary immigrants were to become permanently resident minority ethnic communities. The hope that western governments entertained of keeping borders firmly closed and entering a suitably long period of consolidation in which ethnic group formation could be controlled through the intervention of specific welfare and educational policies, was short lived. In addition to family reunification migration, fresh flows and types of large-scale intraEuropean migration and migration from developing countries have emerged in the post-1975 era. From the late 1980s onwards, new intra-European migration has included refugee flows from the failed state socialist economies of East and Central Europe1 into Western Europe (Black and Robinson 1993; Castles and Miller 2003; Chenais 1992; Fassman and Münz 1994b, 2002; Rudge 1989) and from 1992,2 the free movement across EU internal borders of member state nationals in search of work and/or a different life outside their countries of origin (Drake and Collard 2008; Favell 2008; Koslowski 2008; Recchi 2006). As far as migrations from the developing South to Europe are concerned, the past three decades have been characterised by a real diversification of types and patterns of migration. Large numbers of migrants from Africa,Asia and Latin America have entered Europe as asylum seekers and refugees as a result of myriad regional conflicts around the world and economic instability caused by political and environmental events. However, family reunification and labour migration cannot be downplayed. While asylum and refugee migration has dominated inflows into certain European countries during

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particular periods (for example in Germany from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s), family migration figured largely in inflows to France and the Nordic countries in the late 1990s while labour migration has formed an important component of immigration into Britain, Ireland, Italy and Spain from the mid-2000s onwards. Patterns of inward migration have also become more varied and have not only been determined by the continuance of links between former colonial powers and their ex-colonies but also by the nature of the asylum policies and welfare support structures of particular countries. Hence while Germany, France and Britain have maintained their traditional place as top destination countries, Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain, which until relatively recently exported populations or which acted as transit countries, have become important destinations for refugee migrants on account of operating more flexible asylum regimes in the 1980s and 1990s. Migration context 2: feminisation of migration

Women already accounted for 42 per cent of migratory flows worldwide in 1960.That proportion reached 49.6 per cent in 2005 (IOM 2008) and today female migration exceeds male migration in all regions of the world except for Africa and Asia (UNFPA 2006: 23). Current trends suggest that even in Africa and Asia female migration will match the levels reached in other world regions. Hence it may be somewhat misleading to talk about the feminisation of migration as if it were a recent phenomenon and more accurate to refer to the feminisation of migratory flows in certain regions of the world. The increase in female migratory flows can be attributed to a number of social, economic and political pressures generated within countries, in certain regions of the world or globally. Hence women, like men, may move for purely economic motives in order to provide material support for their family or they may move to join family members settled in another country or because they are trafficked to be exploited in the sex industry or to escape political conflict or environmental disaster.The majority of women moving from developing countries to the industrialised West do so for family reunification purposes. However, more women are moving alone as primary labour migrants, often acting as sole breadwinners providing for families left behind in their country of origin.Women migrants moving to the industrialised world tend to enter sectors of the economy associated traditionally with women’s work; for example, the service sector and particularly jobs related to nursing, hospital and care services, domestic work, catering and entertainment, retailing, labour-intensive manufacturing and the sex industry. In addition, growing numbers of women are also moving as primary refugee migrants. The increasing movement of women as primary labour migrants or as primary asylum claimants and refugees can also be seen as part of a feminisation process of certain types of migration.

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The cross-border movement of women was largely ignored in studies of migration until relatively recently when feminist scholars began to challenge the acceptance in migration studies that migratory movements were dominated by the male breadwinner who either migrated on his own or who was accompanied or later joined by his dependent wife and children. And although family migration has accounted for the majority of migratory movements across and into Europe since the mid-1970s, scholars in the major social science disciplines have disregarded it for the most part. Kofman (2004: 243) puts forward a number of reasons to explain this: the study of family migration has been marginalised theoretically, methodologically and empirically … because of the emphasis in migration studies on the individual, a heavily economic focus, and an association with female migration based on the dichotomy of male producer and female reproducer. In policy terms it is treated as a secondary form of migration subordinate to and divorced from labour markets.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, a number of scholars began to demonstrate interest in female migration. While a major part of this work focused on cross-border migratory movements in the Asia-Pacific region and the Americas, there was an emerging interest in female family and labour migrants arriving in western Europe (see for example, Dumon 1976; Lévi and Taboa-Leonetti 1979; Lebon 1979; Morokvasic 1983, 1984; Phizacklea 1983). Since these early studies, the literature on female migration has expanded significantly to focus mainly on the reasons why women migrate and on the impact of international and national legal frameworks, structures and processes related to migration on the settlement of women migrants in destination countries (see for example, Bhabha and Shutter 1994; Boyle and Halfacree 1999; Buijs 1993; Crawley 2001; Indra 2004; Kofman et al. 2000; Martin 1992). Hence, in addition to the feminisation of migratory flows and of the types of migration, one may equally speak of a feminisation of the study of migration; both in terms of the entry of female scholars in the field of migration studies and also in terms of the spotlight cast on women migrants. Migration context 3: Britain

Britain, in common with certain other West European countries, has a long history of immigration, although it is the immigration of the post-war era from the New Commonwealth countries and, more recently, from the politically and economically unstable regions of East/Central Europe and the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America that has formed the focus of most scholarly work in this area. The conceptualisation of post-war immigration to Britain and certain

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other parts of Europe in terms of ‘waves’ is part of numerous standard accounts.While it may be argued that this approach leads to an over-simplification of immigration processes (for example, it may gloss over long-established and continuing immigration flows from Ireland and the Old Commonwealth3), it nevertheless provides a convenient means of characterising migratory inflows which have become the focus of public attention and generated the most political controversy. Post-war immigration4 to Britain may be discussed in terms of three major ‘waves’ (see Table 2.1) taking place within the two-stage time-frame mentioned above. The first wave, which occurred during the 1950s and 1960s is exemplified by New Commonwealth labour migrants from the Caribbean (large numbers of single women recruited to the Health Service, married couples and some families) and from South Asia (mainly adult males without families) many of whose intention was to return to their country of origin once they had accumulated sufficient funds to make an improvement in the living conditions of families left behind.6 The number of ‘first-wave’ immigrants entering the UK each year increased rapidly, through various processes of chain migration, from 2000 in 1953 (though this figure only relates to inward migrants from the Caribbean) to 29,850 in 1958 and to 231,300 between January 1961 and June 1962. First wave immigration from the New Commonwealth was driven by a strong economic logic (labour shortages in key sectors of the British economy) and was facilitated by the 1948 British Nationality Act which granted citizens of New Commonwealth countries the right to settle in Britain along with family dependants. However, this was countered by a certain political thinking expressed within both the Conservative and Labour parties that New Commonwealth immigrants did not possess ‘the racial character of the English people’ and would therefore become a social problem (the Marquis of Salisbury cited in Carter, Joshi and Harris 1993: 65).This view was also exemplified in Winston Churchill’s 1954 comments about the apparent dangers of Britain becoming a ‘magpie society’ (Deakin 1972: 13). Legislation restricting immigration was passed in the form of the 1962 Immigration Act which represented a key point at which a clear separation was made between black immigrants from the New Commonwealth and white immigrants from the Old Commonwealth. The 1962 Act set the benchmark for subsequent legislation, and central to all immigration and asylum related legislation passed since that date7 is the notion that immigration of people from the New Commonwealth countries and, more recently, from other developing countries and East/Central Europe must be curbed. The second wave, from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, brought the spouses (for the most part wives) and children of primary labour migrants from the New Commonwealth who had decided on permanent settlement in Britain following the severe limitation of further labour migration in

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Migration contexts, demographic and social characteristics Table 2.1—Quantitative evolution of immigration to Britain: 1950–2008 Waves

Period

Immigrant categories

Inflows

First wave

1950s and 1960s

Immigrants from the New Commonwealth (West and East Pakistan – Bangladesh from 1971 – and India; single male adults, married couples and some families from the Caribbean) of whom many will have registered or naturalised as British nationals once the decision to settle permanently had been made.

1953 – 2,000 1954 – 11,000 1955 – 42,650 1956 – 46,800 1957 – 42,800 1958 – 29,850 1959 – 21,600 1960 – 57,700 1961 – 136,400 1962 – 94,900

Mainly female spouses and children of primary labour immigrants; small numbers of labour migrants from the developing world with special skills and competences (some with families) on work permit schemes; labour migrants from the Old Commonwealth, the European Community and member states of the former European Free Trade Association.

1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985

Second wave 1975–85

Third wave

Late 1980s Immigrants (mainly single adults, male to present and female) from the EU; ‘new’ immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees (adults and children) from third countries.

– – – – – – – – – – –

111,900 104,000 89,300 113,200 116,600 106,700 92,800 103,700 105,800 105,600 122,600

1989 – 145,300 1990 – 161,200 1992 – 116,400 1994 – 135,300 1996 – 168,500 1998 – 221,100 2000 – 260,000 2002 – 289,000 2004 – 434,000 2006 – 452,000

Sources: House of Commons (1976); Dobson et al. (2001: 43); ONS (2008).

1974. A large proportion of primary labour migrants who had entered the UK in the 1950s and 1960s had not originally envisaged long-term settlement. South Asian men in particular often worked on a rotation basis whereby one man would work for a period of time and then return to his country of origin to be replaced by another male member of his family or community, often in the very same job. After 1974, this system of rotation was abandoned in favour of permanent settlement with families. In addition, there was growing recognition within international organisations concerned

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with the human rights and well-being of migrant workers that family reunification was an important principle to uphold (ILO 1974: 27).The numbers of family migrants entering Britain continued to increase after 1975. The proportion of non-British female migrants rose from 47.7 per cent of the total inflow (111,900) of non-British citizens in 1975 to a high of 60.3 per cent (of 122,600 non-British migrants in total) in 1985 after which time the overall trend has been downwards (Dobson et al. 2001: 43). The third and most recent inward migration wave (comprised of what are often termed ‘new immigrants’ – see for example Fyvie et al. 2003; Robinson and Reeves 2006) has occurred since the late 1980s and has continued into the 1990s and 2000s, bringing in significant numbers of primary labour migrants from EU member states, lesser numbers from other non-EU or ‘third’ countries (young single men and women) but also very importantly a substantial refugee migration from East and Central Europe and the developing world. Added to this primary labour and refugee migration is family accompaniment and reunification migration which brings in spouses, children and any other relatives permitted. Inward migration has more than trebled from 145,300 in 1989 to 452,000 in 2006. This last wave represents the greatest diversity in the composition of the large migratory inflows to Britain since 1945, not only in terms of recognised reasons for migration but also in terms of migrants’ countries of origin and nationality. It is worth noting that while there has been an overall net inmigration of people (both non-British and British citizens) into Britain since the 1950s, the outflow of British and non-British citizens has also been high with an overall increase registered during the last 60 years. Until 1982, Britain experienced an overall net out-migration. Since that date, inmigration rates increased until 2004. However, the net in-migration rate has fallen between 2004 and 2008 (see ONS 2004: 8; ONS 2007: 2; Watson, House of Commons written answers, 17 June 2008). An examination of migration inflows to Britain supports the argument that Britain has conformed most closely to a decolonisation or post-colonial migratory regime, drawing on migrant labour from former colonies, but that over the last 20 years it has moved increasingly towards a mixed migratory regime in which non-colonial primary migrants and their families have been given settlement rights of one type or another in order to be able to participate in the labour market, British society and polity. Migration context 4: France

Over the past 150 years and until relatively recently, France has promoted itself as Europe’s main country of immigration and asylum. It is the only European country to have rivalled the USA as far as immigration and the long-term settlement of immigrants is concerned. It was from 1800 that

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immigration began to exceed emigration, taking on larger proportions during the second half of the nineteenth century when industrial development and economic growth coincided with a sharp decline in France’s birthrate and an equally sharp increase in its ageing population.This combination of factors meant that earlier in the history of immigration than in Britain, successive French governments appeared to place a greater emphasis, at least in their articulation of the issue, upon the role of immigration as a demographic regulator rather than as a means of responding to immediate labour shortages and the needs of the economy. The concern over population was expressed in the elaboration of relatively broad nationality legislation which aimed at breaking down the differences between French nationals and migrants in order to promote national unity. However, the fact that conjunctural economic considerations were paramount in driving immigration policy was made clear when restrictive measures were introduced during the 1930s and the lead up to the Second World War. The pre-eminence of the economic logic was reinforced in the immediate post-war period as the French state undertook a more dirigiste organisation of immigration, dictated by the insufficiency of French labour in meeting the demands of restructuring a war-torn economy and of sustaining its growth.The creation of the Office National d’Immigration (ONI) in 1945 signalled a new politics of immigration, the aims of which were to plug the labour deficits in various branches of industry, to select those migrants most likely to be drawn to France and to put into effect a programme of settlement and assimilation of newly arrived groups of migrants. However, just as immigration was encouraged during a time of economic growth so it has been vigorously discouraged since that growth ended and an economic downturn set in after 1975. From the mid-1970s onwards, successive French governments put into effect various restrictive laws in order to achieve ‘zero immigration’ and came to define immigration as one of the most pressing ‘problems’ to face French society. However, the political drive to limit and eventually halt immigration was challenged from the late 1980s onwards as it proved difficult to resist inward migration, mainly refugee inflows, from East and Central Europe and from parts of the developing world. The two-stage time-frame, three-wave model of post-1945 immigration may equally be applied to France. Table 2.2 outlines the three main migration waves of the post-Second World War period. It should be noted that Column 4 combines two different sets of figures – the first relating to immigrant stock (1962–1990)8 and the second to immigration inflows (1994–2005)9 – which demonstrate that there has been an overall upward trend in immigration to France since 1945.The two sets of figures are combined because immigration statistics relating to France were not collected systematically until relatively recently. Hence while it is possible to locate figures on immigration inflows for the period 1994 to 2005, the same is not true for earlier periods. Further, the figures can

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Period

Immigrant categories

First wave

1945–62

Immigrant families and married couples 1962 – 2,861,280* mainly from Italy, Spain, Poland and Portugal; male labour migrants from the Maghreb, mainly Algeria.

1962–75

Labour and family migrants from Europe, especially Portugal; labour migrants and gradually increasing numbers of family migrants from the Maghreb; smaller numbers of labour migrants from Turkey, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

1968 – 3,281,060* 1975 – 3,887,460*

Second wave 1975–85

Maghrebi family migrants; male and female refugee migrants from Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and China; refugees from Chile; and ‘regularised’ undocumented migrants.

1982 – 4,037,036*

Third Wave

Asylum seekers and refugees from East and Central Europe, accompanied by family dependants on arrival or joined by them subsequently; asylum seekers and refugees from a large number of ‘third’ countries including growing numbers of women as primary labour or refugee migrants.

1990 – 4,165,952* 1994 – 119,564** 1995 – 106,180** 1996 – 105,986** 1997 – 127,432** 1998 – 155,879** 2000 – 160,428** 2002 – 205,708** 2004 – 210,075** 2005 – 207,561**

Mid-/late 1980s – present

Stock*/Inflows**

Sources: INSEE (2005a: 15); Régnard (2007); INED 2008.

only be treated as indicators of trends rather than accurate calculations of inflows or stock because calculation methods vary according to the data collection agency and over time. The first wave of inward migration to France took place in two phases. During the first phase, migrant families from neighbouring Italy and Spain, offered generous family allowances and welfare benefits by the French state, settled permanently in France. Portuguese and Polish workers were also offered financial incentives to take up work and plug labour market gaps. In addition, because Algeria was part of France until 1962, French Algerian Muslims (Français Musulmans d’Algérie or FMA) were allowed free movement between France and Algeria. The number of FMA (mainly men) in France,

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increased from 22,000 in 1946 to 209,000 in 1954 (Tribalat 1997: 173). In the second phase of first-wave immigration, Portugal sent increasing numbers of migrants while those from Italy, Spain, and Poland decreased due to growing demand for labour in those countries. European inwards migration became gradually replaced by migration from the Maghreb and also from the sub-Saharan countries of francophone Africa such as Senegal and from Asia. From the mid-1970s, a second migratory wave proved to be a turning point as far as family (reunification) immigration was concerned. The cessation of (predominantly male) labour migration from the Maghreb and other parts of Africa and Asia established a gender balance as far as immigrant numbers were concerned: the proportion of women in the immigrant population rose from 43.9 per cent in 1975 to 48 per cent in 1990 (INSEE 1997: 21).While it appears that the proportion of female migrants in France was already high in 1975 at 43.9 per cent, this figure masks the fact that women formed a small part of inward migratory flows from non-European countries and that the increase registered between 1975 and the late 1980s was due almost entirely to the arrival of women migrants from outside Europe (and more particularly the Maghreb countries) within the framework of family reunification policies. So for example, whereas the proportion of women within the Spanish immigrant population increased from 46.8 per cent in 1968, to 47.3 in 1982 and 48 per cent in 1990, the proportion of women within the Algerian population went up from 26.7 per cent in 1968, to 32 per cent in 1975 and 41.4 per cent in 1990. Apart from family migration, the mid-1970s to early 1980s also saw the arrival in France of refugees from South-East Asia, particularly those categorised as ‘boat people’ who fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975 and also of refugees from Chile following the murder of Allende and establishment of Pinochet’s dictatorship. As far as third-wave migration to France is concerned, a noteworthy point is that it introduced greater diversification in terms of the countries from which immigrants originated, although some diversification had already started to occur after 1975 with the arrival of refugees from the Far East. Second, from the mid-to-late 1980s, France, along with Britain and Germany, became a major European destination country for asylum seekers and refugees. Third, the number of women in migratory inflows continued to increase so that by 2004, an exact balance between male and female migrants was reached (INSEE 2005b). The continuing increase in the number of women migrants was due to the fact that family reunification dominated the recognised reasons for migration. In addition, family migration was given a boost in the late 1990s by an immigration amnesty in 1997 which saw the legalisation of 68,000 undocumented overseas citizens, of which large numbers were women (MPI 2007: 2), and by the

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Chevènement or RESEDA (loi Relative à l’Entrée et au Séjour des Etrangers en France et au Droit d’Asile) law of May 1998 which introduced the VPF (Vie Privée et Familiale) residence card scheme under which thousands of women registered from 1999 onwards. The sans papiers

Any discussion of third-wave migrants would be incomplete without mention of the category sans papiers which has kept itself in the public eye over the past 12 years through a long, dynamic campaign which has seen some victories and many setbacks. The term ‘sans papiers’ which covers individuals with diverse origins, migration experiences and trajectories, was first used to describe 300 Africans who occupied a church in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, in March 1996, because they had been stripped of their right to remain in France as a result of changes in nationality and immigration rules as set out in the Pasqua law of July 1993. Many of the original sans papiers fell foul of changes to the Nationality Code which prevented them as parents of minors born in France from obtaining nationality on behalf of their children and thus remaining in France as had previously been the case. However, as they could claim protection against deportation orders under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights they found themselves in an openly irregular position, without papers affirming their legal right to remain in France. Since 1996, the sans papiers movement has expanded enormously and includes individuals who are in a similar position to the original 300 but also those whose asylum applications have failed and others who have ended up in a situation of irregularity for one reason or another. The sans papiers have repeatedly called for French governments to regularise their position and lobbied for less restrictive immigration and nationality rules. In 1997, the Socialist government granted an amnesty to undocumented migrants which covered many of the sans papiers. Since then, however, there have been few regularisations based on the consideration of individual cases. Today the sans papiers movement does not only campaign in favour of immigration amnesties, it also works with NGOs, trade unions and community associations over issues of immigration, asylum and nationality policy, the employment conditions of undocumented workers, the rights of migrant and asylum seeking women and so on. The sans papiers movement is also noteworthy because it has provided a springboard for migrant women’s activism and empowerment. To sum up, in contrast with Britain, France has supported a predominantly demographic migratory regime throughout the post-1945 period and particularly after 1975 when labour migration was stopped. While in the early post-war years, the principal sources of labour migration were to be found in Europe, France reluctantly accepted the fact of, and need for, labour

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migration from its former colonies in the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa before 1975. Similarly, given the policy framework which supported family migration, France was obliged to admit family migrants from former colonies after 1975 so that by 2005, over 70 per cent of family migrants came from Africa with those from the Maghreb making up 48.6 per cent of all family migration (MPI 2007: 2). In this respect, it may be argued that France has supported a mixed demographic-decolonisation migratory regime in the post-1945 period (see Kofman et al. 2000: 54–6). Migration context 5: refugee movements

As has already been mentioned, the mid-late 1980s and early 1990s marked a new phase (‘third wave’) of migration into Britain, France and other industrialised western countries as a result of political instability in Europe and elsewhere caused by the disintegration of the state socialist economies of Eastern Europe by imposed (neo-liberal inspired) structural adjustment programmes in Asia, Africa, South and Central America; but also, in some cases, by natural disasters. Refugee status, under the terms of the 1951 Geneva Convention, was increasingly sought by those escaping repression, discrimination on grounds of minority status, ethnic conflict and human rights abuses.The number of principal asylum claims in the EU-15 indicated a steady upward trend, rising from 210,740 in 1988 to 397,030 in 1990 to 672,385 in 1992 before dropping sharply to 300,280 in 1994 and 227,805 in 1996 (see Table 2.3). The high figures of the late 1980s and early 1990s are explained by the unusually large migratory flows of refugees from the excommunist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe into Germany. However, armed conflict in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Serbs and Albanians and also Croatians between 1996 and 1999, had the effect of pushing up asylum applications in the EU-15 to 385,425 by 2002.This figure has fallen quite significantly since then to 173,030 in 2006. As far as the EU-2710 is concerned, asylum claims dropped from 312,415 in 1998 (the first year for which figures are available) to 192,300 in 2006, although a continuous rise was registered between 1998 and 2001 mainly due to the influx of asylum claims in the Czech Republic before the introduction of restrictive legislation in September 2001 and inflows of asylum seekers to Malta and Cyprus which served as gateway-transit countries for many asylum seekers whose final intended destination is elsewhere in the EU (Eurostat 2007: 3). Britain

In Britain, over the same period of time, the number of principal asylum applications increased from over 6,000 in 1985, to 16,775 in 1989, 38,200 in

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Refugee women in Britain and France Table 2.3—EU asylum applications: 1985–2006 Year

EU-15

1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

159,180 191,025 162,775 210,740 291,645 397,030 511,185 672,385 516,705 300,280 263,655 227,805 242,780 295,505 352,225 370,290 375,445 385,425 297,795 228,980 201,785 173,030

EU-27

Britain

France

312,415 378,790 405,220 424,170 421,475 337,235 268,670 227,520 192,300

6,200 5,700 5,865 5,740 16,775 38,200 73,400 32,300 28,500 32,830 43,965 29,640 32,500 46,015 71,160 80,315 71,365 103,080 60,045 40,625 30,840 27,850

28,925 26,290 27,670 34,350 61,420 54,815 47,380 28,870 27,565 25,960 20,415 17,405 21,415 22,375 30,905 38,745 47,290 51,085 52,205 50,545 42,580 26,270

Source: Eurostat 2007: 3. 2006 figures in italics were provisional at the time of their publication.

1990 and a high of 80,315 in 2000. However, over the last eight years, principal asylum applications to Britain have fallen due to severely restrictive immigration and asylum laws but also, in a small measure, because nationals of the EU accession states of May 2004 and January 2007 who may have sought asylum prior to that date, are now permitted to live and work in Britain subject to certain conditions. In the late 1980s, the highest number of claims for asylum in Britain were made by those from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY – i.e. Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Montenegro), Sri Lanka, Turkey, Pakistan and Ghana. However, the 1990s saw a greater diversification of asylum claimants and the top ten countries from whose nationals asylum applications to the UK were received included: Somalia, Iraq, Sri Lanka, FRY, Afghanistan, Turkey, Pakistan, China, India and Iran. During the 2000s, significant numbers of Sudanese, Zimbabwean, Nigerian, Eritrean and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) nationals have lodged asylum applications and obtained either refugee or humanitarian status, or other exceptional or discretionary leave to remain. Most recently, i.e. by the end of December 2007, the highest number of asylum applications have been lodged by the nationals of

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Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, China and Eritrea. The majority of refugee migrants in Britain are settled in the major cities. In 2001, the top four cities to receive asylum seekers and their dependants were London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. By 2007, Leeds, Sheffield and Glasgow had also been added to the list of dispersal cities and have become home to thousands of asylum seekers and refugees. In spite of the various ‘dispersal’ measures taken by government, it is true to say that Britain’s immigration and asylum story remains centred on London and the south-east. France

Because of France’s long history of granting asylum, the number of migrants who have sought refuge there, particularly in the post-1945 period, has been significantly higher than in other West European states. In 1950, it was calculated that 300,000 refugees were living in France (Bousquet 2006: 1). The vast majority of these were Europeans displaced as a result of the Second World War. However, over the course of the past 60 years the number of refugees in France has fallen as a result of increased stability in post-war Europe at least until the late 1980s; because European refugees acquired French nationality over time; and because French attitudes to granting asylum became less generous from the 1980s onwards when refugee migration from Africa and Asia gradually began to equal and then overtake that from Europe. Hence as the rates of asylum applications increased sharply in the mid-1980s to early 1990s and then again in the early to mid-2000s, so the rates of rejection by OFPRA also grew. From peak figures of 61,420 in 1989 and 52,205 in 2003, asylum applications fell to 26,270 in 2007, although the lowest figure of 1996 has not been reached since (see Table 2.3). In the 1980s, the most common refugee-sending countries, as far as France was concerned, were Turkey, Zaire (renamed Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997), Mali, Angola, Haiti and Sri Lanka. In addition, France continued to receive asylum claims from the nationals of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos – from which countries thousands of refugees had arrived in France after 1975 (OFPRA 2008a: 25–6). However, the 1990s came to be dominated again by European refugee migration as asylum claims were received from nationals of the ex-USSR, Czechoslovkia, Hungary and Romania) fleeing the turmoil and collapse of the Soviet bloc. France also received Armenians from the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and nationals of ex-Yugoslavia, including Kosovan refugees. Finally, added to the inflows of people from Central and Eastern Europe were Algerians escaping the political crisis created by the Islamic insurgency of 1992–98 (ibid.: 39). In the past seven years, another gradual shift has taken place so that by 2007 the main asylum seeking groups have tended to originate from outside Europe. By December 2007, the top ten refugee-sending countries to France

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were: Sri Lanka, Turkey, Kosovo, Chechnya, DRC, Armenia, Bangladesh, Republic of China, Guinea-Conakry and Haiti (OFPRA 2008b: 14–19). By far the greatest concentration of asylum seekers and refugees is to be found in Paris and the neighbouring departments of Seine St Denis,Val-de Marne, Val d’Oise and Essonne, although there are also high concentrations of refugees in large cities such as Lyon and Marseille and in certain departments on France’s eastern borders with Italy, Switzerland and Belgium (ibid.: 72). Asylum-seeking and refugee women in Britain

Pressure from international agencies such as UNHCR, women’s lobbies and refugee women’s advocacy groups within and outside the UK has led the British Home Office only relatively recently (since 2001) to include some gender differentiated statistics, relating to age and nationality, in the sections of its annual reports (Asylum Statistics) pertaining to principal applications for asylum and initial decisions about them. Gender, age and nationality disaggregated data is also published (since 2002) on dependants accompanying principal asylum claimants but not on those who join the principal claimant after a first decision has been made on his/her status. Finally, gender data is factored into detention rates. As far as a more comprehensive social profiling of asylum seeking and refugee women is concerned, there exists no single extensive data source from which one can draw statistical information pertaining to education levels, skills and qualifications or occupational categories. Refugee rights, advocacy and advice groups, local authorities and development agencies have in the past carried out skills and qualifications audits among women refugees but these constitute small-scale studies which do not necessarily present an accurate reflection of refugee communities across the UK. For example, in 2002 the Greater London Authority and the Refugee Women’s Association carried out a survey of refugee women in the London area which discovered a high number of professional women with a variety of qualifications, skills and experience (Dumper 2002b). This survey was carried out in a bid to match available skills with public sector staffing needs in London in order to raise awareness among employers and government departments and agencies of the pool of resources that existed within refugee communities and especially among refugee women. However, it is difficult to utilise the data in such studies to paint a realistic social portrait of refugee women in Britain today and over the past decade or so. Tables 2.4a and 2.4b present data assembled by the Home Office’s Immigration Research and Statistics division. For the whole of the ten-year period 1997 to 2007, women have accounted for between 19 and 33 per cent of the total number of principal asylum applicants. This data does not include women who arrive as dependants of male principal asylum claimants

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Migration contexts, demographic and social characteristics Table 2.4a—Principal applicants – distribution by age and gender Year

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Total %

100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

Female %

Male %

U35

35+

All

U35

35+

All

17 18 15 14 17 20 25 24 18 19 22

6 7 18 5 5 6 6 6 11 11 8

23 25 33 19 22 26 31 30 29 30 30

63 60 61 66 64 62 57 59 60 58 58

14 15 6 15 14 12 12 11 11 12 12

77 75 67 81 78 74 69 70 71 70 70

Source: Asylum Statistics UK 1997–2007.

Table 2.4b—Dependants – distribution by age and gender Year

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Total %

100 100 100 100 100 100

Female %

Male %

U35

35+

All

U35

35+

All

51 51 48 46 49 49

6 4 5 8 5 7

57 55 53 54 54 56

42 43 45 44 44 42

1 2 2 2 2 2

43 45 47 46 46 44

Source: Asylum Statistics UK 2002–07.

and who therefore do not claim asylum in their own right. In 1999, this figure rose to its highest point to date with women making up 33 per cent of principal applicants. Since then, there has been a drop in the proportion of women seeking asylum in the UK with women only accounting for under 20 per cent of asylum claimants in 2000 even though the overall number of asylum applications continued to increase until 2002. Since 2002, women have made up a steady third of all principal applicants. One should also consider data relating to dependants accompanying principal asylum claimants. Girls and women have consistently formed the majority of accompanying dependants and in the over-35 age group the proportion of women dependants far outweighs that of men (see Table 2.4b).

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However, a major gap in the data gathered by the Home Office relates to those dependants who join the principal asylum claimant after his or her arrival in the country. As these dependants are not included in the asylum statistics, it is fair to assume that a significant number of women are not counted. Hence, it is also entirely justifiable to suppose that there is a greater gender balance within the population of asylum seekers and refugees in Britain than the Home Office data suggests. The majority of female principal applicants are young. For example, 79 per cent of the 2007 cohort was under 35 years of age (Asylum Statistics UK 2008: 9). The same is true for female dependants accompanying principal asylum claimants. In 2007, women under 35 years of age accounted for 61 per cent of all adult – i.e. 18 plus – female dependants (ibid.: 50). As far as the nationality of female asylum seekers is concerned, the top five ‘sending countries’ in 2006 and 2007 were: Zimbabwe, Somalia, Eritrea, China and Pakistan (ibid.: 46). Proportionately, the largest cohort of young women, i.e. those aged 18 to 35 years of age, comes from Africa. Similarly, those aged 50 and over are also most likely to flee from Africa (ibid.). However, the figures relating to top sending countries and hence main nationalities of asylum applicants do not necessarily mean that the same nationalities predominate within the refugee population resident in Britain. This is because Home Office rates of recognition (of refugee or humanitarian status) vary between nationality groups. For example, although Zimbabwe, China and Pakistan featured among the top five sending countries, only a small percentage of asylum seekers from those countries (14 per cent, 9 per cent and 17 per cent respectively) obtained refugee or humanitarian protection or discretionary leave to remain. Female Eritrean asylum claimants gained the highest rate of positive decisions (68 per cent) of all nationality groups while Somali women gained the second highest rate (58 per cent) (ibid.: 47). It is interesting to note that the population of female Somali refugees includes a significant proportion of women who have settled in the UK in recent years, having first acquired refugee or subsidiary status in the Netherlands and Sweden. While there are no national statistics available to indicate the size of this population of women across Britain, estimates given by Birmingham City Council’s Refugee Affairs Team in 2002 suggested that there are approximately 20,000 Dutch and Swedish Somali families, with female heads of household, in Birmingham alone and far higher numbers in the London area (Randall 2002). These Dutch and Swedish Somali women arrived in Britain either on their own or with dependent children and were only later joined by husbands if at all. Reasons given for moving to the UK include: escaping a difficult marriage; seeking better employment opportunities; the desire to leave what were perceived as insular and often monocultural, or even racist,

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societies for one that was familiar because of colonial links; wanting a better education for their children in a familiar system of education.11 While it is impossible to give a breakdown of the occupational categories, and hence social background, that women asylum seekers and refugees belonged to in their countries of origin, it is possible to suggest that a significant proportion of refugee women are educated to at least secondary level and possess important skills and qualifications. This view is backed up by three reports. The first is the above-mentioned GLA-Refugee Women’s Association 2002 report where the 231 refugee women (including 53 teachers, 51 nurses, 75 doctors, women with clerical and administrative skills, social workers and accountants) interviewed were thought to be representative of a far larger group of displaced professional women in London alone. The second is the report published by Refugee Action, Is it Safe Here?, in which 52 per cent of 149 refugee women surveyed stated that they were educated to secondary education or above (Dumper 2002a: 18). The third report (Ceneda 2003) also found evidence that the majority of refugee and asylum-seeking women were fairly to well educated: just under 50 per cent were educated to higher education level while 44 per cent had completed secondary school. Data collected in interviews with refugee women (in the West Midlands area) for the purpose of an EU Commission report of 2004 also indicate that a considerable number of refugee women have a background in post-secondary education and professional work and that they bring with them important cultural capital (Wadia 2004d). Asylum seeking and refugee women: France

French state agencies responsible for dealing with refugees have on the whole resisted pressure from international bodies to produce gendered statistics as an aid to developing gender-sensitive measures in the context of asylum reception and refugee integration regimes. Therefore, the information that one can assemble about asylum-seeking and refugee women in France is limited, as it is in Britain. However OFPRA has started to break down asylum statistics by gender (and age and country/region of origin) in relation to primary asylum claims. It also provides annually updated, gender-disaggregated statistics relating to the total number of Convention refugees and refugees granted subsidiary protection on humanitarian grounds in France. Table 2.5a, which presents information on asylum claims made between 2001 and 2007, shows that there has been a gradual ‘feminisation’ of asylum claims during this period; that women have accounted for about a third (32.9 per cent annually) of all principal asylum claimants; that on average these women are in their early 30s; and that this age profile is not dissimilar to that of their male counterparts.This gradual feminisation of claims coincides with an increase in the granting of humanitarian or subsidiary protection under

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Refugee women in Britain and France Table 2.5a—Principal asylum applicants – distribution by age and gender Year

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Total number

14,017 51,087 52,204 50,547 42,578 26,269 23,804

Female

Male

% of total

Average age

% of total

Average age

29.6 30.7 30.8 32.9 34.6 35.8 36.5

30.9 31.8 32.4 32.2 32.4 32.2 32.9

70.4 69.3 69.2 67.1 65.4 64.2 63.5

30.3 31 31.4 31.2 31.5 31.3 31.4

Source: OFPRA reports 2001–07.

Article 3 of the ECHR. As 55 per cent of women in 2007 were given subsidiary protection while 41 per cent obtained refugee status according to the 1951 Convention, then it is reasonable to state that the feminisation of asylum, particularly among certain nationalities, has occurred because more women feel they stand a better chance of applying for and gaining subsidiary protection in France. For example 64 per cent of women from Africa gained subsidiary protection in 2007 (OFPRA 2008b: 69). In 2007, women formed 50 per cent or over of the larger inflows of asylum seekers from Africa, for example Ethiopia (75 per cent), Democratic Republic of Congo (51 per cent), Mali (76 per cent), Rwanda (50 per cent) (ibid.: 53). They also constituted the majority of asylum claimants from the Far East (59 per cent of Chinese and 70 per cent of Cambodian claimants) and from central Asia (59 per cent of claimants from Kazakhstan, 58 per cent from Khirgizistan and 53 per cent from Uzbekistan). However, the proportion of women asylum claimants from the Middle East and South Asia is noticeably lower (ibid.). Table 2.5b gives a breakdown of the population of asylum seekers, during the period 2001 to 2007, according to civil status. It reveals that over the seven years, the majority of women asylum claimants entered the country without a spouse or partner either because they were single, widowed, divorced or separated. However, the proportion of women on their own has decreased over this period from 56.8 per cent in 2007 to 50.8 per cent in 2001 while the proportion of married women and those in a common-law partnership has increased from 43.3 in 2001 to 48.8 in 2007. As far as women refugees in France are concerned, there is little statistical or qualitative data, either from statutory or voluntary agencies, from which a more than sketchy picture may be drawn. Hence it is not possible to provide a profile of the female refugee population across France in demographic terms or in relation to social position indicators such as occupational

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Migration contexts, demographic and social characteristics Table 2.5b—Principal asylum applicants – distribution by gender and civil status Year

Civil status

Female %

Male %

Total %

2001

Single Married Common-law partner Widowed Divorced Separated Undeclared Total

48.5 38.3 5.0 5.2 2.7 0.4 0.0 100.0

62.3 31.6 4.1 0.5 1.2 0.2 0.0 100.0

58.2 33.6 4.3 1.9 1.7 0.2 0.0 100.0

2002

Single Married Common-law partner Widowed Divorced Separated Undeclared Total

43.5 37.4 6.9 5.9 3.1 0.5 0.9 100.0

57.7 33.6 5.3 0.6 1.7 0.1 0.9 100.0

53.9 34.8 5.8 2.2 2.1 0.2 0.9 100.0

2003

Single Married Common-law partner Widowed Divorced Separated Undeclared Total

41.0 40.6 6.7 3.7 5.9 0.5 1.6 100.0

55.7 35.4 4.8 1.8 0.6 0.2 1.6 100.0

51.2 37.0 5.4 2.4 2.2 0.3 1.6 100.0

2004

Single Married Common-law partner Widowed Divorced Separated Undeclared Total

40.8 41.5 7.3 3.5 5.3 0.7 0.9 100.0

58.2 32.5 5.6 1.6 0.6 0.3 1.1 100.0

52.5 35.5 6.1 2.2 2.2 0.4 1.1 100.0

2005

Single Married Common-law partner Widowed Divorced Separated Undeclared Total

42.0 38.0 9.1 3.3 5.4 1.0 1.1 100.0

55.7 3.2 8.4 1.5 0.6 0.5 1.4 100.0

51.0 34.1 8.6 2.1 2.3 0.6 1.3 100.0

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Single Married Common-law partner Widowed Divorced Separated Undeclared Total

43.9 33.5 11.8 3.2 5.7 0.9 0.9 100.0

57.2 28.8 10.2 1.6 0.7 0.5 1.0 100.0

52.5 30.5 10.8 2.1 2.5 0.6 1.0 100.0

2007

Single Married Common-law partner Widowed Divorced Separated Undeclared Total

40.0 36.0 12.8 3.4 6.2 1.2 0.5 100.0

56.3 28.4 11.6 1.6 0.7 0.5 0.9 100.0

50.3 31.2 12.0 2.3 2.7 0.7 0.7 100.0

Source: OFPRA reports 2001–07.

background, educational level and qualifications obtained. It is possible to give some statistical information about the proportion of women in refugee communities resident in France as well as an indication of the main nationalities present. The estimated figures in Table 2.5c indicate that asylum-seeking women given protection either on conventional or subsidiary grounds have accounted for 40 to 42 per cent of the total number of refugees or persons given protection in France, between 2001 and 2007. As far as the nationalities of refugee women are concerned, it would be easy to assume that the major nationalities within France’s refugee population correspond with the main nationalities of asylum claimants. However, this would not give an accurate picture. For example, although the Democratic Republic of Congo and China featured as two of the top female asylum seeker ‘sending countries’ in 2007, only 10.2 per cent and 4.8 per cent respectively of all asylum seekers from these countries were given either refugee or subsidiary protection (OFPRA 2008b: 53, 67). Finally, as already mentioned above, in relation to the case of Swedish and Dutch Somali women in Britain, the size and composition of refugee populations may also be affected by the movement of refugees across EU borders once they have gained refugee or subsidiary status in a particular member state. Conclusion

While it has been possible, in this chapter, to give a clear account of where refugee migration and particularly the migration of refugee women fits in within the overall migration landscape, it has been far more difficult to

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Migration contexts, demographic and social characteristics Table 2.5c—Estimates of refugees 2001–07 Year

Total number

Female %

Male %

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

101,601 102,182 100,838 109,852 119,078 124,000 130,926

40 42 42 42 – 42 42

60 58 58 58 – 58 58

Source: OFPRA reports 2001–07.

present an adequate quantitative survey and analysis of refugee women in Britain and France. States such as Britain and France are ahead of many others in terms of providing EU and UN agencies with information and statistical data on refugees generally and asylum-seeking and refugee women specifically. However, in both countries there exist considerable gaps in gender/age/nationality disaggregated information in relation to the size, type and composition of refugee migration flows. Moreover, there are no large-scale surveys, undertaken by the statutory bodies responsible for population surveys or migration in the two countries, on newly settled refugee populations. In Britain, some refugee support organisations have produced small-scale or local surveys of refugee women and their demographic social characteristics but their conclusions cannot be applied to the entire population group and across the country. Consequently, any understanding of the gendered and other social traits of these populations is insufficient and impacts negatively on the protection and empowerment of asylum seeking and refugee women.This chapter therefore also highlights the continuing lack of knowledge and data on asylum-seeking and refugee women in Britain and France. Notes 1 The autumn of 1989 marked the beginning of a wave of political battles which led to the collapse of the Soviet bloc of regimes, including the USSR, in East and Central Europe.The fall of the state socialist economies led to the lifting of restrictions on the movement of populations and consequently provoked several migratory movements from East and Central Europe to the industrialised West. 2 The Single European Act (1986) and the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 created the single European market and the European Union respectively whereby EU nationals could move freely from one member state to another in order to find paid work or set up a business. 3 The Old Commonwealth comprises Australia, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. 4 The figures in Table 2.1 relate to documented non-British immigration only. They

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5

6

7

8

9

10

11 12

do not include British citizens who had previously emigrated and who were returning to the UK. The process of acquiring British nationality is termed ‘registration’ if a person originates from a Commonwealth country and ‘naturalisation’ for those from outside the Commonwealth. While the majority of migrants from South Asia planned to ‘return home’, large numbers of Caribbean migrants contributed to the expansion of the small AfricanCaribbean communities which had settled in British cities since 1939. Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968; Immigration Act 1971; Carriers’ Liability Act 1987; Immigration and Asylum Appeals Act 1993; Asylum and Immigration Act 1996; Immigration and Asylum Act 1999; Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002; Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006; UK Borders Act 2007. The figures in Table 2.2 relating to stock include immigrants of French nationality. The largest group of immigrants with French nationality comprised rapatriés or piedsnoirs, people of European origin who left Algeria during the Algerian war (1954 to 1962) and at the time of its independence in 1962. The figures in Table 2.2 relate to documented non-French immigration only. They do not include emigrants of French nationality returning from abroad and they do not include undocumented migrants or asylum seekers awaiting decisions. In May 2004, ten new countries joined the EU: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Malta and (Greek) Cyprus. Two more countries, Romania and Bulgaria, became EU members in Jaunaury 2007 to form an enlarged EU-27. These reasons were cited by Somali women interviewed in Birmingham, in November 2002. These figures do not include reviews of applications made in previous years or accompanying minors who are counted separately as claimants in their own right since May 2002.

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Refugee women in Britain

Research that focuses on the lives of refugee women in Britain is recent: one of the first studies of their specific needs and experiences was published in 1996 (Ahmed 1996). Such research is important in identifying and raising awareness of experiences of asylum which may differ from the assumed male norm. Whilst they share the difficulties all asylum seekers face in Britain, women asylum seekers experience additional problems often overlooked by policy-makers (Dumper 2002a: 20). Research on the lives of refugee women in the UK is valuable, because it informs policy-makers and service providers about the experiences, needs and resources of a large minority of those who will be affected by policy decisions and service provision. The commitment to gender mainstreaming made at the 1995 UN Conference on Women in Beijing seems to have had little impact on UK immigration and asylum policy, which has not been systematically assessed for its gender impact (Dumper 2004a: 6–7). Neither are women refugees systematically included in academic and NGO publications and reports.The Immigration Rights Project report on the successes and failures of Labour’s migration policy, for example, makes only one reference to women, stating that they have a low take-up of screening and health programmes (Somerville 2006). Limited research means that little is known about the lives of refugee women in the UK. As recently as 2002, Hildegaard Dumper, a freelance researcher responsible for a large proportion of the research on refugee women conducted for UK government and non-government agencies, wrote,‘One of the surprises of this research was the identification of the large numbers of refugee women who were effectively single. [This] has important implications for policy makers’ (Dumper 2002a: 13). This chapter aims to synthesise the findings of the various government, NGO and academic studies in this area. These include a small number of books and academic journal articles, and publications by the Information

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Centre about Asylum and Refugees in the UK (ICAR) based at City University, London. News stories and up-dates were obtained primarily from the Guardian, the Institute of Race Relations, the Independent Race and Refugee News Network, and the Migration Information Source. Reports consulted include those published by the Department of Work and Pensions, the Mayor of London, the Home Office, NASS, the Employability Forum, the Institute for Employment Studies, the World Health Organisation, the Maternity Alliance, Oxfam and the following refugee support organisations: Bail for Immigration Detainees, Refugee Women’s Resource Project at Asylum Aid, Refugee Action, Refugee Women’s Association, Refugee Council and ECRE. Refugee women’s experience in Britain is affected by a range of factors, including their experiences prior to arrival, their attitudes towards their migration, access to social and economic institutions, the presence of community associations and social networks, and the impact of refugee policies. Refugee women’s language skills, childcare responsibilities, education, employment and immigration status will all have an important impact on their integration (Bloch 2002a: 1-3). Government policy separates integration from the preceding processes of reception and asylum determination. Integration, in this view, begins when a positive asylum decision is made. NGOs, in contrast, stress that integration is a dynamic two-way process that begins on day one. ECRE claims that: Integration relates both to the conditions for and actual participation in all aspects of the economic, social, cultural, civil and political life of the country, as well as to refugees’ own perceptions of acceptance by and membership in the host society. The focus in the current refugee integration debate, however, is often limited to individuals not living up to integration expectations held by host societies. Part of the challenge to facilitate integration of refugees lies in the fact that refugees share many integration needs with other migrants and resident third-country nationals, but are also likely to have special needs as a result of their displacement and their treatment in the asylum determination process. Refugee integration is closely related to the reception phase and the quality and length of the asylum determination procedure. The European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) recommends that the reception phase should be recognised as an integral part of the integration process of refugees. (ECRE 2005: 20)

The fact that UK asylum policy refuses to recognise the integration needs of asylum seekers in terms of language learning and access to employment, for example, has an impact on the experiences of refugee women both before and after their asylum decision. This chapter takes a roughly chronological approach to refugee women’s experiences of life in Britain, beginning with their arrival in the country and ending with their integration or removal. Comparative conclusions will be

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drawn at the end of Chapter 4, following discussion of the French case. It is useful to note at this stage that the structure of Chapters 3 and 4 differs significantly as a result of the very different types of source material available in the two countries, the specific areas they focus on, and how the issues are approached. Arrival, reception and asylum procedure

Since the introduction of the Home Office Gender Guidelines in 2004, asylum procedure has, in theory, been gender sensitive. However, reports by the UNHCR and by the RWRP have presented evidence that these guidelines are not systematically followed and that women asylum seekers are exposed to aggressive and insensitive styles of interviewing, are often denied female interviewers and interpreters, even when requested, and experience childcare problems which means that they either miss asylum interviews and court hearings, or have to recount their experiences in front of their children. Non-disclosure, even in such circumstances, is held against their asylum claim. The cases of women dependants are often not investigated. Even the procedures in the women-only detention centre at Yarl’s Wood in Bedfordshire are not fully gender-sensitive (RWRP 2006: 71). RWRP finds that interviewers ignore the guidance on the effects of trauma on behaviour in interviews, presenting confusion and self-contradiction as evidence of non-credibility, for example (RWRP 2006: 73). Criticisms include insufficient time to obtain medical evidence, to give traumatic and personal evidence, particularly where interviewers and/or interpreters are male. Women are also affected in a disproportionate way by ‘fast-track’ procedures and tight time limits in which to lodge asylum claims. Women who have been trafficked into the UK may find themselves criminalised under asylum policy, either because they have entered the country without correct documentation or because they come from a country on the Home Office ‘safe list’, which includes countries known to be the source of trafficked women, such as Albania and Serbia (Dumper 2005: 14). Refugee and asylum seeking women who have violent partners may face additional difficulties during the asylum procedure and after the decision has been made. These include lack of understanding of their rights, fear of jeopardising their asylum claim or that of their husband, and cultural attitudes towards domestic violence (Dumper 2005). Dumper’s research also raises the issue of sexual abuse from individuals coming into contact with refugee women through their professional services, such as gas meter readers or legal advisers (Dumper 2005: 14). Women can be particularly vulnerable while their legal status is uncertain.

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Housing

Prior to the implementation of the Immigration and Asylum Act of 1999, responsibility for housing asylum seekers lay with local authorities. This meant that asylum seekers exercised a certain degree of choice in terms of where they stayed. However, under pressure from London and south-eastern local authorities which argued that they were unable to meet the housing needs of asylum seekers, the government, through the 1999 Act, established the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) whose responsibility it was to provide immediate accommodation to new arrivals. The shifting of responsibility from local authorities to NASS went hand in hand with a new policy of dispersal designed to relieve pressure on local authorities in the London area and the south-east of the UK. Under this new system asylum seekers were entitled to apply for accommodation in the UK, on a ‘no choice’ basis, outside of London and away from the south-east. Housing for asylum seekers outside London and the south-east therefore includes accommodation directly supported by NASS or that provided by local authorities or other housing providers under contractual agreements with NASS. In addition to designated housing, asylum seekers who await ‘removal’ following rejection of their claim by the Home Office, may also be placed in detention centres. For women, this is normally Yarl’s Wood removal centre in Bedfordshire. Emergency accommodation is sometimes available for asylum seekers through refugee support organisations such as the Refugee Council or the British Red Cross. However, this accommodation is used to prevent asylum seekers, and particularly young vulnerable women or women with children, from ending up on the streets. It normally serves as a stop-gap measure and stays are therefore limited to seven-day periods. Finally, the Poppy project, set up in 2003 and funded by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform (reporting to the Ministry of Justice) provides some temporary housing for women trafficked into prostitution. Dispersal has caused particular problems for women who, because of their smaller numbers, can end up dispersed to areas where there are no other women asylum seekers of the same nationality or speaking the same language. Some women refuse to be dispersed away from their friends and community, fearing isolation or racial harassment. This refusal means that they lose NASS support (Dumper 2002a: 11). Specialist services for refugee women and for women suffering from trauma are not available in all areas of dispersal. Restriction on access to housing has meant that already traumatised and vulnerable young women and mothers with young children and babies have had to endure crowded conditions with unknown men in hostels or detention centres, thereby feeling further threatened and/or isolated. In the worst cases, the lack of secure housing, benefits and care has driven young women into homelessness and/or prostitution. NASS accommodation does not always have women-only spaces or locks on doors. This is particularly

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problematic for pregnant women from cultures where women do not come into contact with men during their pregnancy. Discomfort in a mixed environment can result in women staying in their rooms and missing meals and opportunities for exercise (Dumper 2002a: 11). Many women placed in hostels or shared accommodation with men have experienced sexual harassment1 in an already high-tension situation where limited space is shared by people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Younger women are particularly vulnerable. A single Afghani woman described a situation where she had to share a small and rather dilapidated house with three different sets of people, including an all-male set, within the space of a month. The lack of privacy, inability to communicate with her co-tenants and the fear of not knowing who her co-tenants were going to be from one week to the next led to anxiety and depression before she was moved to a self-contained unit.2 In other cases, it is the women who are moved from one place to another so that they never have time to establish networks of support and trust. The NASS dispersal system also means that asylum seekers may be placed in areas which are far away from community and family networks known to them and where they would prefer to stay. The isolation that is caused through dispersal to an area where there are no family or cultural networks impacts disproportionately not only on women who, due to cultural or family reasons, are not encouraged to work but also on women who would like to work but have no childcare support through family and friends. A common problem is a general feeling of loneliness and isolation. The majority of women asylum seekers come from extended family backgrounds where much support, practical and psychological, is available from female relatives. In the UK, the majority are cut off from female family and friendship networks. Refugee Action’s study (Dumper 2002a) found that only a third of women said they had relatives living in the UK. However, even for this group, family get-togethers only occurred, on average, once every two months. Moreover, as 84 per cent of women lived in accommodation without a telephone, it was difficult to talk over the phone (Dumper 2002a: 12). The absence of family is regretted by mothers on three counts: not having someone with whom to share problems and successes; children missing out on important relationships with grandparents, aunts and other family members, which gives them a strong sense of family history and identity and which prevents them from getting into the ‘bad ways’ of English society; and the lack of sources from which children can acquire information about their religion, culture, country of origin, and retain their mother tongue. Single women, especially if they are well educated and assertive, are more advantaged than women with children as they are able to take up opportunities for education, voluntary or paid work, training and employment and

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hence develop a network of friends. However, while single women do not have the worry of childcare and upbringing, the lack of family networks means that they can be held back far more than women with children from seeking friendships within their own communities. Community associations are often run by older, traditionally minded men who remain suspicious of unmarried women or by younger men for whom a young, unattached woman could become sexual prey. Racism and hostility

Racism and hostility are serious problems in some dispersal areas, contributing to women’s feelings of insecurity and fear of going out (Dumper 2002a: 11–12). NASS supported housing is supposed to be in areas with multi-ethnic populations and potential voluntary and community support, but in fact a significant proportion is in inner-city areas or on estates that are socially deprived trouble spots. There have been attacks and even murders of asylum seekers in some UK cities. Racism and hostility towards refugees and asylum seekers is widespread in the UK and results in fear, insecurity, unwillingness to go out, everyday incidents of insults and minor physical assaults, and violent attacks resulting in serious injury or death. In August 2001, Firsat Dag, a Kurdish asylum seeker, was murdered in Glasgow. In 2003, the home of asylum seekers in Coventry was petrol bombed. In 2003, in Southampton, an Afghan man died from injuries received after he was attacked by a gang. In February 2005, 40 per cent of all people polled by Mori placed race and immigration ahead of any other set of public policy issues. More than 60 per cent feel there are too many immigrants in Britain (Sriskandarajah and Hopwood 2005: 1). Hostility towards refugees and asylum seekers is widespread in the British popular press, where they are frequently described as ‘bogus’ or ‘illegal’, and linked with terrorism, violent crime or AIDS (Greenslade 2005). Support for far-right political parties, such as the British National Party, has risen in some parts of the country. Racism and violent racist attacks are more common in some dispersal locations outside London. Kenyan asylum seeker, Kamwaura Nygothi, documents her experiences in Middlesborough for example, where, she states, ‘Every moment for me is fear’ (Nygothi 2004). Muslim women (representing the overwhelming majority of women asylum seekers and refugees)3 form a particularly vulnerable group because they are easily identified through their clothing, especially the headscarf. There have been rising concerns about white and minority ethnic and religious groups leading segregated lives. In the aftermath of the riots in Bradford, Burnley, and Oldham in the summer of 2001, the focus of integration policies shifted from multi-culturalism to ‘community cohesion’, which is understood as essential in improving contact between different cultures and promoting a greater sense of citizenship (Sriskandarajah and Hopwood 2005:

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4). The ICAR mapping project documents a number of local projects involving councils and a variety of voluntary organisations, aimed at improving integration and reducing racism and racist attacks.There are some examples of good practice in the housing of refugee and asylum seekers. Birmingham, for example, places refugee families in multi-ethnic inner-city areas, close to shops, schools and medical facilities and away from known racists. Same-country refugee families and single women are clustered. Nevertheless, there is much room for improvement even where some thought and planning is given to the housing of asylum seekers and refugees, and one of the discrete elements missing from the Birmingham strategy is gender awareness. NGOs such as the Refugee Council and the Red Cross are also attempting to counter negative media and popular representations of refugees, focusing on the contributions that refugees can make to economic, social and cultural life in Britain. The establishment of the Refugee Media Agency with support from Refugees and Asylum Seekers Mass Media (RAM)4 and the National Union of Journalists; media prejudice monitoring projects such as that of the Wales Media Forum based at Cardiff University and Oxfam;5 conferences;6 and theatre pieces7 are examples of initiatives taken to combat negative views of refugee communities. In addition to these examples, many refugee support organisations (Asylum Aid, Refugee Action etc.) and associations (such as the Midland Refugee Women’s Association, now dissolved) are also working hard to combat the prevalent hostile images of refugees circulating in the public sphere. Domestic violence

Asylum-seeking women may be exposed to a greater risk of domestic violence by their partners. They may be unwilling or unable to escape this violence or to report it, because of fears of an adverse effect on their asylum claim or right to remain.The violence can also be aggravated by the circumstances of the asylum process itself, for example, inadequate housing and insufficient welfare support. Asylum-seeking women may also be at risk of violence or harassment by other asylum seekers in emergency accommodation or NASS accommodation. While there is little or no available statistical data on domestic violence against refugee women, RWRP argues that there is no reason to assume that this would differ from the level of domestic violence prevalent within the UK population as a whole.8 There is also some support for the view that certain factors pertaining to a particular refugee community may increase the probability of abuse within it. For example, RWRP researcher Rachel Wareham, who interviewed women from the Kosovan refugee community in the UK, demonstrates a correlation between the increase in conflict in Kosovo, in 1998, and that of domestic violence within that community.9

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While women are beginning to seek advice from organisations such as the RWRP, there remains a strong reluctance on the part of women within refugee communities to seek help from the authorities or to take legal action.10 First, women who are isolated will find it very difficult to access legal representation. Second, even where legal representation is accessible, there may be a lack of specialist services such as interpreting and advice which takes into account refugee women’s experiences.Third, many women asylum seekers and refugees may be unwilling to seek the help of the police or the courts because they have experienced institutional racism themselves or know of others who have. Fourth, there may be hesitation in ‘going outside the community’ for fear of evoking the anger and disapproval of their community which may place them permanently on the ‘outside’ and thus increase their isolation and other difficulties. As awareness of domestic violence issues within refugee communities grows amongst agencies working with asylum seekers and refugees, then some efforts have been made to deal with this problem. For example, the NASS Policy Bulletin 18 defines domestic violence and sets out a number of guidelines and procedures for dealing with it in terms of informing police and other services in order to bring perpetrators of violence to justice or to rehouse the victim if necessary. However, NASS’s guidelines and procedures on domestic violence take little if any account of the victim’s wishes. Women’s refuges, especially those for Black, Asian or South American women, are responding to the needs of women from refugee communities and in some cases outreach services are provided to women who experience domestic violence but who do not wish to stay in a refuge. Poverty and destitution

Refugees in Britain frequently experience poverty and sometimes destitution. NASS support for asylum seekers is equivalent to 70 per cent of income support for adults and 100 per cent for children. A joint study by Oxfam and the Refugee Council found that, even after the abolition of the voucher system, asylum seekers experienced poverty. Some 85 per cent of the organisations which participated in the study reported that their clients sometimes or frequently experienced hunger, 95 per cent said asylum seekers were not able to buy clothes or food, 100 per cent said they could not afford to buy food for special dietary needs, such as diabetes, and 80 per cent said they could not maintain good health. Organisations report clients’ inability to afford essential equipment and clothing for babies, and bus fares and school uniforms for older children.Vulnerable groups such as the elderly and those with a disability receive no premiums to help them meet additional costs such as clothing for cold weather, special diets, lack of mobility, etc. Newly arrived asylum seekers, who often arrive with nothing from a much warmer climate, have to wait six months before they can

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apply for a £50 supplement to buy clothing (Oxfam and Refugee Council 2002: 20). When they reach the end of the asylum process, refugees find that all support is withdrawn and poverty and destitution are a real concern.Without the right to work, they often end up homeless, and many resort to illegal work, including prostitution. Women who are successful in their asylum claim no longer qualify for NASS accommodation and can then experience severe housing problems. Making Women Visible (Dumper 2005) identified concerns such as the increasing number of women who are pregnant, have come to the end of the asylum process, and are without support; the lack of support for women who have opted out of dispersal; and the lack of support for those who refuse to accept voluntary assisted return. The 19-year-old daughter of one of the first families to be made destitute by new asylum laws, Flores Sukula, a young asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo, spoke at a meeting in Parliament on 17 October 2005. She said,‘Our lives are very difficult now. For twelve weeks, we have had all benefits taken away and, as we aren’t allowed to work, we have to survive on the charity of others. It’s inhuman and degrading.The government, they’re not treating us like people, like human beings. We’re just targets or statistics to them: but we’re not statistics, we’re real people.There aren’t really words to express how we’re feeling’ (Sukula 2005). Detention

According to the Home Office, 2,095 people were recorded as being in detention in the UK solely under Immigration Act Powers on 29 December 2007. Of these, 275 were women and 35 were children. Of the 1,255 asylum seekers, 200 were women (Home Office 2008: 65). Asylum seekers can be detained at any stage of the asylum process on the decision of an Immigration Officer with no time limit and no independent review. Immigration Officers are supposed to take into account evidence of absconding, likelihood of removal from the UK, previous history of complying with the requirements of immigration control, ties with the UK, and other factors which might afford an incentive to keep in touch with the Immigration Service.The criteria state that there is a presumption in favour of release rather than detention (McLeish et al. 2002: 3). However, the introduction of DFT procedures means that many women are automatically detained on the basis that their claim is ‘straightforward’. Suitability for DFT is determined at the asylum screening interview and is based solely on the judgement of the assessor who decides whether the claim can be dealt with ‘quickly’ (Cutler 2007: 6).The total time from arrival at Yarl’s Wood, consultation with a legal representative, the asylum interview and the initial decision is two days.This is significantly faster than the processing of asylum

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claims in the community, even under the accelerated non-detained process (Cutler 2007: 6).This makes it particularly difficult for women whose claims are based on gender persecution and who need time to recount their experiences.The Home Office New Asylum Model ‘Quality Team’ concluded their one-month snapshot of all cases passing through the DFT at Yarl’s Wood in February 2006 with the following statement: ‘the referral mechanism to the detained fast-track was not sufficiently robust to identify potential genderrelated claims which are not suitable for fast-track’ (Cutler 2007: 20).This is a serious failing, given that 99 per cent of the 155 cases decided at Yarl’s Wood in 2005 were refused and only 1 per cent were granted asylum. In 2006, none of the 270 applicants were granted asylum, and fewer than ten were given Humanitarian Protection or Discretionary Leave (Cutler 2007: 7). Within the DFT system, there is no automatic right to free legal representation at appeal. Legal aid is available only when the case is believed to have more than a 50 per cent chance of success or to have borderline or unclear chances of success but to be of overriding importance to the client. The Home Office, on the other hand, is always represented, leading to criticisms from the Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA) that the fast-track system is ‘at best, on the borderline of human rights compliant’ (Cutler 2007: 24). Conditions for women held in immigration detention have been subject to a number of harsh criticisms. HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, reported in October 2006 that the provision of healthcare in Yarl’s Wood removal centre is severely failing detainees, echoing concerns raised in previous reports including They Took Me Away (RWRP, Women’s Asylum News, 64, October 2006: 7).This study of thirteen women seeking asylum in the UK who had been held in detention found that all were upset and traumatised by their experience: ‘They suffered fear, uncertainty and a profound sense of injustice and bewilderment. They were often unable to exercise their legal rights or secure legal representation to challenge their detention.They were not able to find out what was happening in their case and did not feel that their rights and entitlements had been explained in a language they could understand’ (Cutler and Cenada 2004). A subsequent report by Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) found that: ‘Indefinite and prolonged detention damages women’s physical and mental health and their health needs are not met in detention’ (Cutler 2007: 31). An investigation of conditions at Yarl’s Wood, based on interviews with 130 women detained there, revealed allegations of sexual intimidation, racism and brutality in detention. The vast majority of the women concerned (70 per cent) had fled their home countries having experienced rape or other sexual violence. Half of the remaining interviewees had suffered other forms of torture (Cleary 2005).

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The use of immigration detention for pregnant women and babies

Pregnant women and women with babies are detained, sometimes for many months. This is contrary to the Home Office’s own instructions, which include pregnant women on the list of people ‘normally only considered suitable for detention in very exceptional circumstances’ (McLeish et al. 2002: 3).The UNHCR states that ‘as a general rule the detention of pregnant women in their final months and nursing mothers, both of whom have special needs, should be avoided’. It describes the detention of asylum seekers as ‘inherently undesirable’, particularly for ‘vulnerable groups such as single women, children, unaccompanied minors and those with special medical or psychological needs’ (McLeish et al. 2002: 3). The pregnant women and mothers interviewed for the report, A Crying Shame, reported having experienced physical discomfort, inadequate nutrition, maternity care and poor healthcare for newborn babies, including lack of vitamins and immunisations, and problems with provision of milk, food and nappies. They also reported lack of access to professional interpreters. Fellow detainees are frequently used as interpreters, breaching medical confidentiality requirements and posing a risk of serious error (McLeish et al. 2002: 5). Studies of pregnant women imprisoned within the criminal justice system have shown that this causes fear and stress and has a negative impact on diet, antenatal care and exercise. Pregnant women in prison experience isolation, insecurity and disempowerment. Women asylum seekers in detention report similar feelings of depression, loneliness, powerlessness, insecurity and stress, but they suffer additional stresses in relation to women in prison, since they do not know how long they will be detained and do not always understand the reason for their detention (McLeish et al. 2002: 11). In August 2006, the Guardian reported two cases of breastfeeding mothers separated from their babies for several days. In response to enquiries, the then immigration minister Liam Byrne, stated that officials had mistakenly ignored Home Office procedure (Weaver 2006). In 2007, the High Court of Justice (Administrative Court) ruled that the detention of a breastfeeding Jamaican woman and her four-year-old daughter and ten-month-old son for nearly four months was unlawful and a breach of Article 5 of the ECHR – arbitrary detention (Women’s Asylum News, 69, September/October 2007: 1–3). Access to health services

Refugee women have specific health care needs and specific problems accessing appropriate services. Many women report having arrived in the

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country with health problems that were not treated on arrival. Many women seeking asylum in the UK have suffered gross sexual violations. Some arrive pregnant and/or with sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS. They are also likely to be suffering from trauma (Dumper 2005: 12). Research for Refugee Action found that ‘The women interviewed in this research describe a life of loneliness, despair and loss … More than half (56 per cent) suffer from depression’ (Dumper 2002a: 1). Problems accessing appropriate services arise from the lack of understanding on the part of some healthcare professionals and gatekeepers to their services, such as GP receptionists, of refugee and asylum seekers’ entitlement to various types of care; language barriers; and lack of familiarity with the specific mental health problems likely to be experienced by refugee women. There are also difficulties gaining information about primary care services, which cause particular anxiety for refugee women with children. Confusion over health care entitlement means some refugees are wrongfully denied treatment, and many are ill-informed about their rights. In April 2004, National Health Service (NHS) Trust hospitals were told by the government to charge patients who were not ‘ordinarily resident’ in the UK, including undocumented migrants and failed asylum seekers. This was challenged in a 2006 High Court ruling which said that some failed asylum seekers can be considered ‘ordinarily resident’ and entitled to free NHS hospital care. The court also ruled that it was unreasonable to expect healthcare professionals to determine who is ‘ordinarily resident’. The Department of Health (DoH) is appealing against this ruling and is also considering restricting access to primary healthcare, following a proposal in 2005 and a three-year period of consultation. Currently, in 2008, asylum seekers who are awaiting a decision are entitled to free primary healthcare, and those who have had their application rejected can be treated at a GP’s discretion. However, there is evidence to suggest that some GP receptionists are excluding patients on the basis of where they come from (Belluz 2008). Access to appropriate healthcare is further hindered by language difficulties, and this is the problem most frequently cited by refugee women when asked about their experience of visiting the doctor. One study found that only 52 of the women asked had access to interpreters when visiting their GP, whereas 84 per cent said that they always or sometimes needed one (Dumper 2002a: 1). Interpreting services are sometimes provided by telephone. One respondent pointed out ‘It is difficult to communicate sensitive personal things to a doctor through a male voice on the phone’ (Ibid.: 15). In 2000, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recognised that ‘conflicts subject people to frequent and gross human rights violations [and that] the most vulnerable are under greater physical and psychological pressure. Amongst the most vulnerable are included: children, widows,

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pregnant women, single mothers, girls … and survivors of organised violence, torture, sexual and domestic violence’ whose special needs must be the subject of ‘community-based psychological approaches [that] must be sensitive to gender …’ (WHO 2000). It was in response to WHO’s acknowledgement of the particular vulnerability of refugee women’s health that certain mental health initiatives have taken place with DoH funding. For example, in 2002, DoH funding allowed for the establishment of the Health for Asylum Seekers and Refugees Portal (HARP) project. HARP is a web-based resource which is designed to help health professionals with the healthcare of asylum seekers and refugees. The three-part project12 embraces a special site related to the mental health problems that asylum seekers and refugees suffer and its aim is to educate health professionals about these problems and to improve their knowledge and approaches to treatment. However, while there is acknowledgement by the authorities that the mental health of refugees must be considered during the asylum determination procedure and beyond, there is evidence that woman are not receiving the level of care that is necessary. In 2004, the government released a five-year plan, Delivering Race Equality in Mental Health Care. This plan mentions refugees and asylum seekers only very briefly. In November 2000, the DoH had published an information booklet for NHS staff dealing with asylum seekers and refugees, entitled Meeting the Health Needs of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the UK:An Information and Resource Pack for Health Workers (Burnett and Fassil 2000).The booklet contained a five-page section on the psychological needs of refugees and asylum seekers and another section on sufferers of torture and violence. In 2003, the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health (CPPIH), sponsored by the DoH, commissioned research on refugee mental health needs and user involvement in the delivery of mental health services. However, mental health issues in relation to asylum seekers and refugees have received little attention from government agencies generally and where local statutory bodies have considered the mental health of asylum seekers and refugees, it has depended very much on the special interests of individual health professionals at a particular hospital or mental health unit and their ability to find funding from their respective Primary Care Trust (PCT) or other health care trust. The development of mental health initiatives for asylum seekers and refugees has been left in large part to UK voluntary sector organisations which support asylum seekers and refugees. Specialist organisations such as the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (MFVT), the Traumatic Stress Clinic, and many others have drawn attention to the presence of large numbers of survivors of torture and violence and the fact that where mental health problems occur, they are ignored due to a lack of capacity in the health service. In June 2004, the AMICUS-affiliated Medical Practitioners Union launched a campaign in support of better health

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services for the improvement of asylum seekers and refugees’ physical and psychological well-being. In June 2005, the organisation Doctors for Human Rights organised a London conference on the rights of asylum seekers and detainees to medical, including mental health, care and services. The overwhelming majority of asylum seekers and refugees suffering mental trauma and other illnesses are normally first seen by medical or other advice staff of voluntary organisations supporting asylum seekers and refugees. The Refugee Council has an established and experienced mental health team which provides medical care, counselling and social support.The British Red Cross, Amnesty International, Médecins du Monde and Asylum Aid provide signposting services and practical help to asylum seekers and refugees who require mental health support or treatment.These large organisations in the voluntary sector are supplemented by specialist organisations dealing with trauma and mental health issues. While attitudes are being challenged by groups of midwives, refugee support organisations and other professional groups and while organisations such as the British Medical Association (BMA) and the NHS have drawn up good-practice guidelines for working with refugee women, problems persist. Refugee women face particular problems accessing mental health services. Hermione Harris’ report on Somalis in the UK highlighted some of the difficulties associated with the communication of mental health problems and needs. These include not only proficiency in English, but also crosscultural differences in concepts associated with mental health (Harris 2004). Dispersal makes it more difficult to access specialist services, such as support for rape victims and for those suffering from post-traumatic stress, which tend to be concentrated in London. Finally, access to services can be rendered more difficult for refugee women whose movements outside the home are restricted by cultural codes, limited English, and care responsibilities. Some service providers are beginning to respond to refugees’ specific needs by introducing women only and outreach services (Dumper 2004: 28–9). Maternity

Refugee women’s experience of maternity care was demonstrated by one study (McLeish 2002) to have been negative in almost half of all cases, and this is normally attributable to staff attitudes.This is particularly acute in the case of women who have undergone FGM.The Maternity Alliance’s report Mothers in Exile found that: Asylum seekers and their babies survived in a support system that fell far short of meeting their most basic needs for adequate food and safe shelter. Already lonely, disorientated and grieving, half of the women also experienced neglect, disrespect and racism from the maternity services. (McLeish 2002: 1)

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In full-board emergency accommodation hotels, pregnant and breastfeeding women went hungry and missed meals to attend hospital appointments or if their baby was asleep or crying during a mealtime. It found that the hotels did not provide formula milk for the babies of HIV positive mothers who could not breastfeed, and there was no baby food for older babies.Women in hotels dominated by single men felt intimidated and experienced sexual harassment. Some women in late pregnancy were refused dispersal when they were desperate to leave emergency accommodation, and some were dispersed away from their only friends just before giving birth.Women with young babies had been repeatedly moved around by accommodation providers. Much of the accommodation provided for pregnant women and new mothers was of poor quality and overcrowded. Women (including young women under 18) were sometimes placed in all male hostels where they were sexually harassed while using shared kitchen and bathroom facilities. Some new mothers could not access the £300 maternity grant and were forced to beg for nappies from strangers in hospital. Pregnant women could not afford adequate food or larger clothes. New mothers went without food and warm clothes to buy necessities for their babies. Pregnant women and new mothers have gone hungry when poor administration has left them and their babies without any financial support at all for weeks at a time. Most of the women included in the Maternity Alliance study were satisfied with their antenatal care and half also had positive experiences during labour and the postnatal stay in hospital. However, half of the women experienced indifference, rudeness and racism from the health professionals caring for them during delivery or on the postnatal ward.These women felt powerless to challenge hostile attitudes and fearful of the consequences if they attempted to do so. Offensive remarks went unchallenged by other health professionals. Many new mothers expressed strong feelings of powerlessness, vulnerability and insecurity about the outcome of their asylum cases.They missed their own mothers and other female relatives and friends particularly acutely during childbirth and in the postnatal period (McLeish 2002: 1) . Women who have undergone FGM are particularly embarrassed and distressed by staff attitudes. In one Midlands hospital some doctors simply refused to attend to deliveries of women who had undergone FGM. This unacceptable situation was subsequently addressed by a small group of midwives who approached the Midlands Refugee Council in order to organise an annual FGM awareness raising session for all health professionals at the hospital, with a view to providing the cultural background to the practice of FGM and to educating doctors and nurses in particular to provide more sensitive treatment.13

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Deportation

Recent reports of violence on the part of those employed to carry out deportations have shown that ‘an alarming and unacceptable number of injuries have been sustained by those subject to forced removals’. A 2008 report details allegations of abuse before or during deportation in cases involving 153 men, 78 women and a further 58 for whom the gender of the complainant is not recorded. Thirteen of the recorded assaults took place at Yarl’s Wood (Birnberg Peirce and Partners 2008). In December 2008, a judge awarded £38,000 to an African asylum seeker held in detention in Yarl’s Wood.The woman, known as PB, had been tortured and raped in her home country, and should not therefore have been held in detention (BBC News 2008). English-language proficiency and training

English-language proficiency has a significant impact on the extent to which refugees and asylum seekers feel settled in their destination country. This varies considerably by country of origin and by gender.Although the refugee population as a whole is highly educated, some refugee women are illiterate in their own language (84 per cent in Somalia, compared with 59 per cent of men; 32 per cent in DRC compared with 13 per cent of men; 13 per cent in Sri Lanka compared with 7 per cent of men) (Bloch 2002b: 102). This affects their ability to learn English (Dumper 2002b: 18). Their access to language classes in Britain is constrained for some by cultural barriers or childcare responsibilities (Bloch 2002b: 2–3). While the majority of local authority education departments offer free language training, most are unwilling or unable to provide crèche facilities and cover transport costs and many do not run women-only classes. While some refugee support organisations such as the Refugee Council in large urban centres provide crèche facilities and cover transport costs for women attending language courses organised either by local education services, Learning and Skills Councils or by themselves, women in smaller towns and areas remote from urban centres continue to lose out on English language training (Wadia 2004d). Following cuts to English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) provision in 2006, which excluded adult asylum seekers from all further education, in March 2007, the government announced that asylum seekers waiting for longer than six months for a decision or appeal on their claim would be entitled to free English classes from September (www.guardian.co.uk/education/2007/mar/07/tefl.immigration).

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Employment

Employment is a key component of successful integration. Asylum seekers and refugees express a desire to provide for themselves and to make a positive contribution to society without being reliant on state benefits (Charlaff et al. 2004). Employment offers the opportunity to gain self-esteem, to make social contacts and to learn or improve English-language skills (Bloch 2004: 8–9). In August 2002, asylum seekers had their right to work withdrawn. Prior to that date, they could apply for permission to work six months after making their asylum claim. Delays in delivery of a work permit were not uncommon, and studies found that early exclusion from the labour market had long-term adverse effects on integration (Bloch 2002a: 7). The 1996 Asylum and Immigration Act introduced fines for employers hiring staff without appropriate documentation. Misunderstanding of this legislation led some employers to avoid employing refugees. Dispersal, introduced by the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act, also had an impact on labour-market participation, as a result of regional variations in information, advice, training, language learning and local labour markets (Bloch 2002a: 7). Reliable data on the employment levels of refugees in general and refugee women in particular are difficult to obtain. However, the figures available show clearly that refugee men and women are the most unemployed and underemployed group in the country. Refugees experience higher levels of unemployment than the general population and than the ethnic minority population. In 2002, unemployment rates for the general population were 5 per cent for women and 7 per cent for men.The rates for ethnic minorities ranged from 23 per cent and 22 per cent for Pakistani and Bangladeshi women and men respectively to 9 per cent for Indian women and men. Unemployment of refugees was estimated by the Home Office in 1995 to stand at 48 per cent for women and 59 per cent for men (Dumper 2002b: 11) and by the Institute for Employment Studies in 2004 at 36 per cent (Institute for Employment Studies 2004: 1). Refugees who are employed are concentrated in a limited range of occupations, despite the diversity of jobs held in their country of origin. These occupations tend to be low paid, low skilled and have poor terms and conditions of employment (Bloch 2002b: 125–6). A disproportionate number of refugees are in temporary posts (25 per cent of refugees in work); 35 per cent work part time, more than half of whom because they were unable to find full-time employment; 47 per cent work anti-social hours and only 47 per cent are entitled to holiday pay.A survey for the DWP found that refugees were paid less than ethnic minorities in the UK (gross weekly pay of £244 and £335 respectively).‘On average, refugees were earning only 78 per cent of the hourly wages of other ethnic minority people, and 62 per cent of the average UK hourly rate. More than one tenth (11 per cent) of

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refugees who were working were earning less than the National Minimum Wage’ (Bloch 2004: 11–12). Employment levels of refugee women are lower than those of refugee men. Although this is true of the population as a whole and of the ethnic minority population generally, the gender gap amongst refugees is greater. This can be explained by refugee women’s lower levels of educational attainment, greater English language problems, and greater likelihood of childcare problems. There is also evidence of women’s greater difficulties accessing language and skills training (Bloch 2004: 24–5). Recent research on refugee women and employment, such as Missed Opportunities (Dumper 2002b), aims to raise awareness of refugee women’s skills, experience and work opportunities, which are frequently obscured by the stereotypes of male refugees and male breadwinners. Missed Opportunities was a study of women professionals in London. Nearly three-quarters of the women interviewed described themselves as employed in their country of origin, whereas less than one-fifth described themselves as currently employed in the UK. Many felt their employment needs were not taken seriously and that their skills and qualifications were not recognised (Dumper 2004: 28–9). Refugee skills and qualifications

Collecting data on the number of refugees with particular skills is an important step in understanding the contribution that they can make to the economy and society of their country of asylum. A number of research projects have stressed the economic contribution made by refugees and the wastage that can be avoided by recognising and harnessing the skills and experience that they bring with them, not least when these match skills shortages, as is often the case. National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) research in 2001 involving interviews with 70 respondents from 21 different countries living in Leicester revealed a high level of education, skills and qualifications. The London Framework for Regional Employment and Skills Action (FRESA) and the London Skills Commission target London’s refugees to help fill the chronic skills shortages in the health and construction sectors. London Skills Commission research revealed that refugees were often skilled in the very sectors that are understaffed, which include engineering and teaching as well as construction and health. Tait reported in 2003 that the NHS estimated that it would need 45,000 extra health professionals over the next five years to meet London’s rising demand for services. A construction skills programme estimated a need for 10,000 construction staff in London, ranging from qualified engineers to bricklayers (Tait 2003: 10). In 2004, the Home Office published the largest ever skills audit of

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refugees in the UK, based on almost 2,000 questionnaires completed by people who received a positive decision on their asylum application between November 2002 and February 2003. It found that two-thirds of respondents were working before leaving their country of origin; one in ten were students; and less than 5 per cent were unemployed and looking for employment (Kirk 2004: iv).Three-quarters could read and write either fluently or fairly well in their main language; 31 per cent of respondents rated their English language skills as either fluent or fairly good (Kirk 2004: iv). The UK has been recruiting professionals from overseas, particularly doctors, teachers, nurses and IT specialists. At the same time, refugees with skills and qualifications in these areas, who are already living in the UK and have the right to work, have found it difficult to exercise their professions. A number of research projects have aimed to reveal the wealth of qualified professionals in the country as a whole and in particular regions. The Refugee Council and the BMA have a database of 815 refugee doctors in the UK. A report published by the Greater London Authority identified 75 refugee women doctors and other medical professionals resident in London, the majority of whom were not employed (Tait 2003: 12).The Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA) produced a report claiming that highly qualified refugees are being ignored, resulting in a ‘scandalous waste’ of skills (BBC News 2005a). CARA estimates that there are 1,500 refugee doctors, dentists and other health workers in Britain, only a few of whom are employed in their chosen field. A further 2,000 refugees are highly skilled in engineering, science, education, healthcare and computing. CARA states that it could cost as little as £1000 to prepare a refugee doctor to practise in Britain, compared with the £250,000 it costs to train a doctor in this country (BBC News 2005a). Research has repeatedly shown that asylum seekers and refugees have higher than average educational, skills and qualification levels (Tait 2003: 11). They tend to be among the more educated and literate in their countries of origin, and when they migrate, they bring with them a diverse range of skills and experience. However, many are either unemployed or working in jobs that are not commensurate with their skills and qualifications (Bloch 2002b: 120). The Scottish Executive, in partnership with the Scottish Refugee Council carried out a parallel skills and aspirations audit in Scotland. The findings suggest that refugees and asylum seekers have a wealth of skills and qualifications and high levels of motivation. However, only a small percentage of refugees and asylum seekers who participated in the audit and who had the right to work had been able to access paid employment in Scotland.The audit showed that the skills and experience respondents had gained and developed in employment before coming to the UK included highly specialised skills in areas of medicine (for example, surgical skills and skills in

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midwifery, obstetrics and gynaecology), law and engineering. Respondents also had management experience, had worked in social and economic development, had trades skills (such as carpentry and building) and IT experience (Charlaff et al. 2004).They are often employed in posts that are not commensurate with their skills (Charlaff et al. 2004). Refugee women: skills and qualifications

On average, there was little difference in the proportions of men and women with qualifications (54 per cent and 52 per cent respectively) on arrival in Britain, but there were differences by country of origin and by gender in country of origin. The Home Office audit revealed differences in skills and qualifications according to country of origin and a gender gap which was particularly pronounced in the case of some countries of origin such as Somalia. Over a quarter of men from Somalia held qualifications prior to arrival in the UK, compared with just 3 per cent of women (Kirk 2004: iv). Amongst the refugee women in Britain are a large number of qualified professionals.A study of refugee doctors in London found that at least 26 per cent of London-resident doctors known to be in employment are women (37 per cent do not have their gender recorded) (Butler and Eversley 2005). A skills audit of refugee women in London from the teaching, nursing and medical professions argued that ‘to fail to address the ways in which refugee women are excluded from entering these professions would be to waste a valuable resource’ (Dumper 2002b: 27). Similarly, the Employability Forum found that: Refugees who have qualified as nurses in their home countries have skills that this country needs. However, too often their skills are being wasted.At a time of skills shortages and concerns around retention in the nursing workforce, refugee nurses represent a significant but largely untapped pool of talent. Refugee nurses are already resident in this country often living in areas, such as central London, where recruitment is hardest. They bring valuable knowledge and experience that the NHS needs and they are, generally, ready to start work as soon as appropriate adaptation has been completed. By integrating the skills of refugee nurses, the NHS will be helping to develop a workforce that reflects its patient groups and will be forging better links with local communities. The Department of Health has recognised the importance of encouraging refugees with health professional skills to continue their careers in the NHS, both for the well being of the refugees and for the benefit of the NHS workforce. (Employability Forum 2004: i)

Various databases have been established. For example, Praxis Community Projects has a list of 300 nurses based in London wishing to return to practice.Workforce Development Confederations and individual NHS trusts also hold databases of enquiries from overseas-qualified nurses, some of

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whom will be refugees. Sixty-five refugee nurses have been identified in the West Midlands, 41 in Glasgow and 46 in the North East of England. In 2002–03 the Department of Health provided funding to enable the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) to establish a national database of refugee nurses. By July 2004 there were 206 nurses registered on this database (Employability Forum 2004: ii). Barriers to employment

Refugees themselves identify the main obstacles as inadequate English language skills; lack of UK work experience; non-recognition of overseas qualifications; lack of information about employment and training opportunities; lack of knowledge about the UK job market; cultural barriers to effective job seeking; employers’ lack of understanding of immigration status; racial prejudice by employers; and lack of childcare provision. Refugee nurses, for example, find the process of registration confusing and often give up the struggle to have their qualifications recognised (Employability Forum 2004: 1–2). Immigration status also acts as a barrier to training courses (Charlaff et al. 2004). Childcare can become a barrier to employment and training, and has been shown to prevent many women from attending English language classes (Dumper 2002b: 1). Employers cite the following barriers to refugee employment: inadequate English language and communication skills; lack of familiar and easily comparable qualifications and work experience; confusion about permissionto-work documentation and immigration status; and lack of CV writing and interview skills (Tait 2003: 17). A study of employers who are positive about employing refugees revealed what they perceive to be the benefits of recruiting refugees, including the commitment and productivity of many refugees, and the gains for the whole workforce from increasing cultural diversity. However, the research also identified a number of barriers that employers encountered in taking such steps, including difficulties checking documentation, and the low levels of English language skills. In an attempt to overcome these barriers, some employers have provided work placements, induction and English language schemes, and allocated resources to deal effectively with documentation (Institute for Employment Studies 2004: 16). In addition to the barriers to employment faced by all refugees, refugee women are particularly affected by lack of proficiency in English and by childcare responsibilities. Lack of childcare facilities can prevent them attending English language classes and other training courses, and the loss of informal childcare as a result of separation from family and friends limits their employment possibilities (Tait 2003: 18).

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Family and community relations

Refugee men are better able to access support systems from networks within the community than are refugee women (Dumper 2002a: 19).They are more likely to be influenced by friends, rather than family, in decisions about where to live. Men are more likely to see Britain as home (Bloch 2002b: 32) and to have friends from outside their community. Some of this is related to their better proficiency in English, their greater participation in community activities, and their greater number, so that they are more likely to be living with men of the same nationality than are refugee women. Refugee women may have lost support from within their home and family and may be more isolated in their country of asylum (Dumper 2002a: 19). Women are more often influenced by kinship networks rather than friends in decisions about where to live (Bloch 2002b: 31), although most refugee women have no family links in the UK (Dumper 2002a: 1).Women are more likely to have friends from their own community, which is probably related to their more limited proficiency in English (Bloch 2002b: 32). Women are socially more isolated than men and less likely to be active in the community (Bloch et al. 2000: 178; Dumper 2004: 30). These findings vary by nationality, however. For example, Somali women can divorce and are more likely to accept jobs which do not reflect their qualifications and skills than are Somali men. This can give men the feeling of being superfluous, especially as most refuse to do any domestic labour.Therefore, there are many single-parent Somali families, headed by overworked and isolated women. A significant number of refugee women are the head of their household. Research indicates the number could be around 50 per cent (Dumper 2004: 28-9). Conclusion

This chapter has provided a synthesis of the sparse and relatively recently produced literature on the lives of refugee women in Britain.There are still many gaps in our knowledge, and the diversity of refugee populations in the UK means that the findings of individual studies are not generalisable. Most of the available information is derived from small-scale qualitative studies which, put together, begin to build a large picture. As a result of these research projects, refugee women in Britain are acquiring a new visibility and this can be used to draw attention to their presence, their needs and their interests in a way that demands responses from decision-makers and service providers. These findings on the lives of refugee women in Britain will be compared with those on refugee women in France at the end of Chapter 4.

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Notes 1 In one instance, sexual harassment was so common in emergency accommodation that the women-only floor had to be guarded against the men (McLeish 2002: 21). See also ‘Housing and Safety for Women Asylum Seekers’, Women’s Asylum News, February 2001: 1. 2 Interview carried out in Birmingham, 4 November 2002. 3 Refugee Action estimates that Muslim women form about two-thirds of the total female refugee population (Dumper 2002a: 8). 4 Based in Bristol and aims to combat negative images of refugee communities and individuals and to offer opportunities to refugee journalists to practice their profession. 5 See Speers and Hopkinson (2000) and Mollard (2001). 6 Refugees, Racism and Asylum Rights Conference organised in June 2001 by the Newham Refugees Forum and the University of East London. 7 In 2001, two plays, aiming to dispel certain myths about refugee women, were performed in London. The first, performed at the Royal Court Theatre was The Bogus Woman by Kay Adshead (highlighting the plight of women in detention in the UK); the second (about a woman refugee looking for her son in the UK) was Credible Witness by Timberlake Wertenbaker, performed at Shepherd’s Bush Green theatre. 8 Domestic violence makes up one quarter of all violent crime in the UK, although only one-third of incidents are reported (Women’s Asylum News, NovemberDecember 2001, 1). Furthermore, approximately 7,000 women and children in the UK take shelter, from violent abuse, each day in refuges up and down the country. 9 See the RWRP’s report (2001-03), Refugee Women and Domestic Violence: Country Studies. 10 Generally speaking, legal action against violent abuse can be taken under a number of laws: Offences Against the Person Act 1861; Part IV of the Family Act 1996; the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.When recourse to these laws is not possible, then rehousing away from the source of abuse is the only remaining option and help may be sought, by women asylum seekers made homeless because of domestic violence, under the Housing Act 1996 although those subject to immigration control are expressly excluded. 11 Also included are those suffering from serious medical conditions or mental illness, and those for whom there is independent evidence of torture. 12 HARP consists of three parts: HARP1 which contains information for health professionals; HARP2 which contains valuable resources relating to the specific health problems of asylum seekers and refugees and HARP3 which is the ‘interactive’ part of the project allowing both health professionals and asylum seekers/refugee clients to interact. 13 By the end of 2001, one of these sessions had already been organised successfully.

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In France, as in other EU states, the spotlight on asylum issues and the country’s diverse refugee communities has increased over the past 15 years. This focus on refugee migration and asylum rights is due to several factors; for example, the expansion in numbers of those seeking asylum in France and the fact that many of them arrive from zones of conflict and disaster (Kosovo, Chechnya, Rwanda, DRC, Iraq and others) where traumatic events and acts of extreme violence impact severely on their basic human rights. It is also due to the realisation, on the part of politicians, statutory and voluntary agencies and academics, that refugee migrants are not receiving the type of services and treatment needed to improve their mental and physical wellbeing and thus their ability to engage fully with French society. Finally, the (negative) focus on refugee migrants is the result of seepage into the French public consciousness of notions such as ‘asylum crisis’, ‘bogus refugees’, ‘illegitimate populations’ which form elements of a Europe-wide debate shaping EU asylum policy and which inevitably serve to reinforce homegrown hostility against non-European immigration. These inter-related factors have put on the public agenda questions about how French society receives asylum seekers and what barriers or facilitators the latter, and those who are eventually accorded refugee or subsidiary status, encounter within health, education, employment, culture/leisure institutions in their bid to settle down. Consequently, there is a modest but growing body of French publications on the recent (‘third-wave’) refugee experience in France (see for example, Albert 1999; Bertheleu 2001; Chemiller-Gendreau 2002; Le Pors 2005; Leveau et al. 2001; Noirel 2006; Rapoport 1998; Ségur 1998;Tiberghien 1988;Wihtol de Wenden 2004). Pockets of interest in the situation of asylum seeking and refugee women in France emerged in the early 2000s as already established migrant women’s community associations began receiving increased demands for practical and moral support from newly arrived asylum-seeking and refugee women and

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as new neighbourhood support groups and activist networks such as Rajfire (the Réseau pour l’autonomie des femmes immigrées et réfugiées) came into existence in order to bring attention to the plight of female refugee migrants in France. Although these associations engage in actions to improve the situation of female asylum seekers and refugees, they ultimately lack the resources required to dispel popular myths and improve public knowledge of refugee migration and to convince the relevant state and large voluntary sector bodies to take up issues on behalf of asylum-seeking and refugee women (see Chapter 5). The larger voluntary sector organisations such as Amnesty International, Secours Catholique (part of Caritas Internationalis), Association Primo Lévy or la Cimade, which have dealt with refugee groups over a long period of time, did not initially concern themselves with specific issues of refugee women and in fact very few (for instance la Cimade) have since become involved in lobbying for gender-sensitive measures and policies in the asylum reception and refugee integration framework (see Chapter 6). The majority of refugee support NGOs do not include gender-sensitive approaches within their own work even though most acknowledge that women asylum seekers and refugees have specific problems and needs. The result is that political decision-makers and statutory organisations dealing with refugee issues, such as OFPRA and ANAEM (Agence Nationale de l’Accueil des Etrangers et des Migrations)1 have not been put under any real pressure to pay attention to the specificity of women refugees’ experiences. Consequently, very little scholarly research has been carried out specifically on female asylum seekers and refugees in France. What little research there currently exists, whether in French or English, focuses on how legal interpretations of gender and persecution within the international and French asylum frameworks impact on women who make the decision to flee their country of origin (or normal residence) in order to escape political repression and violence carried out by state and/or non-state actors (see for example, Freedman 2007, 2008a). One of the main problems with trying to find material on asylum-seeking and refugee women in France is that the latter are more often than not considered within the broader category (im)migrant women.There is a significant body of work on migrant women in France which has to be trawled through in order to obtain relatively small (and at times insignificant) amounts of information about asylumseeking and refugee women. Mention of the latter may therefore be found in work on migrant women and the labour market or migrant women and their civic engagement or on particular issues pertaining to the abuse of migrant women’s human rights, for example, forced marriage, honour crimes, female genital mutilation, sexual violence against women, prostitution and sex trafficking. References to this population may also be included in case studies of migrant women of particular nationalities (for example,

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Feldman 2005: 107–18).2 Very few researchers have worked on the presence of asylum-seeking and refugee women in France in terms of their interaction with French social, political, economic and cultural institutions and processes (Bassel 2007, 2008; Bertrand 1992; D’Avanzo and Barab 1998; Wadia 2006). However, over the past few years, scholars, activists and politicians (mainly women) have come together to exchange knowledge about the specific problems and needs of migrant women. For example a conference organised in June 2000 by a committee of academics, parliamentary deputies, NGOs and immigrant community representatives was held at the Assemblée Nationale, on women from immigrant communities and backgrounds (Comité de suivi des lois sur l'immigration 2001). In February 2004, a research day on the theme of ‘women in migration’ was organised by two of the research networks (Sociologie des migrations et production de l’altérité and Travail productif et reproductif) of the French Sociological Association (Rigoni and Séhili 2005). Similarly, in September 2006, the Centre de Recherches Politiques at the Sorbonne held an international conference on the theme of gender, persecution and asylum rights (Freedman and Valluy 2007) while in March 2007, the Femmes en Résistance collective coorganised, with Senator Alima Boumedienne-Thierry, a conference on refugee women as victims of conflict (Gantin 2007). Using the available documentary material mentioned above, together with relevant press articles and interviews carried out in France (in February and March 2005) among a number of refugee NGOs and community associations, this chapter aims to present as full a picture as possible of asylum seeking and refugee women’s experiences of and interactions within reception and integration structures and processes. However, two points need to be borne in mind. First, because of the paucity of data available on female asylum seekers and refugees in France, we have had to explain and analyse the situation and experiences of this population by examining data and knowledge produced on asylum seekers and refugees in France generally and by drawing inferences from research conducted on migrant women in France and from the work we have carried out on asylum-seeking and refugee women in the UK (see Chapter 3 and Wadia 2004c) and elsewhere in Europe (Wadia 2004a, 2004b). Second, and also because of the lack of data on female asylum seekers and refugees in France, it has not been possible to organise the content of this chapter to replicate the structure of Chapter 3. However, a comparison of the important factors shaping the situation and experiences of asylum-seeking and refugee women in the UK and France is presented at the end of this chapter.

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Arrival and the asylum procedure

As far as asylum procedures are concerned, asylum seekers either lodge an intention to claim refugee status on arrival at a French port or make an incountry application to OFPRA.Asylum seekers who arrive at a border point of entry are screened in order to establish their identity, nationality and whether or not they fulfil conditions of entry (see OFPRA 2006b). In 2005, the vast majority (91 per cent) of those registering intent to claim asylum at port of entry arrived at Roissy airport.Those who meet entry conditions are given a ‘safe conduct pass’ which gives the pass-holder eight days in which to make an asylum application to OFPRA. Those who arrive with incomplete or without identity papers or travel documents are automatically placed in a waiting zone (zone d’attente) – described by various refugee NGOS as a no-man’s land – and where border police can detain them for up to 20 days with a court warrant. During this time, they will be interviewed and will have checks run on them. In case of non-admission, they are deported to their country of origin or that of their previous stay. Asylum seekers who make in-country applications are first required to register for a temporary residence permit (autorisation provisoire de séjour – APS) at the police prefecture office of the area in which they arrive. They may then complete an asylum application form with supporting documentary evidence which is sent to OFPRA. Written acknowledgement of the application from OFPRA constitutes permission to remain in France for three months which is renewable at three-monthly intervals until a decision is made following examination of the application and an interview process. OFPRA’s decisions fall into three main categories: acceptance where an applicant is given protection under the terms of the Geneva Convention or on humanitarian grounds; rejection, in which case an applicant can appeal within a month to the CNDA (Cour Nationale du Droit d’Asile, the refugee appeals board which prior to November 2007 was known as the Commission des Recours des Réfugiés); rejection, which may be followed by a re-examination of a claim where new evidence is brought forward in support of the claim. In some cases, the prefecture office may invoke accelerated procedures where an asylum seeker is allowed to lodge an application with OFPRA, but where a decision is usually taken quickly on the sole basis of the written application faxed by the prefecture to OFPRA, without a supporting interview. Asylum seekers may be detained until the decision is taken but have the same rights of appeal and/or re-examination as those whose applications are scrutinised under normal procedures. Central to the refugee status determination (RSD) process is the collection of evidence, by asylum case workers, which will support an applicant's claim.This is done in three ways: through examination of the asylum appli-

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cation form and documentary evidence provided by the claimant; through a face-to-face interview with the claimant, carried out after initial examination of her/his application; and through legal reports and country of origin information (COI) supplied by OFPRA’s research and documentation service (the Centre d’Etude, de Documentation et de Recherches – CEDRE). OFPRA is obliged to hold interviews unless a claim is straightforwardly accepted; an asylum claim is found to be manifestly unfounded; the applicant is a national of a country to which cessation clause 1C5 of the Geneva Convention has been applied;3 an applicant is prevented from attending an interview due to medical reasons. Interviews are supposed to last for about an hour and asylum seekers may request an interpreter although this is not a legal entitlement. OFPRA claims that a third of its case workers speak at least one foreign language which they frequently use in the interview situation and if not, interpreters from organisations such as Inter Service Migrants are brought in. Asylum claims are considered by asylum caseworkers under the terms of the 1951 Geneva Convention and caseworkers must decide whether or not the evidence in front of them shows the likelihood of persecution occurring if an asylum seeker was to be returned to her/his country of origin or usual residence. As ‘well-founded fear of persecution’ must be objective, caseworkers are supposed to refer to the COI reports, accounts of recent case law and any other relevant information that should be made available by CEDRE. While the procedures described above appear relatively straightforward and neutral, they have been criticised by refugee NGOs and community associations who argue that evidence gathering and assessment processes are flawed because they do not take into account the real-life difficulties, both technical and psychological, that asylum seekers face in lodging and defending a claim. Many of the NGOs maintain that the failure of police officers (in local prefectures) and of OFPRA caseworkers to consider the problems facing asylum seekers is governed at best by ignorance and poor training and at worst by a culture of disbelief, driven by racism, about the validity of asylum seekers’ claims. Furthermore, refugee community associations such as the Rajfire argue that the difficulties faced by women are intensified because procedures are generally designed (and replicated) with the male asylum seeker, fleeing political persecution in the classic sense, in mind. If women’s experiences are considered, it is in terms of their dependence on principal male applicants. Refugee NGOs and community associations working with female asylum seekers report that the majority of women flee their country of origin with reluctance and full of misgiving as they leave familiar territory, family and community and prepare to enter a phase in their life which is necessarily unknown. Moreover, there is little evidence to show that they are

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able to exercise choice as far as the country of destination – in this case France – is concerned (Domingues and Lesselier 2007). Many who rely on people smugglers to get them to safety are dumped en route to their final destination. For many the decision to flee may be sudden and for those with children it may be governed entirely by their concern to remove the children from danger with little thought given to their eventual destination. It is important to remember, therefore, that the circumstances of their arrival in France are fraught with anxiety, regrets over a lost way of life and fear of the future and this is often compounded by mental or physical health problems. The complexity of their situation in their country of origin and the often traumatic experiences of flight are expected to be expressed succinctly, in French, in a written application for asylum and in an interview with an OFPRA caseworker. OFPRA policy guidelines relating to RSD procedures fail to make any case for a different (more gender-sensitive) treatment of women asylum seekers by caseworkers.The only category of vulnerable persons mentioned in both legal texts governing asylum and OFPRA guidelines is that of unaccompanied minors. OFPRA’s procedures (particularly since 2003 when the number of asylum applications reached a high of 52,205 new applications and when a reform of asylum legislation aimed to deter potential asylum seekers from entering France) are governed by the imperative to clear claims fast and to reduce the numbers of those granted asylum. In January 2006, the account of an OFPRA caseworker, Catherine Le Gall, appeared in the weekly current affairs magazine L’Express (Rémy and Le Gall 2006). Le Gall confirmed criticism made by numerous refugee NGOs and community associations of OFPRA’s cursory handling of claims. For example, she stated that caseworkers are under intense pressure to play a numbers game. Each caseworker meets over 300 asylum seekers a year. Seventy per cent of us have insecure terms of employment: a fixed-term contract, renewable each year … if objectives are met.That is to say, you skim through no fewer than 2.2 application files a day! You have to work fast, play the numbers game or you’re seen to the door.We’re all between 25 and 30 years old, we have plans for our future: finding a home, having kids, going on holidays.And each December we wait for the verdict: is our contract renewed … ? To avoid this question, some caseworkers deal with applications in a mechanical way and complete the monthly statistical returns without thinking about them too much. So applications are considered randomly depending on the character of each one. For example, when applicants fail to turn up for interview, I call the prefecture office to see if they’ve moved house because there are many who do not have a fixed address. Well some of my colleagues think that a phone call is a waste of time and even more so if the applicant then shows up to interview. They prefer to believe that s/he can’t be bothered to turn up.They refuse asylum and the case is closed.

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The most trenchant criticisms of the OFPRA procedures are as follows. First, asylum case workers are poorly trained and are often quite unaware of the socio-cultural, political and human rights situation in applicants’ countries of origin and such information is vital in order to reach a fair decision. It is also crucial to be well-informed about gendered forms of persecution and violence carried out by both state and non-state agents and of the countries where this is prevalent. However, caseworkers are apparently given no more than a ‘country of origin information sheet’ containing a brief chronology of a particular country’s political history, a few sentences on main political parties, a profile of persons likely to be persecuted and the main forms of persecution. Each caseworker is then left to deal with asylum claims in the way that s/he sees fit. Consequently, the majority of asylum caseworkers appear to make the most arbitrary decisions when dealing with asylum claimants including vulnerable persons who may or may not outwardly display signs of distress and illness. Le Gall writes of her ignorance: I’m obsessed with one question: how do I disentangle truths from untruths? Am I informed enough to ask the right questions and determine whether the applicant is telling the truth? And where do I find the information? On the internet? That’s impossible – our computers aren’t connected up. From more senior colleagues? That’s difficult – we’ve been told not to bother them. From the [CEDRE] archives? That’s complicated – the document library is ridiculously small and there aren’t enough documentalists. As for calling on Foreign Affairs, the ministry to which we’re responsible, I quickly abandoned that idea after running it by my boss – ‘Don’t even think of it’. End of discussion. (Ibid.)

A second criticism is the short time limit between entering the country and having to submit an asylum claim with supporting documentary evidence. This is particularly difficult for women where cases of gender-related persecution (rape, sexual abuse or torture) are involved because obtaining the required medical evidence is not something that can be done quickly. Women asylum seekers are not generally provided with immediate access to medical care and counselling on arrival, even when it is requested. Moreover, single mothers in particular find most of their time is taken up with finding emergency shelter and other essentials for their children. They have little if any time to attend to the asylum application. Third, the interview process is often intimidating.Again Le Gall describes the interview area as a box which ‘quite frankly is not welcoming’ she says. It is two to three metres square, often windowless and has one table and three chairs. For women who have suffered sexual torture or abuse, the sparse, uncomfortable and often claustrophobic surroundings, coupled with interviewers who tend not to believe their stories, make it almost impossible to relive the details of intimate and traumatic events.This can be compounded when the caseworker/interviewer or interpreter is male and also because of

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language difficulties. Although OFPRA is supposed to offer female interviewers on a case-by-case basis, this does not always happen. It is also extremely difficult for a woman, accompanied at interview by a highly paternalistic and patriarchal husband or other member of her family or community, to speak about sexual violence against her in case she is seen as having brought it upon herself or simply because she comes from a society where women are seen rather than heard. Finally, OFPRA is criticised for taking far too long – between 18 months and two years (and sometimes even longer) – over the determination of asylum claims.This period is not only materially difficult (as any entitlements an asylum seeker has to state support run out well before the processing of her/his claim is completed), it is also psychologically exhausting for female (and male) asylum seekers as they wait for their world to be turned upside down on receiving a negative decision.The majority are well aware that the rate of positive decisions is low (11.6 per cent in 2007 – see OFPRA 2008b: 47). While OFPRA has repeatedly aimed to drive down processing times, lack of human and other resources at the agency means that short turn-round targets are missed and that instead rejection rates increase. For those detained in port waiting zones the anxiety is heightened as refused entry means immediate deportation. The distress caused to asylum-seeking women refused refugee status after frightening and tortuous processes of flight and refugee status determination has been expressed in several accounts, for example: To be uprooted and to feel like an undesirable in the host country is hardly an easy thing to endure.After [putting up] fierce resistance against assassins, after the huge disappointment of seeing my country not managing to regain stability and to overcome its torments, I fled with all I had, my two children, to avoid a horrific, barbaric and certain death … Everything that happened was clouded by pain, the wrench and grief felt when leaving one’s blood-stained country. When we arrived in France, we were faced with a hard reality. We discovered indifference on the part of some, disbelief on the part of others and above all intolerance and sternness from those who refused us the chance to survive and to recover from the nightmare which will stay forever etched within us. My voice remains stifled, my struggle almost futile in the face of these draconian laws applied to us despite everything that has gone on in my country, Algeria. Why refuse us the terms set out in international conventions? (Louisa Bouaoumeur, cited by the Comité du suivi des lois sur l’immigration 2000: 9–10).

Little is known about OFPRA’s implementation of RSD procedures other than what is reported in its own annual reports and other official documentation, but it is reasonable to conclude that this agency’s main concern, in a climate where refugees are viewed with suspicion, is to clear continuing backlogs of asylum claims and reduce the already low rate of positive

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decisions. Consequently, it is unlikely that there has been any serious discussion within OFPRA about introducing in-service training which would broaden notions held by caseworkers of what constitutes political resistance, persecution and crime in order to improve the identification of claims where gender is a relevant consideration in determining refugee status. Nor is it likely that there has been any reflection about the particular difficulties faced by women asylum seekers as they go through the asylum process.While the UNHCR has put some pressure on OFPRA to integrate gender-sensitive asylum guidelines in its instructions to asylum case workers, it has continued to implement rules of law which are based on the narrowest interpretations of the 1951 Geneva Convention and on the European Convention on Human Rights. Detention

It is estimated that approximately 35,000 people pass through detention centres annually while about 25,000 are eventually deported each year (Amnesty International 2007; Bernadot 2008). There are two main types of detention ‘facilities’ within the national asylum reception framework (DNA – dispositif national d’accueil) – the LRAs (Locaux de rétention administrative) in which detainees can be kept between 48 and 96 hours; and the CRAs (Centres de rétention administrative) where detainees can be held up to 32 days after which time they must be released or deported, though those who are deemed to have resisted deportation can be held for a further three months.The majority of CRA and LRA occupants are asylum seekers whose application for refugee status has been rejected but also those who are refused a temporary residence permit by a prefecture office, those who enter France with incomplete or no legal travel and entry documentation, those who are from so-called ‘safe’ countries and who can therefore be sent back and those who are suspected of or charged with having committed a crime. Although France has stricter guidelines than most European countries regarding the limitation of detention time, it has one of the worst records where conditions of detention sites and the treatment of detainees is concerned (see ANAFE 2003, 2007; Bernadot 2008; Chuberre and Simmonot 2007: 87–90). The material conditions of the CRAs and LRAs in France are described by many refugee support NGOs as squalid. As asylum rejection rates have increased over the last few years, conditions have become more overcrowded. As more detainees are brought in each year and levels of investment in the upkeep of the material infrastructure fall, the dilapidation of detention sites becomes more widespread. Poor sanitation, insufficient dormitory space, inadequate heating, poor-quality food, lack of clothing and limited access to medical care are just some aspects of the neglect that are highlighted. The deficiency of such basic amenities has a

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highly deleterious effect on the ability of women asylum seekers (as principal carers in families) to look after themselves, their children and sometimes dependent elders. Another aspect of detention centres that is criticised by refugee support NGOs is the prevalence of violence perpetrated not only by occupants but also by those who run the centres and by police in the case of border waiting zones which sometimes double up as detention centres or which act as relay belts to nearby CRAs/LRAs. Violence in detention centres flares up as a result of overcrowding and the struggle for scant resources but also because those seeking asylum are often thrown together without much thought being given to political differences between certain groups which can reflect the background of conflict from which they originate. A high level of violence is also displayed by detention centre staff and the police who have been accused of using taser guns and dog patrols and of even calling in riot police in a bid to scare occupants into keeping quiet about their slum-like living conditions and the tensions that exist.The threat of violence (including sexual violence) from fellow occupants means that many women feel twice as ‘locked in’ as they fear for their own and their children’s safety (OMCT 2003: 25–6). Women are also vulnerable to sexual abuse and violence from security staff. Although there have been cases of police officers being investigated, placed under probation or, rarely, imprisoned for sexual abuse and violence the majority of such incidents go unreported because of the culture of secrecy in which such centres are enveloped (ibid). Although there exist CRAs/LRAs with ‘family zones’ reserved particularly for single women with children, in reality there is little guarantee that such women and their children will be placed there because of chronic overcrowding. Furthermore, women-only rooms or wings are often given over to men in order to ease overcrowding or because of repair works on men’s wings while women are placed in makeshift rooms not designed for sleeping in. La Cimade’s 2007 annual report on detention centres notes the following about the CRA Coquelles, in the Calais region: … the situation of the women [at this centre] remains of concern. They are systematically placed in the family wing. In the absence of families this protected zone becomes a mixed one where both men and women are housed. Normally, a few women find themselves among a large number of men. Even where the women are placed in non-mixed bedrooms … their vulnerability in this situation worries us … [because] for security reasons it is impossible for them to lock their own rooms; also there is no CCTV in the rooms for reasons of privacy. (Cimade 2007: 49)

There is one women-only CRA, that of Paris-Dépôt, located within the basement of the Palais de Justice complex.The centre was renovated in 2006 and is therefore in a far better material state than most others. Besides this,

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there exists a culture of greater concern for the individual’s rights, women find it easier to express themselves and be heard and mothers are frequently allowed visits by their children who are in care.The centre only caters for 40 women and despite the fact that conditions here are better than elsewhere, it nevertheless remains an oppressive place. However, what the example of this CRA does show is that a women-only facility does make some difference in the detainees’ quality of life (ibid.: 146–7). Finally, detention centres have been condemned by refugee-support NGOs for systematically abusing human rights in that detainees are not given full information about their rights and the procedures governing detention and deportation. Border police often deliberately refuse to register claims for asylum, instead carrying out immediate refoulement of people to ‘safe’ countries. For example, ANAFE-authorised observers at Roissy’s ZAPI-3 found that people held in the overcrowded facility were left in complete ignorance about why some were being deported while others in the same situation were not. Those who did not speak French were even worse off than francophone asylum seekers. Although certain NGOs such as la Cimade, the ANAFE (Association Nationale d’Assistance aux Frontières pour les Étrangers) or the statutory agency ANAEM are authorised to enter detention centres and monitor conditions a maximum of eight times a year, they are very often obstructed in their work and are unable to report on the full extent of human rights abuses committed by CRA/LRA staff, of poor material conditions and the physical and mental well-being of occupants. Accommodation

Asylum seekers are neither automatically entitled nor obliged to stay in public-sector housing. In contrast with the situation in Britain, asylum seekers who are given a temporary resident permit and have applied for refugee status may live in any part of France and in private accommodation if they so choose. However, in doing so they risk losing the temporary allowance (allocation temporaire d’attente – ATA) paid to them while they await a decision from OFPRA.4 Accommodation for asylum seekers, within the national reception system, exists in the form of a network of reception centres known as CADA (Centres d’Accueil pour les Demandeurs d’Asile)5 established by a ministerial circular (Circulaire 91-92 DPM relative à la réorganisation du dispositif national d'accueil) of 19 December 1991 and coordinated by the NGO France Terre d’Asile (FTDA).6 The CADA, of which there are 269 (ANAEM 2007: 2), were set up in response to the record rise in asylum applications during the years 1989 to 1991 and also in parallel with the government’s decision to prohibit asylum seekers from working. Today CADA are legally defined as specialist social/medico-social establish-

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ments whose mission it is to provide ‘reception, accommodation as well as social and administrative follow-up to asylum seekers … during the period in which their claim is processed’ (ibid.: 15). Given the numbers of asylum seekers arriving in France in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the fact that they were no longer allowed to work to support themselves, applications for CADA places have far outstripped available accommodation. In addition, those who gain refugee status and who are supposed to move out of the CADA, often remain because there is also a chronic shortage of public-sector accommodation for refugees. Consequently, where the state has failed, NGOs have stepped in with temporary solutions whereby hotel and hostel accommodation and sometimes even short-life housing (in buildings marked for demolition) is provided in order to reduce the number of asylum seekers sleeping rough. The gross disparity between demand for and supply of places has been a major source of tension: the numerous NGOs working within the asylum reception framework make an effort to provide care for asylum seekers while allowing them to maintain a certain amount of independence and dignity; political decision-makers, on the other hand, remain aware of international human rights conventions and rules to which France is a signatory but wish to avoid being seen as a ‘soft touch’ on issues of asylum and migration. So, under pressure from NGOs and other agencies the number of beds per year has increased steadily throughout the 1990s and 2000s (most recently from 15,470 in 2004 to 20,410 in 2007 – see Farès 2008), but this increase will be reversed as a result of cuts in the budget allocated to CADA, from €3 million in 2008 to €30 million in 2009.This financial reduction is expected to mostly affect provincial CADA which means that CADA in the Paris region will have to bear the pressure of displaced demand from the provinces (FTDA 2008).The result of this tension inevitably has a negative impact on the wellbeing of asylum seekers in France. While there is no specific mention of female asylum seekers within legislation governing immigration status or within RSD policy, women with children, pregnant women and single women (alongside families with children, young adults and those with a recognised medical condition including trauma sufferers) are accepted as a category with special requirements within the accommodation arrangements of the national reception system. Places in the CADA are allocated according to social and medical needs, by a national board (the CNA – Commission Nationale d’Admission) composed of FTDA, Department of Employment and Solidarity and SSAE (Soutien, Solidarité et Actions en faveur des Emigrants) representatives and which sits weekly to consider applications. Apart from the consideration of social needs, the CNA only accepts applications from those who are able to prove that they are asylum seekers whose claim has been received by OFPRA.Those whose asylum claim has failed are not entitled to accommo-

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dation while those whose claim is being processed under the Dublin Convention cannot be given accommodation until a decision is reached either way. In practice, asylum seekers in this category do not stand much chance of gaining a CADA place. The crisis produced by the lack of accommodation obstructs efforts made by NGOs and asylum seekers themselves to make a life that is purposeful and self-affirming.There is general agreement among NGOs that having shelter helps asylum seekers to make a positive contribution to the immediate community in which they are located. It also increases their chances of gaining refugee status.Those housed in a CADA stand a 71 per cent chance of gaining refugee status whereas those without stable accommodation only have a 16.6 per cent chance of hearing a positive decision from OFPRA (ORIV d’Alsace 2006). The CADA crisis impacts on women asylum seekers in a contradictory way. Because families hold a privileged position in the hierarchy of those who are judged to have special requirements, and because only about a third of the housing needs of the asylum-seeking population as a whole is met, then it means that mothers stand a far higher chance of being given shelter while women on their own are more often than not left isolated along with other non-urgent cases. Single women without children are therefore more likely to find themselves in emergency accommodation which can be very basic and/or which they may have to share with a number of other people, more often male than female because the majority of emergency housing has been planned with a male clientèle in mind.They also find themselves with people whose language they do not speak and communication therefore becomes difficult if not impossible. Shared accommodation of this type can generate conflict and place women in a weak position particularly if they happen to be sharing with men from highly patriarchal cultures or those with a background of violence. In addition, these women will not benefit from the type of mentoring activities, provided by NGOs and other agencies running the CADA, which dramatically increase asylum seekers’ chances of gaining refugee status: for example, how to put together a good asylum application; how to access medical services (in particular those of a specialist nature) or French language classes.They will also miss out on daytime activities which are meant to occupy CADA residents and to help their personal development. CADA also provide meals and clothing. Of course not all CADA meet the standards agreed with FTDA and provide the resources and amenities mentioned but by and large asylum-seeking women are less likely to feel insecure and isolated in CADA than in emergency accommodation. In fact many who are unconfident and fearful of the outside world try and resist pressure to move out of CADA once they have gained refugee status. The national reception system also includes specialist accommodation for those who have gained refugee status. Refugee reception centres known as

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CPH (centres provisoires d’hébergement) were originally set up in the mid-1970s to house Chilean refugees escaping military rule which followed the 1973 coup d’état. The CPH were classified separately from CADA, by the ministerial circular of 19 December 1991, as accommodation reserved exclusively for statutory refugees.The function of the CPH is to help refugees integrate into French society (through learning French for example) over a period of six months and exceptionally a year. Refugees housed in CPH are entitled to national health services and to the RMI (the revenu minimum d’insertion or income support). CPH therefore constitute a halfway house between the CADA and the many types of non-specialist accommodation (public sector and private) open to the rest of the population. Like the CADA, CPH accommodation is in very short supply due to the fact that demand for limited places is high and because many refugees are unwilling to move out of this accommodation into a world where they will be obliged to deal with rents, landlords, utility bills, property repairs and other aspects of independent living. In addition, the number of CPH places have not increased since 2000 and therefore they are only able to admit about one-third of those who leave the CADA (FTDA 2005: 5). As in the case of the CADA, certain groups are recognised as having special requirements and they include families with young children, women on their own, and people (mainly women and children) who enter France as family reunification refugees.Women are therefore disproportionately represented among CPH occupants. However, as two-thirds of refugees are directed towards other accommodation options, the majority of female refugees are to be found in that part of the housing sector that is run-down and largely insecure. In addition to the CADA and CPH, there are two large transit centres located in Villeurbanne (Lyon) run by Forum Réfugiés and in Créteil (south of Paris) operated by FTDA. The transit centres, set up as temporary reception centres for families, were intended to be used in situations of crisis (such as that of Kosovo) which demanded the large-scale protection of whole population groups during a particular period of time. In theory asylum seekers are supposed to be transferred from these centres to CADA within four weeks. However, the reality is that transit centres have been used as spillover accommodation given the dearth of CADA and CPH places. The acute shortage of CADA and CPH accommodation is indicative of a generalised accommodation crisis in France at the lower end of the housing market and women, including those from asylum seeking and refugee populations, find themselves amongst the most excluded groups. One of the prerequisites to successful, long-term socio-economic integration and active citizenship is stable and secure accommodation. As long as housing is scarce, strategies to integrate migrant refugees and other excluded populations will bring limited achievements.

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Access to healthcare

As far as the national healthcare system in France is concerned, the medical care and treatment of asylum seekers and refugees is not singled out especially. In principle, asylum seekers and refugees are entitled to the same medical care as nationals. The CMU (Couverture médicale universelle or universal health coverage) law which came into effect from 1 January 2000, stipulates that any person, below a certain poverty threshold (applicable to the majority of asylum seekers and refugees) and resident within French national territory is entitled to free medical care on the same basis as French nationals. Detainees, failed asylum seekers and those subject to Dublin (II) Convention procedures are covered by the safety net of state medical aid (Aide médicale d’état – AME) which, since the introduction of CMU, has been progressively phased out for French nationals and non-nationals holding one-month plus resident permits.Those covered by the AME have the right to access basic emergency treatment.Although the healthcare system is based on the principle of equality, in practice asylum seekers and refugees’ access to healthcare is restricted not only by a lack of clear information and guidance on their rights and means of access but also often by the sheer hostility displayed by social security staff (who demand numerous proofs) and by medical professionals reluctant to treat what they see as a poverty-stricken and problematic ‘CMU clientèle’. A 2006 report criticised the Conseil de l’Ordre des Médecins (French Medical Council) for its inertia over the high proportion of doctors (between 15 to 20 per cent) who refused to see CMU patients and recommended the introduction of measures to fine them for refusal to give treatment (IGAS 2006). The lack of recognition of migrants, including asylum seekers and refugees, within legal texts, asylum procedures and health and social policy means that the state’s response to and management of the particular needs of these populations are devolved to NGOs: ‘we represent a sort of repository of the failures of public sector institutions and authorities’ (Le Hérou, 15 December 2005). Although asylum seekers and refugees are not mentioned within statutes governing healthcare access and treatment, some vulnerable categories (for example, single mothers, pregnant women, young adults and those suffering trauma and mental health problems) are recognised as having special requirements within the accommodation arrangements of the national reception system. So asylum seekers accommodated in CADA which have a medicosocial function and some of which have established links with local doctors’ practices and hospital departments, undergo a compulsory medical examination where symptoms of medical disorders and disease may be picked up.The most prevalent and easily treatable pathologies are non-specific, but the most common and serious problems relate to certain infectious diseases (e.g.AIDS

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and hepatitis B), certain chronic diseases (such as diabetes and asthma) and to psycho-traumas. However, trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) accounts for the most common serious condition to be found among newly arrived refugee migrants, while depression is frequent among asylum seekers who have either waited a long time for their decision or who have failed and who join the population of sans papiers migrants. The amount and quality of help given to asylum seekers to access healthcare and treatment varies from one CADA to another. Certain CADA such as that of Hautefeuille (Seine-et-Marne) is run efficiently and fosters links with various local service providers in order to help its occupants rebuild their lives, self-esteem and health and to improve their knowledge and skills of French society and its institutions. It has links with the local hospital’s emergency service, mother and baby protection team as well as with doctors in the area.The CAFDA (Coordination de l’accueil des familles demandeuses d'asile, run by the Centre d’Action Sociale Protestant) in Paris also enjoys links with healthcare organisations, in particular Médecins du Monde (MDM) which runs a health and guidance centre on CAFDA’s premises and provides medical and psychological support for asylum seekers. The four CADA run by the organisation Forum Réfugiés in Lyon are the only ones in France to have a psychologist on site (Masson 2005) while the CADA run by the St Vincent de Paul foundation in Strasbourg is the only one to offer hospital services on its premises for asylum seekers with serious medical problems (Wluczka 2005). The way in which a CADA and its services operate is dependent on three main factors: the philosophy and attitude of its director and staff, its location and hence the resources that can be exploited. Unlike CADA, the CPH which accommodate those with refugee status are not legally tasked with a medico-legal function. However, a number of them help occupants who require medical attention. For instance, the CPH run by the Forum Réfugiés in Lyon collaborates with hospitals, GPs and mother and baby protection teams in the Lyon region. It also runs mental health clinics, on its premises, offering CPH occupants a diagnostic and referral service (ibid.). Apart from medical services available in many CADA and some CPH, mental health care within the state health service can be accessed via centres médico-psychologiques (CMPs) which are supposed to be the first port of call for people requiring attention within a particular psychiatric health sector or constituency which covers an area of about 80,000 inhabitants (Atelier Grand Lyon – PLH 2006). Although there is an extensive network of CMPs across France, the state-funded system has been in crisis over many years and the mental health of the French is seen to compare unfavourably with that of other EU populations (Kovess 2004). Hence, most CMPs simply close the door on marginalised ‘problem populations’ such as refugee migrants or admit them to clinics but have little or no understanding of their situation in

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France let alone the willingness to develop a gender-sensitive or culturespecific approach to psycho-social care. According to organisations which deal with the health of asylum seekers and refugees, there has been a steady increase, throughout the 2000s, in the numbers of women accessing medical services (COMEDE 2006: 10; L’Hostis 2005; MDM 2008: 107-8; Wluczka 2005b: 5). This is partly to do with increases in family reunification, partly because of the role women have within the family and because the majority of asylum seeking and refugee women suffer some form and degree of stress, depression or trauma which impacts not just on their mental but also their physical well-being.The most frequent use of services by asylum seeking and refugee women relates to their children’s health (vaccination, nutrition etc) or to mental health, gynaecology and obstetrics and sexually transmitted diseases. The sections below provide a brief focus on two areas of healthcare which are of particular relevance to asylum seeking and refugee women. Women refugee migrants and mental health

Psycho-social medical care has become a major plank in the approach of statutory and voluntary-sector agencies to the care and well-being of refugee migrant populations. The rise in numbers of asylum applicants and refugees arriving from countries such as Kosovo, Chechnya and Rwanda, where traumatic events of an extreme nature (killings/ ‘ethnic cleansing’, torture, sexual violence, harsh detention, huge material losses) have occurred, led to a growing realisation among refugee NGOs in France (and elsewhere in the EU) that mental health issues are as important as those of physical health and that people suffering severe trauma or chronic mental/psychosocial disorders had to be identified and treated as soon as possible. Thus specialist NGOs such as the COMEDE, AVRE (Association pour les Victimes de la Répression en Exil), Primo Lévy, Association Minkowska and others have drawn public attention to the presence, in France, of significant numbers of survivors of torture and violence and to the fact that the conditions of arrival in France and the oppressive nature of the asylum procedure are major elements of stress which can trigger the reliving of traumatic experiences that many asylum seekers and refugees have endured in their country of origin or during flight. Such NGOs also highlight the fact that this population’s mental health problems are being ignored within the health service due to the lack of resources or political will. Beginning a new life in difficult circumstances is particularly exhausting for asylum-seeking and refugee women caring for families. Most of their time is taken up with a constant to-ing and fro-ing between aid organisations in search of bare necessities and, in the case of asylum-seeking women, of help in getting through the RSD process. Many women live in abusive marriages and partnerships. Isolated single women also face immense

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problems of which the most serious is the risk of sexual exploitation and threats of physical harm if they resist propositions from would-be pimps, prostitution rings and sex-club owners. Consequently, although women form the majority of mental health and counselling service users, those who are seen as patients represent merely the tip of the iceberg of those requiring help. One of the last things that refugee migrant women think about is their mental health. In addition, many originate from cultures in which mental health problems are not acknowledged and where it is unthinkable for women to express their innermost feelings. Women therefore tend to seek medical support only when an illness reaches a critical stage. Even in cases where they do contact a mental health professional, it is not always easy for the latter to deal with the problem presented: How does one offer [medical] care to someone who doesn’t know where she’ll sleep on any given night of the week, who spends her evening in a phone box calling 115 [emergency shelter helpline] in order to find a bed? How does one work with women who must prostitute themselves in order to feed their children? (Agrali 2005)

Provisions for the psycho-social care of women asylum seekers and refugees are scant and the best services are to be found in Paris and a few other large cities and are invariably offered by specialist NGOs. For example, MDM has targeted women as a population group with specific needs in 2007 and 2008 and has operated clinics across France from which women are referred to specialist mental health services. Some large NGO-run CADA and CPH (see above) also make referrals or hold counselling and treatment services on their premises. Outside of CADA and the large NGOs, a handful of smaller organisations try to serve local refugee populations. An example of such an organisation is MANA in Bordeaux which has established a women’s health education programme (école des femmes) which teaches migrant women about mental health issues among others and a ‘mind-body’ programme aimed at empowering users – mainly migrant and refugee women. Most NGOs which deal with issues of mental health among refugee populations provide referral and awareness services and few are able to offer treatment services. Unfortunately, underfunding results in small numbers of women being helped. Maternity services

Pregnancy is a common reason for medical consultations among asylumseeking and refugee women. For many exiled women pregnancy in a new country is almost as positive an experience as it might have been in their country of origin. For some women, being in exile increases the desire to have a child – for symbolic reasons – for example, the child will represent a

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concrete link between the country of origin and that of destination (COMEDE 2005: 226). These are most likely to be women who are supported within a family environment and/or within a stable community. The problems of pregnancy and exile are most acute amongst women on their own, who may not speak French and amongst communities which are marginalised not only from mainstream French society but also in areas where disadvantaged migrant and refugee communities are established. An example of doubly marginalised women is that of Roma refugees. The situation of these women was highlighted by Médecins du Monde on International Women’s Day in March 2008.According to MDM, 60 per cent of pregnant women who attend its clinics in St Denis (north of Paris) are from Romania, and a significant proportion of these from Roma communities. MDM reports that: the average prima gravida age among Roma women is only 17 years; 43 per cent of women under 22 have had one or more abortions; only 10 per cent take up contraceptive advice; and only 50 per cent of pregnancies among this population of women results in a live birth (Leprince 2008). These indicators of poor gynaecological and obstetric health are put down to a number of factors by MDM professionals. First among these are the inability of medical services to provide follow-up care to women after first consultations because the large Roma encampment in St Denis has been subjected to frequent raids and rounding up of apparently illegal migrants by police. Second, the inability of Roma women to communicate in French coupled with prejudices about these women and the ignorance of hospital staff regarding the availability of telephone interpreting and translation services has led to gross misconceptions about what Roma women want. The director of MDM’s Roma mission gives examples of women asking for hospital appointments because of concern over the progress of their pregnancy, only to be offered abortions and according to a local doctor, in the worst cases, young women have undergone a dozen or more abortions (ibid.).The explanation given by hospital staff, in relation to a particular case about which an enquiry was made by MDM, is of the following order: How do you expect us to manage when these women never speak French? They only have to come with an interpreter! As they often come to us for an abortion, we are led to believe that that [in this case] the woman didn’t want to keep the baby. (Ibid.)

There are examples of good gynaecological and obstetric care vis-à-vis refugee migrant women. MDM gives the example of the family planning clinic at the Delafontaine Hospital in St Denis where staff have been made aware not only of all the resources available to them but also of the cultural differences between French and Roma community approaches to pregnancy and childbirth.

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Similarly the perinatal unit at Le Vésinet hospital in Yvelines, located west of Paris and established two centuries ago to care for teenage mothers, focuses today on refugee women. The unit’s main concern is pregnant women, particularly those on their own, facing financial hardship, immigration and related problems and ill health (through HIV, AIDS, other severe illnesses or through drug abuse). Not only are women offered medical treatment and care but they also benefit from psycho-social counselling, occupational therapies and organised social activities which serve to boost their confidence through acquisition of knowledge about French culture and society. Social activities and fund-raising events are organised by the APAMED (Association pour l’Aide aux Mères en Difficulté – association for mothers in difficulty) which was founded by the unit’s staff and patients. Among other organisations which are involved in the care of mothersto-be from refugee communities is GSF (Gynécologie sans Frontières) which focuses on preventative care and health awareness raising among health professionals and social workers and also refugee women. The best services in the field of health as in any other are those which establish links with other agencies dealing with refugee women and where efficient communication is set up between CADA, CPH, specialist NGOs and relevant hospital departments and professionals. Education, training and employment Employment

Despite the continuing arguments of refugee NGOs in favour of asylum seekers’ right to work, the latter have not been permitted automatic access to the labour market since 1991, in accordance with a circular issued by the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Training. The same circular also stopped them from being automatically admitted to vocational training programmes. In theory this means that asylum seekers may, in exceptional circumstances, request an authorisation to work (e.g. where a person has been in the country for a number of years due to a lengthy RSD process). However, in practice this rarely happens, if ever. Because asylum seekers do not work, there is no official data indicating their labour market situation. Asylum seekers may work in a voluntary capacity but again as there are no organised programmes of voluntary work, it is not possible to comment on this aspect of their activity in France. On the other hand, those accorded refugee status or Humanitarian Protection are allowed to work without restriction except in fields which specifically require French qualifications. As far as asylum-seeking women are concerned, those who are forced to work in order to support themselves and their families do so illegally and are found in a ‘twilight zone’ of undeclared jobs with non-existent rights. The

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only jobs that are open to them are related to domestic work – childcare, cleaning, caring for old people either within families or in often run-down private-sector homes. In this ‘twilight zone’, they may be hired and fired at the employer’s convenience and where accommodation is tied to a job, they stand to lose all their basic means of survival. Asylum seeking women are often forced into prostitution or sex-club work with all the risks that such employment entails. Figures from the Central Office for the Control of Human Trafficking (l’Office Central pour la Répression du Trafic des Etres Humains – OCRTEH) indicate that at least two-thirds of sex workers in France are from abroad, mainly from East and Central Europe (Romania, Bulgaria, Albania) and from Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Cameroon (Gbadamassi 2004). According to the association Rajfire, asylum-seeking women are often recruited by pimps and sex clubs as they leave asylum tribunal hearings or the ‘waiting zones’ in port areas, when they are in the most vulnerable and desperate state. In comparison, refugee women work legally but either suffer high levels of economic inactivity or work in the most precarious sectors of the French labour market, doing short-term, low-paid, semi and unskilled jobs. Like other categories of migrant women, refugee women experience a far more disjointed working life and their labour force participation rates (LFPR) are significantly lower than those of native French-born women with comparable sociodemographic characteristics. For example, migrant women who have lived in France for up to five years have a 32 per cent lower LFPR. Although the LFPR deficit decreases the longer the period of residence, it remains 19 per cent lower even after six to ten years. (Rubin et al. 2008: xvii). Large numbers of refugee women are inactive because of the likelihood that they face discrimination and prejudice from employers, they lack proficiency in spoken and written French, they have little or no access to affordable childcare, they may suffer from physical or mental illness or because cultural norms may dictate that they cannot undertake paid work outside the home.Where they do undertake paid work, the majority of refugee women work in domestic service, catering and entertainment, the nursing and care sector and in the sex industry. Often their conditions of work will be no better than those of asylum-seeking women who work illegally in the same sectors. Although there is no available data on the educational and professional attainment of refugee women settled in France, it is widely believed that those who are fairly or highly educated (with post-16, university and professional qualifications) underutilise their skills, professional knowledge and experience. These are problems which should concern trade unions and other labour movement organisations in the framework of migrant workers’ rights generally. However, not only do labour movement organisations in France suffer from structural weaknesses which put them in a poor position

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to champion workers’ rights, they have also adopted xenophobic discourses and policies (in attempts to appease sections of the French labour movement), at certain moments of their historical development, which means that unscrupulous employers and indifferent governments have not been consistently challenged over the working conditions and rights of migrant workers.While the main trade unions, the socialist-affiliated CFDT (Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail) and the communist CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail) have run occasional campaigns against sexism, racism, and xenophobia, commissioned reports on the situation of migrant workers, including women (Chaib 2001), and participated in certain initiatives (e.g. the annual CGT-FSU-USS7 women’s interunion study days which have included issues of migrant women and work; or responses to government consultation documents on immigration policy) they have failed to make any impact in terms of promoting concrete measures to improve the labour market situation of women from refugee migrant communities. The smaller trade union confederations (e.g. the Fédération Syndicale Unitaire (FSU), the anarchist Confédération Nationale du Travail, the Union Syndicale Solidaires (USS)) have taken up issues relating to refugee migrant women and work more readily. Where the non-state sector is concerned, refugee women have obtained the most support in terms of job preparation advice, skills and knowledge from voluntary-sector organisations, in particular large refugee NGOs such as FTDA (which has run employment advice initiatives – Conseils Emploi Réfugiés Formation – over many years) or Forum Réfugiés (and its Accelair initiative) which have benefitted from specific EU funding programmes such as the European Refugee Fund (ERF) and Equal initiative. However, it is worth noting that funding for labour market integration programmes is small. For example, the bulk of ERF funds in France has been used for reception rather than integration initiatives; for instance, between 2000 and 2004, only 10.3 per cent of ERF funds allocated to France was used for integration projects (DIHR/MPI/Eurasylum 2006: 18). Also, Equal funding has not been exploited by French NGOs to the same extent as in the UK or Germany. Finally, refugee women may receive help, along with other categories of migrant women from statutory agencies such as the ANAEM which in collaboration with the national employment agency ANPE (Agence Nationale pour l’Emploi) acts as one of the main promoters of integration of newly arrived migrants, including refugees, in France. It has links with the ACSE (Agence Nationale de Cohésion Sociale et l’Egalité des Chances) which, through its service accès à l'emploi et développement économique (access to work and economic development), helps members of France’s ethnic minority populations to enter the labour market as a means of promoting ‘social cohesion’.8

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Education and training

In France, the law requires all children, aged between six and 16 and regardless of their immigration status, to attend school. Hence the children of those with refugee status as well as children of asylum seekers have an automatic right to be schooled (see GISTI 1999) although there are instances where teachers’ unions and sometimes parents have complained about school authorities refusing to allow children from such populations to attend class. As asylum seekers over the age of 16 are not automatically entitled to any form of state-funded education, French as a foreign language (FLE) classes may constitute the only educational training they receive either in CADA or in local community centres. These classes may be supplemented by courses in computer skills, numeracy, childcare and so on and are organised by some of the large refugee NGOs and local councils, through EU funding or other grants. Examples of two large projects funded by the EU Equal programme over the last five years and run by leading NGOs are FAAR (Formation, Accueil des demandeurs d'Asile et Réfugiés) based in Paris and the Oasis (Observatoire pour l’Accueil des demandeurs d’asile) development project in Toulouse.9 The FAAR project’s main aim has been to provide French language training and legal advice during the RSD procedure, followed by assistance and training related to employment. Similarly, the Oasis project has also run FLE and other socio-vocational courses (theatre, photography, art, computing and so on) for asylum seekers and victims of trafficking. Both projects attract large numbers of women who are motivated to attend courses despite having childcare responsibilities and long distances to travel. In addition, both projects adopt a gender-sensitive approach in all their activities including the monitoring and evaluation of their work. Refugees on the other hand, have many of the same rights to further and higher education and other vocational courses as French citizens. However, more often than not they are unable to access such courses due to the lack of language skills and access qualifications. Refugees who do not have the requisite level of spoken and written French are now required to sign integration contracts which oblige them to undertake French language training of 400 hours maximum, civic education and a half-day induction workshop on ‘life in France’. Many refugees take advantage of training opportunities offered by specialist NGOs and other private organisations. Examples of specialist refugee NGOs are the Association d’Accueil aux Médecins et Personnels de Santé Réfugiés, which helps doctors and professionals allied to medicine to retrain and find a job in their particular field, and the long-established Comité d’Aide Exceptionelle aux Intellectuels Réfugiés (CAEIR) which, since 1951, has given financial and moral support to those in intellectual professions to become part of French society. Apart from NGOs, organisations such as the Elle-Fondation, the Maison des Journalistes and the Centre de Formation Journalistes have also worked

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with women refugees in order to provide training and hence improve their position in the labour market.They have acted as a bridge between potential employers and refugee women through funding programmes specifically for refugee women. For example, the Elle-Fondation and Maison des Journalistes have funded vocational (re)training for women refugees who were journalists in their country of origin, while Elle-Fondation and the Centre de Formation Journalistes have created the Anna Politkovskaia study grants for the training of new journalists from September 2008.The organisation Etudes sans Frontières has also worked with the Chechen refugee community in France, making awards of higher education grants from which more than 20 students have benefited so far. Although there exist numerous educational and training initiatives for asylum seekers and refugees, the overall funds distributed among the organisations that provide such services are meagre. For example, between 2000 and 2006, only 2.1 per cent of all Equal funding in France was spent on asylum seekers (EU Commission 2008). Consequently, asylum seekers and refugees remain among the most disadvantaged populations in France with women losing out disproportionately as a result of the barriers that exist. Family and community relations

The traumatic experiences of persecution and flight coupled with reception conditions mean that the lives of women asylum seekers and refugees are often wrought with tension and conflict.The most problematic issues revolve around: the education and well-being of their children; relationships with partners and husbands; anxiety about separation from family members left behind in the country of origin; personal safety and the fear of racially motivated hostility. Education and well-being of children

The majority of women worry about their children’s education and not without cause.The children of asylum seekers are entitled to education up to the age of 16. However, although they are acting against the law, certain local authorities have been known to refuse the enrolment of such children in schools because of uncertainty over their or their parents’ immigration status or because all asylum seekers are seen to file ‘bogus’ claims (ENAR 2007: 16). Because asylum-seeking and refugee women and their families are housed in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, their children are admitted to schools located in so-called ‘educational priority zones’ (ZEP – zones d’éducation prioritaire) which were originally set up to counter systematic academic failure amongst disadvantaged populations by enacting affirmative actiontype measures but which have in many areas become symbolic of the

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marginalisation of entire communities suffering poor education, high unemployment, ill-health and sub-standard housing. Consequently many ZEP schools are seen as ‘sink schools’ particularly as there is a concentration of non-francophone children in them. In the department of Seine-St-Denis which has a large immigrant population, the number of pupils in ZEP schools exceeds that in non-ZEP schools (ibid.: 17). Consequently, many asylum-seeking and refugee women consider that their children are being set up for failure. Once placed in schools, children of asylum seekers and refugees often face another set of problems. Sometimes they are unable to communicate with teachers and classmates because of language difficulties or because they have suffered traumatic events in the country of origin, during flight or in the reception process. On occasion certain traumatic experiences have been relived by children whose schools have been increasingly subjected to police raids aimed at ‘flushing out’ children of failed asylum seekers and other sans papiers over the last few years.The Education sans Frontières network, set up by teachers, parents, educationalists, trade unions and human rights activists in June 2004, has since monitored raids on schools, expulsions of school children and deportation of families. Children may also experience racist attitudes from both teachers and other children. A 2005 report commissioned by the MRAP (Mouvement contre le Racisme et pour l’Amitié entre les Peuples) found that 49 per cent of school children, students and young people, aged between 15 and 25, had experienced racism in school and that racist attitudes were expressed not only by pupils but also by teachers and the school authorities: 34.8 per cent of pupils felt that teachers expressed a ‘latent racism’ in ‘attitudes of contempt or rejection’ while 33 per cent felt thay had been subjected to discriminatory treatment (MRAP 2005a, 2005b: 5, 2005c: 12). The inability to communicate with teachers and other pupils coupled with having to face racist and discriminatory attitudes and behaviour leads many pupils to become either withdrawn or disruptive and this in turn impedes academic progress. The problem of racism in schools has been addressed by a number of organisations through awareness-raising campaigns. Particularly active around issues of racism and discrimination are the Ligue de l’Enseignement, the Ligue des Droits de l’Homme, the MRAP which, along with local community associations, support the annual, springtime semaine d’éducation à la citoyenneté contre le racisme (SECR) or anti-racism week, during which time anti-racist activities and events are held in schools, sports and cultural centres and youth clubs and campaign priorities are determined for the year. Without the support of extended families, asylum-seeking and refugee women feel entirely responsible for creating their children’s happiness and sense of peace. However, as a large number of them do not speak French, they feel helpless about tackling the school authorities about their children’s

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problems and this often leaves them with a sense of failure and despair.This is particularly the case for certain communities of African women where children’s education and well-being would have been the responsibility of a whole family group or village in their country of origin. What is often perceived by teachers in France as a ‘don’t care’ attitude towards their children’s (lack of) performance in school is simply a case of not knowing how to tackle problems as sole parents. Some help with this is available from refugee support NGOs.Those housed in CADA and CPH run by NGOs can obtain help in approaching school authorities. Immigrant and refugee community associations also provide intercultural mediators to accompany women in parent-teacher meetings. While this kind of help does not reach all those who require it immediately, those offering it hope that women who have been empowered through mentoring and confidence-building sessions will cascade it to other women in their community. Women, marriage, couples and patriarchal power

Many women asylum seekers and refugees encounter serious marital/couple problems once settled into a routine life or once away from the institutionalised setting of CADA or CPH where a certain level of protection may be offered. Sometimes, marital/couple problems involve domestic violence and in such cases there are limited facilities for women wishing to seek refuge alone or with children.While domestic violence affects all classes and ethnic groups, asylum-seeking and refugee women are vulnerable for reasons already mentioned. Consequently, together with other categories of migrant women, they are disproportionately represented amongst the clientèle of organisations dealing with domestic violence. For example, in 2003, migrant women constituted about 50 per cent of the women given refuge by the FNSF (Fédération Nationale Solidarité Femmes) in the Paris region and represented 30 per cent of all women who approached the FNSF even though they represented only about 4 per cent of the population (CAIDDC 2004: 133). Relationship problems may also end in separation or divorce. For many women, especially those from the Maghreb, where divorce is initiated by the husband, on his return to the country of origin or at the relevant country’s embassy, there is little a women can do to assert rights over common income, goods and property or children as under ‘private international French law’ (Droit International Privé Français), France recognises family, divorce and certain other laws passed in countries such as Morocco,Tunisia and Algeria. This recognition creates a two-tier system where inequalities based on gender are acceptable when applied to certain categories of migrant women, including asylum seekers and refugees, who then become susceptible to a greater degree of social control than others. On the other hand, while separation or divorce may be the sought outcome, it has often proved difficult for

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women asylum seekers and refugees to obtain either because a woman’s residence status is dependent on that of her partner/husband, especially during the first year of her stay in France unless she entered France as a primary migrant; or because divorce and separation are not tolerated options in certain communities which means that a woman would end up being shunned by the very community that can otherwise be the source of social and even economic support; or because a woman and her children can be left destitute where they have no independent means of income. Anxiety relating to family members left behind

Many women asylum seekers and refugees arrive in France without husbands, parents and children. The anxiety over the safety of those left behind, particularly children, is as debilitating as the sense of isolation experienced.According to French law, family reunification is only allowed to those with refugee status. For asylum seekers whose claims are left pending for years in some cases, family reunification seems an impossibility. For women who gain refugee status, the possibility of family reunification seems equally distant. In order to apply successfully for family reunification, a person is obliged to prove that s/he has lived legally in France for at least 18 months and that s/he was living with her/his family members prior to her/his arrival in France. In addition, proof is required of a minimum income (excluding any form of income support or state welfare allowances) at the time of submitting an application and that the applicant will be able to house her/his family dependants in conditions considered decent and ‘normal’ for any given family within the same region (SDFE 2007: 20). Although the conditions applying to someone who has gained refugee status (as the primary asylum applicant) are a little less exacting, family reunification remains a long and difficult process. Also, the fact that some refugee women are neither economically active nor, where employed, able to earn a high enough income to support an entire family in ‘normal’ housing conditions, means that the chances of a successful application are poor. Moreover, there is no EU or other funding available in respect of family reunification. Personal safety and the fear of racist victimisation and violence

Asylum seekers and refugees, like many other categories of migrants in France are widely subjected to hostility and discrimination, based upon visible differences of colour and culture, in their dealings with French institutions and society. Moreover, restrictive asylum and immigration laws have intensified public suspicion of this population of migrants and feelings of being ‘swamped by hordes’ from certain parts of Europe and the developing world have been promoted by the extreme right since the 1980s. ECRI (the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance) reports that:

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The majority population still harbours prejudices and stereotypes about asylum seekers and refugees … such misrepresentations are heightened by certain aspects of governmental policy which creates an impression of ‘bogus asylum seekers’ attempting to misuse the [asylum] procedure. (ECRI 2005: 19)

According to the European Network against Racism, 55 per cent of the French population believes that there are too many immigrants in France given the available economic resources and opportunities while 71 per cent of people feel that immigrants only come to France for welfare benefits (ENAR 2007: 7) and that their intolerance of refugee migrant communities is therefore justified (ibid.: 9). The result of such public hostility is that the number of racist actions and threats against ‘visible minorities’10 has increased. A TNS-Sofres poll of 2007, commissioned by CRAN (Conseil Représentatif des Associations Noires), found that 61 per cent of people who declared themselves ‘black’11 said that they had experienced racism or race discrimination in some form or other during the previous 12 months (CRAN/TNS Sofres 2007: 17). Disrespectful and disdainful attitudes were encountered by 37 per cent of respondents, while 24 per cent had experienced verbal insults; 23 per cent had been stopped and checked by police for no reason; 9 per cent had suffered physical violence; and 7 per cent had had their property vandalised (ibid.: 16). Asylum seekers and refugees from Muslim majority countries, particularly in North and West Africa, former Yugoslavia and the Roma from Romania and Bulgaria are the most targetted groups. Asylum seekers are particularly vulnerable to racist victimisation and violence not only because they are visibly different but also because, compared with other migrant groups they are poorly integrated in society. The EUMC (European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia) reports that because many asylum seekers and refugees have had bad experiences with public bodies and officials in their country of origin and many have temporary status, they are less likely to report racist victimisation to the police or other authorities. In any case, for a significant proportion of them, their worst experiences of racist victimisation have been at the hands of public officials, in particular the police and security staff of immigration detention centres (EUMC 2006: 104). In such a climate of hostility, many women asylum seekers and refugees feel that they have simply swapped one type of situation of insecurity, in the country of origin, for another type in France. Feelings of being straitjacketed by racist antagonism have been intensified in recent years as successive governments have stepped up the drive to root out failed asylum seekers and other undocumented migrants in a bid to increase deportation rates. Identity checks in the street and immigration raids by police have increased within refugee communities as police target and seal off areas with high concentrations of a particular third country nationality group in order to carry out a

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raid; for example, the Chinese area of Belleville in Paris or the temporary encampments of Roma from central and Eastern Europe. Police are known to use violence in many of these raids which increases the vulnerabilty of women and their children and stops them from going about their daily life for fear of being caught up in such events. Other than the fear of police hostility and checks, asylum seeking women fear attacks on themselves and their family and damage to their property from members of the public, mainly young white males, sometimes part of extremist rightwing organisations. The fear of racism and the possibility of accompanying violence increases the isolation of women asylum seekers and refugees and exacerbates the suffering of those subjected to trauma and previous episodes of abuse and violence in their life. While NGOs such as the MRAP and SOS-Racisme monitor the incidence of racist actions and threats and offer support to refugee communities against racism and discrimination, it is becoming more difficult to do so as such actions and threats have tended increasingly to target individuals who are reluctant to come forward and record their experience for the reasons discussed above. However, there is a long history of anti-racist action in France. A dynamic activist movement which brings together parents, teachers, health professionals, neighbourhood networks, community associations, refugee NGOs and trade unions is willing to challenge public misconceptions about asylum seekers and refugees and policies and measures which serve to heighten discrimination and hostility against them. Asylum seeking and refugee women in Britain and France: comparisons

Given the constraints of space here, it is not possible, nor necessarily useful to compare individual aspects of the circumstances and experiences of asylum-seeking and refugee women in the UK and France. Therefore, the aim here is to outline the main factors which give rise to differences or similarities between the French and British situations, particularly in relation to the legal-bureaucratic responses of the state and gender-sensitive policymaking which impacts on the admission and treatment of female asylum seekers and refugees and on the responses of local communities to the reception and settlement of this population. The legal-bureaucratic responses of the British and French states are similar where asylum and refugee protection is concerned generally, in that both countries are signatories to the European Convention of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention of 1951 whose definition of ‘refugee’ is utilised in RSD procedures; both countries are concerned enough about refugee protection to have established specific structures (OFPRA in France and the UKBA in Britain) to deal with asylum applications and refugee

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determination; and both countries have established guidelines for the determination of refugee status (see Chapter 1). However, it is where the adoption of a gender-sensitive approach to RSD is concerned that differences between the two countries can be identified. In theory, the UK may be considered a leader in the EU concerning the adoption of a gender-sensitive approach to RSD. Refugee support organisations such as the RWRP and the MRWA amongst others, have put relentless pressure on decision-makers, particularly the Home Office and service providers (including NASS) to take gender into consideration at every step. Furthermore, British-based researchers, whether working individually or within university or independent research centres, have undertaken genderaware projects in the field of refugee studies. Hence, for example, UK asylum statistics (on primary applications, initial decision outcomes, applications by dependants, detention and deportation/voluntary repatriation/assisted return) are now disaggregated by gender and indicate recognition by the state that gender constitutes an important factor in the experience of being an asylum seeker/refugee and that women may lose out where refugee protection and aid is concerned. The UK has also published Gender Guidelines (along the lines of those proposed by the UNHCR) for its asylum caseworkers and has accepted, through case law, that women may be persecuted by non-state agents and that they may be considered as a PSG in certain circumstances. However, despite the fact that the UK has adopted a more gendersensitive approach to RSD than France, evidence related to the admission and treatment of women which has been gathered from British and international refugee support organisations demonstrates that there is a significant gap between the guidance laid down by UK government and how it is put into practice. The existence of this gap means that in Britain, as in France, asylum-seeking and refugee women are not being offered expected levels of legal protection and practical help within reception and settlement procedures and processes. What is more, as governments in Europe continue to place greater restrictions on access to the asylum process amid security concerns and the diminishing performance of western economies, it is likely that asylum-seeking and refugee women will continue to be disadvantaged as described in this chapter and in Chapter 3. In France, on the other hand, political decision-makers and statutory organisations dealing with refugee issues have not been put under any real pressure to take a gender-sensitive approach to asylum issues and refugee protection. French refugee support organisations are only very slowly beginning to consider the impact of the lack of a gender-sensitive approach on policy-making and implementation and ultimately on the real-life experiences of women asylum seekers and refugees. Moreover, French academics and independent researchers studying gender and refugee

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migration issues have found it more of a struggle to have their work recognised as valid although recent exceptions of such work include the conference organised at the Sorbonne on gender, persecution and asylum rights in 2006 and the conference organised by the Femmes en Résistance collective, in 2007, on refugee women as victims of conflict. Consequently, OFPRA policy guidelines relating to asylum determination procedures fail to make any case for the gender-sensitive treatment of women asylum seekers by caseworkers and the only category of vulnerable persons mentioned in French asylum law and OFPRA guidelines is that of unaccompanied minors. French RSD procedures are falsely gender neutral, failing to recognise the gendered impact of government policies and practices and paying no attention to UNHCR Gender Guidelines. In addition, because France recognises family, divorce and certain other laws passed in Morocco,Tunisia and Algeria, women from these countries often receive less protection against certain gendered forms of persecution (e.g. domestic violence, forced marriage) than women from other countries. However, wishing to avoid negative publicity and damage to its democratic and humanitarian credentials, France has felt obliged to recognise UNHCR and EU proposals for gender-disaggregated asylum data and OFPRA does publish gendered statistics on primary asylum claims and initial decision outcomes and provides some data relating to the demographic make-up of asylum claimants and their dependants. But this data is not being used systematically, and hence effectively, by either statutory agencies or French refugee support NGOs in order to redirect efforts and/or funding to ameliorate the reception and settlement conditions and experiences of female asylum seekers and refugees.As things stand at the time of writing this book, it is left to individuals within the statutory and voluntary refugee aid sectors and to certain academics and intellectuals to make use of the published gender-disaggregated data in support of policy solutions which are designed to have a positive impact on women refugee migrants. The way in which governments respond to refugee migration shapes public discourses and images of refugee migrants while government policy itself is influenced by the receptiveness of local communities to newcomers. While historically, both Britain and France have presented themselves as a haven for those suffering political persecution, public beliefs about refugees and the motivations behind their decision to flee their country of origin have become increasingly cynical. Raised security concerns in the aftermath of the 9/11 events, the fear of ‘Islamic’ and other attacks launched against western targets, coupled with public doubt about the economic capacity of French and British societies to sustain growing migrant populations, has led to a discernable rise in racism and racist violence in both countries over the past decade.This has had a particularly harsh impact on those who fear interaction with the police and other authorities because of past experience in

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their home countries or in the destination country or because of their insecure immigration status. All of the above factors interact and impact on the situation and experiences of asylum-seeking and refugee migrant women in Britain and France. Conclusion

This chapter has provided as detailed a picture as possible of the lives of asylum-seeking and refugee women in France. It considers the barriers faced by this population of women in terms of the RSD process, access to shelter, health care, education, employment and training and general public hostility. It also draws attention to the action taken by NGOs and other organisations to break down some of these barriers and to highlight the specific needs of women from refugee migrant communities. It does not consider the role of asylum-seeking and refugee women themselves in challenging prevailing myths about their presence in France and in overcoming the barriers to their settlement.This will form the content of Chapters 5 and 6. Finally, it draws some useful comparisons between the factors which impact on the position and experiences of asylum seeking and refugee women in Britain and France. Notes 1 The ANAEM was created in 2005 as a result of a merger between the state-run OMI (Office des Migrations Internationales) and the NGO SSAE (Soutien, Solidarité et Actions en faveur des Emigrants). Since then it has played a growing role regarding asylum reception arrangements. It also has responsibility for state voluntary repatriation schemes and for coordinating the reception and integration contract scheme (CAI – Contrat d’Accueil et d’Intégration).The ANAEM became the Office Français de l’Immigration et de l’Intégration (OFII) on 27 March 2009 and in its new guise has had its remit on integration and social cohesion widened. 2 For a useful overview of work on women and migration in France, published over the last 15 years see Morokvasic and Catarino 2008. See also ‘Eléments de bibliographie thématique 1990–2000’, which forms part of the proceedings of a conference on migrant women held in June 2000 (Comité de suivi des lois sur l’immigration 2001). 3 A cessation may be applied when a fundamental change of circumstances in which a civilian was forced to flee in the first place has taken place; for example, if her/his country of origin returns to a state of democracy following a period of war. 4 In 2006, the ATA replaced the allocation d’insertion (an integration allowance) paid to those who chose to live in private or other accommodation. 5 For a detailed account of CADA see Van Erkelens (2005). ANAEM’s report of the year ending 2006 also contains useful statistical information on CADA admissions and departure rates, profile of occupants (ANAEM 2007). 6 FTDA directly manages 2,000 beds, divided between 30 CADA, in 13 regions.The remaining CADA are run by various other national or local organisations which are bound by the terms of an agreement with FTDA to guarantee certain minimal conditions of reception.

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Refugee women in Britain and France 7 The FSU (Fédération Syndicale Unitaire) is the largest federation of teaching and civil service unions in France. The USS (Union Syndicale Solidaires) which unites 39 national trade unions was established in 1981, in response to the ‘crisis of trade unionism’ in France with the aim of renewing and increasing trade union links with workers and contributing to social change. 8 The ACSE was established in 2006 to replace the FASILD (Fonds d’action et de soutien pour l’intégration et la lutte contre les discriminations) which had been tasked to deal with issues and problems of integration and discrimination relating to immigrants who settled in France. 9 The FAAR project has been coordinated by la Cimade in partnership with the Association Nationale pour la Formation Professionnelle des Adultes, the Centre d’Action Sociale Protestant, the Comité Tchétchénie, the Paris Mayor’s Office, the Direction de l’Action Sanitaire et Sociale de Paris and GRETA (group of public training organisations). The Oasis project partners are the Comité de Coordination pour la Promotion et la Solidarité des Communautés en Difficulté, la Cimade and the Union Chrétienne de Jeunes Gens – Robert Monnier (a CADA). 10 The term ‘visible minority’ or ‘visibly different minority’ is being increasingly used in EU documentation and in French political and media circles. In France, it is used to include people of black African and Caribbean background,Arab-Berber peoples, Asians from the Far East and Indian subcontinent and mixed-race people (CRAN 2007: 10). 11 In its report of the TNS-Sofres survey, CRAN appears to conflate the terms ‘visible minorities’ and ‘black’ (ibid.: 6).

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This chapter explores the question of citizenship-building processes in relation to women asylum seekers and refugees and their civic participation not only in discrete refugee women’s community associations or organisations (RCOs) but also in (longer established) migrant women’s community associations.1 Its aim is fourfold: first, it discusses the relationship between the question of citizenship, refugee women and their associations; second, it presents an overview of the establishment and development of refugee women’s associations in Britain and France; third, it examines the forms of activities and activism in which refugee women engage; and finally, it asks what conclusions can be drawn about these forms of activities/activism in terms of drawing this section of the population into a more inclusive model of citizenship. The question of citizenship is highly relevant to the case of asylumseeking and refugee women who, along with children, are among the most vulnerable groups in conflict situations, having been subjected not only to family and community dislocation but often also to gender-related discrimination, violence and exploitation at various stages of their flight from countries of origin to countries of destination and eventual settlement.There are a number of reasons which may be put forward as to why citizenship is an important issue for asylum seekers and refugees generally and for women, as a particularly dispossessed section of this population. First, asylum seekers and refugees invariably suffer loss of citizenship rights, including that of residence, as well as threats to their human rights in their country of origin. Asylum-seeking and refugee women may suffer added persecution and loss of political, socio-economic and human rights, due to their position as women, either due to discriminatory laws or because of social and religious norms; for example, restrictions on dress styles, access to public places, the right to earn a living or on political enfranchisement. They may also be subjected to gender-related forms of harm (e.g. rape or

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genital mutilation) or harm for the reason of being a woman (e.g. being flogged for not wearing the veil). Second, issues of citizenship are pertinent because the entry, settlement and integration of asylum seekers and refugees in the destination country is strictly controlled by the rights that they are granted or denied in that country. For large numbers of women who arrive as dependants, these rights are gained or denied depending on the immigration status of the male head of family of which they form part. Women have accounted for over 50 per cent of dependent spouses entering the UK over the past six years (see Table 2.4b in Chapter 2) and over 70 per cent of spouses admitted in France during the same period (see OFPRA annual reports from 2002 to 2007). For those who lack autonomous legal status, access to political and other resources and structures can be severely restricted or denied altogether. For example, in cases where a woman’s relationship with the male head of family breaks down, she may find herself deprived of some of the most basic rights in the country of reception. The case of Verah Kachepa is one such which made national headlines in the British media, in 2005.Verah Kachepa and her four children entered Britain, from Malawi, as dependants of her husband in 2001. Following the breakdown of their marriage, Mr Kachepa returned to Malawi. Left in an illegal situation,Verah Kachepa and her children claimed asylum but were turned down to eventually face deportation. They were deported on 25 August 2005 (Barkham 28 July 2005; 26 August 2005). In France, the 1993 Nationality Act increased the vulnerability of migrant women whose legal rights depended on the status of the head of household. The law stipulated that residence permits could be revoked if divorce or separation took place within a year of acquiring them.This pushed hundreds of separated or divorced women, previously dependent on husbands, into a situation of illegality. The sans papiers, as they are known, were therefore forced to claim asylum – more often than not without success. Third, as far as Europe is concerned, the idea of a European as opposed to or in addition to national citizenship has been firmly placed on the political agenda as the European Union has expanded and the pace of political integration stepped up. Throughout this process, concern over the free movement of certain categories of the population resident in the EU has increased and citizenship rights (and their transferability) within Europe are marked by an overwhelmingly racial categorisation between EU citizens (the majority of whom are representative of a white, ‘modern’, Judeo-Christian culture) whose socio-economic and political rights are unquestioned, those who are referred to as Third Country Nationals (mainly from the developing world) with formal residence status who have access to certain civic rights and migrants, including asylum seekers, with greatly reduced rights. This racial categorisation, combined with the ‘male bread winner’ and ‘marriage’ principles (see Lutz 1997: 105) which underpin the immigration laws of

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most EU countries means that women migrants, including asylum-seeking and refugee women, become particularly symbolic of non-European-ness and therefore as undeserving of European citizenship rights. Fourth, if citizenship is about human agency and participation in a variety of political spaces as much as it is about the possession of certain legal rights (as argued below), then at a personal level, it is important for asylumseeking and refugee women to be able to develop the self and gain control over their lives through carrying out actions to change not only their immediate situation but also the world beyond their doorstep. Citizenship

Before going on to utilise the concept of citizenship and to demonstrate how citizenship-building processes work in the context of refugee women’s community associations, it is useful to outline how citizenship is understood here. Let us begin by stating what it is not understood to be. Citizenship is not understood in its traditional sense as purely a state-centred institution founded on the organising principles of nationality (tied to a specified geographical territory) and popular sovereignty (as vested and legitimised in the political authority of the state). Second, in terms of the civil, political and social rights that are claimed and granted, the practice of citizenship is not limited – as in the Marshallian conceptualisation (Marshall 1950; 1964) – to the public domain of human action and activity.Third, although the conceptualisation of citizenship as it is used in this chapter (see below) rejects the split between the private and public domains (whereby mainly masculine models of action/activism to obtain ‘needs’ are legitimated within the public sphere and ‘wants’-related actions/activism is relegated to a delegitimised and depoliticised private domain), it does not align itself with New Right or neoliberal thinking on citizenship. New Right conceptualisations of citizenship advocate the private sphere as an important space for the social activity and contribution of the family and community which are seen as the main social resources of citizenship and as the principal mediating institutions between the individual and the state. In this conceptualisation, the family and community, on behalf of the individual, are urged to make an active contribution to the construction of the socio-economic and political order which the state safeguards through its authority and legal framework. Hence, by advancing ‘active’ or ‘contributory’ citizenship of this kind, practised in a convenient space between the state and the market, New Right thinking seeks to relieve the state of its many responsibilities, especially in the area of social welfare. Moreover, this space can become neutralised as so-called contributory actions and individual responsibility come to replace an activist or participatory politics. Contributory actions motivated by individual responsibility can range from attending building planning application

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hearings to reporting neighbourhood louts to the police, to working to targets set by government (hospital waiting lists etc.) to scooping dog poop off pavements. Such actions of the New Right’s ‘good’ citizen contrast with the radical activist politics of ‘undesirable’ or non-citizens.2 Based on this thinking, a number of governments (conservative and social-democratic) and international agencies have promoted active or contributory citizenship. In Britain for example, the debate on good citizenship was launched in 1990 with the Commission for Citizenship report (Wetherill 1990) and the Labour government has since adopted the idea of good citizenry where people are actively involved in public affairs and made aware of the role of public institutions as an apparently useful mediator between citizens and state (Crick 2001). In France, where the relationship between the individual citizen and the state is established in the Constitution and summarised in the Livret du citoyen (booklet for citizens outlining political and civil rights and responsibilities), the emphasis has been placed on the role of citizen debates where individuals are encouraged by local authorities and public institutions to engage in debates over critical issues such as the environment (Mouterde et al. 2005). The conceptualisation of citizenship used for the purposes of this paper is a broadly left-feminist one which draws upon the pluralist participatory model put forward by feminist political scientists such as Anne Phillips (1991, 1993), Chantal Mouffe (1986, 1992a) and Mary Dietz (1992). As lack of space precludes a fuller discussion here of the diverse feminist conceptions of citizenship which reflect the main philosophical traditions in political science, the interested reader should refer to the literature in this field of study (see for example, Dietz 1992; Elshtain 1993: Lister 2003: Mouffe 1992b; Pateman 1989; Phillips 1991, 1993; Siim 2000; Vogel 1991; Young 1989, 1990;Yuval-Davis & Werbner 1999). Common to all feminist approaches to citizenship is the argument that citizenship both in its liberal and republican conceptions, and contrary to claims about its neutrality, is a highly and deliberately gendered concept which has prevented women from gaining a range of rights or of exercising rights gained, in public spaces, on an equal level with men. Whereas radical feminists have dismissed rights as an expression of patriarchal values and power, there are others who have whole-heartedly accepted reform programmes based on the extension of rights (liberal feminists) while a third category (mainly feminists on the left) maintains an ambivalent attitude in which there exists considerable scepticism about the individualistic character of rights but where, in contrast with traditional Marxist thinking, rights are not rejected outright as a bourgeois sham but are seen as a potentially useful instrument in the protection of women’s needs and as a counterweight to socio-economic inequalities. It is within this third group that the attempt has been made to conceive of a broader range of rights including the right3 to

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political participation as a fundamental right (Gould 1988).Thus citizenship comes to be thought about not only in terms of legal status but also in terms of political practice. However, in traditional political science, participation refers to a narrow range of political activity in which little if any room is made for the informal resistance or disruptive politics at community level, practised most often by those at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid. Consequently, feminist theorists have sought to extend the parameters of political participation by redefining the political (’what constitutes politics?’ and ‘how is it done?’).The redefinition of the political has led to a rejection of the distinction between the informal and formal arenas of politics which has served to conceal activism at grassroots (community) level and thus the activism of women and other disadvantaged groups. It has also led to the repudiation of the division between the public domain where so-called universal rights have historically been fashioned and claimed by men and the private domain to which women have been traditionally tied and where activity is considered non-political.The recognition of a dynamic, collective (and often informal) politics as part of the core substance of citizenship has informed the work of feminist theorists such as Phillips, Mouffe and Dietz and Young who advocate a feminist pluralist participatory model of citizenship. While these theorists agree about the goal of a pluralist participatory citizenship, there exist differences between them on how to reach that goal (see Siim 2000: 36–8). However, for our purposes, key elements drawn from this model and which will be borne in mind when discussing asylum seeking and refugee women’s participation in associations are that: • •

•

citizenship-building takes place through political participation which should be increased through political equality strategies and rights; women’s multiple political roles (as parents, workers and citizens) are recognised through the plurality of spaces in which politics is undertaken; the importance of sub-groups in terms of race, ethnicity and gender is recognised through the development of solidarity politics aimed at securing equal rights.

Citizenship is therefore defined not only as a legal status reflecting the possession of certain formal rights but also as a practice which is independent of such a legal status. As access to legal rights is not always guaranteed by the mere possession of legal citizenship status, the independent practice of citizenship through political participation becomes an important component of this concept.

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The study of refugee associations and citizenship-building

There now exists a significant body of literature on migrant associations in Europe within which a focus on refugee associations has developed only in recent years. Several works have examined the evolution, role and functions of migrant community associations in Europe among which are the following: Catani and Palidda (1987), Jenkins (1988), Layton-Henry (1990), Leveau and Wihtol de Wenden (1991) Rex (1973), Rex and Tomlinson (1979), Rex et al. (1987), Wihtol de Wenden (1988, 1992), and Vertovec (1999). More recently, studies of refugee community associations include works by Griffiths et al. (2005), Joly (1996), Salinas et al. (1987), Wahlbeck (1998) and Zetter and Pearl (2000). The literature on or related to migrant associations also encompasses a smaller corpus of work on migrant women’s associations, mobilisation and activism. For example, French studies have focused on the activism of migrant ethnic minority women’s associations and include works by Feldman (2005), Laurain (2005), Lemercier (2005), Lloyd (1997, 2003), Melis (2000), Nantois (1998), Quiminal (2000), Sissoko (1998), Veith (2000) and Viché (2005). In Britain, some research has been done on migrant ethnic minority women in voluntary organisations while other studies have considered the inter-relationship of gender, race and class in the struggle for rights and against discrimination. The following authors’ works are noteworthy: Black Women’s Network (2001), Davies and Cooke (2002), Kofman et al. (2000, chapter 7: ‘Migrant Women and Politics’), Parmar (1982), Sudbury (1998),Thiara (2003),Wadia (2006). Studies of migrant associations in Europe over the last 30 years, and those of refugee associations more recently, have mainly examined the role that such associations play, identifying the following as important functions performed: overcoming isolation; acting as ‘tribune’ of the communities from which they emerge; providing information about the country of reception; promoting country of origin culture and language; creating communitybased welfare structures to plug gaps in state social service provision; maintaining links with the country of origin. Hence migrant (including refugee) associations have been seen as negotiators of identity and as vehicles for the integration of the particular communities from which they emerge. As the creation of conditions in which formal citizenship status is eventually acquired is considered the most positive and important outcome for all migrants, then their settlement and integration has been raised as the dominant paradigm in the study of associations. However, political participation as an important right and as a means of citizenship-building and becoming part of a wider political community unbound by principles of legality and nationality, has been insufficiently emphasised.

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The question of refugees and citizenship-building may be considered through the study of participation in a number of public arenas (and at different levels) such as political parties, trade unions, NGOs and other public governance institutions. However, what defines such arenas which may be referred to as ‘invited spaces’ (see Cornwall 2002: 2–3), is that they are shaped and dominated by resource-bearing agents who are external to refugee communities, who make decisions on which grassroots actors to invite in/keep out and who therefore risk marginalising the very people they wish to ‘consult’ and involve. In contrast to these are refugee community associations which may emerge organically given the common interests and concerns of their members. Such associations constitute what we can call ‘autonomous spaces’,4 and offer their members a more real means of legitimising their own concerns, of gaining confidence to articulate those concerns, of making links with other social movements, voluntary and statutory agencies and therefore of increasing their participation. These associational spaces can also constitute sites of activism and resistance in a way that invited spaces cannot. As far as refugee women’s associations are concerned they represent an autonomous space at the very basis of the participation pyramid in which asylum-seeking and refugee women can get involved more easily as a means of escaping isolation, of developing coping strategies and of challenging authority as a means of shaping a political and social identity for themselves and it is for this reason that they deserve to form the focus of our study in citizenship-building here. Who participates?

The question of who participates in refugee community associations cannot be answered accurately as the task of surveying existing associations would be almost impossible: first, because not all refugee associations are registered as such and often the lines between refugee associations on the one hand and immigrant or even black and ethnic minority associations on the other hand can be blurred; second, because apart from the large, well-established refugee associations, the life of the majority of small associations can be short due to lack of resources and a seemingly continuous recycling process of associations takes place. However, it is useful to draw upon surveys carried out by the Home Office and the national statistics agency, INSEE, in Britain and France respectively. In Britain, the Home Office carried out a ‘citizenship survey’ in 2001 (Attwood et al. 2003) which drew a similar picture.The survey considered a number of aspects of ‘good citizenship’ including involvement in neighbourhoods, active participation in communities and contribution to family networks. Depending on the type of activity, being involved in the life of associations is placed under ‘active participation in communities’ and the sub-

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categories of social participation and formal volunteering.5 The survey found that people from black, ethnic minority and mixed-race communities (38.75 per cent) were as likely to participate in formal volunteering as those from white communities (39 per cent) (ibid.: 81).As far as participation by sex and ethnic group was concerned, the Home Office survey noted that while white men were more likely than those in other sex and ethnic groups to be involved in civic participation, black women were as likely to participate in social groups and more likely to volunteer formally than white men. Asian women registered the lowest levels of participation of all sex and ethnic groups (ibid.: 84). The survey also recorded that people who lived in least deprived neighbourhoods participated at higher levels in all the citizenship activity categories than those from the most deprived ones and that the differences were particularly marked where social participation and formal volunteering were concerned. So, 29 per cent of those living in the most deprived areas engaged in formal volunteering activities compared with 49 per cent of those from least deprived areas (ibid.: 95). Finally, as far as the type of activities were concerned, women in general were more likely to engage in the field of children’s education and in health, social welfare and religionrelated activities than men; black people were more likely than Asians or whites to be involved in issues of human rights and justice; and Asians more likely than whites or black people to be interested and engaged in religious issues (ibid.: 96–103). In France, the overall level of participation of immigrants and ethnic minorities in civic life and associations is lower than the majority society average. Hence in France, 23 per cent of immigrants participate in the life of associations compared with 41 per cent of the majority population (not including those who are born in France of at least one immigrant parent). In addition, only 15 per cent of immigrants occupy positions of responsibility within associations compared with 20 per cent of those belonging to the majority population. The participation of immigrants, especially those of non-European origin, is also different in that they are more likely to be involved with associations with humanitarian goals (35 per cent) compared with the rest of the population (26 per cent). Very often the associations which have humanitarian goals are also those which defend the interests of immigrant and ethnic minority communities. The profile of immigrants who participate in associations is weighted towards those with proficiency in French language, those who arrived in France when they were under 18 years of age and those who are single. Moreover, the majority of immigrants participate in associations because they wish to meet people with similar interests and background to theirs rather than that they wish to perform an activity with other people (Bèque 2005: 30–1). While the INSEE study found the highest levels of participation among white males with higher education qualifications, it failed to make any comment about the

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participation of women and about those from disadvantaged neighbourhoods and backgrounds. What both surveys show is that sustained and effective participation requires both material and intellectual resources on the part of individuals and communities and that the ethno-cultural background of people combined with their status in society has an influence over the type of activities in which they participate. Asylum seekers and refugees are severely affected by the lack of material resources. However, a significant proportion of them put to use the high levels of educational and professional knowledge and skills that they bring with them in order to participate in the myriad associations, neighbourhood groups and networks that have emerged in destination countries such as Britain and France.6 Having said that, the majority of refugee community associations are run and peopled by men because women’s time is constrained by the traditional demands of domestic life and, in many communities, by the expectation that women should not participate in the public sphere. Besides, the general acceptance, in the destination societies, of gendered roles in public and private life and the unequal power relations arising from it mean that the majority of statutory and voluntary sector agencies prefer to deal with asylum-seeking and refugee men. The establishment of refugee women’s associations in Britain and France

Asylum-seeking and refugee women’s participation in discrete refugee women’s associations or in migrant women’s associations does not have a long history in either Britain or France. The majority of refugee women’s associations were established from the late 1990s and early 2000s, following increased refugee migration into the EU (mainly from East and Central Europe, the Middle East, Africa and South Asia) and more specifically, the rising numbers of women asylum seekers. However, a very small number of refugee women’s associations were set up in the 1970s and 1980s following the arrival of Chilean refugees (to France and Britain) in the early to mid 1970s; Brazilians to France in the 1970s; Iranians (to both Britain and France) in the late 1970s and early 1980s; Moroccans and Algerians (to France) in the early and late 1980s respectively. These associations, for example Les Marocaines en France (formed in 1978), the Collectif des Femmes Chiliennes (COFECH, established in Paris, in 1979), le Groupe Femmes Algériennes (formed in Paris, in 1977), the Cercle des Femmes Brésiliennes (set up in 1976, in Paris), the Latin American Women’s Rights Service (established in London, in 1983) or the Iranian women’s group L’Eveil (created in 1984, in Paris), while very much part of the history of refugee or exiled women’s struggles were different to those which have emerged since the

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1990s.The 1970s and 1980s groups or associations were composed mainly of highly educated, middle-class women who had experience in their country of origin, of political struggles mainly on the left or centre-left. They were also advantaged by the fact that their status as political exiles was never questioned on their arrival in France or Britain and that they were welcomed as sisters in struggle by a vibrant women’s movement and also by left-wing political organisations. They were therefore able to engage in transversal actions with sympathetic students and intellectuals, trade unionists and activists from left-wing groups against the regimes they had opposed in their own country of origin and also against the state in France or Britain (see Beski 2002, 2005; Lesselier 2006;Vasquez and Araujo 1988). Britain received smaller numbers of political exiles and refugee intellectuals from Chile, USSR, Iran and elsewhere in the 1970s and 1980s compared with France. Consequently, women from these countries found it easier to join mixed (though male-dominated) groups of exiles/refugees fighting for democracy in the country they had fled, British feminist/women’s rights groups, or ethnic minority organisations. There were barely any separate groups of women exiles/refugees, even from larger exile/refugee communities such as those from South Africa or Nigeria. One of the exceptions was the Latin American Women’s Rights Service which continues to operate at the time of writing and is probably the longest-serving refugee women’s association in Britain, addressing the needs of Latin American women of various nationalities and particularly women from Columbia. Refugee women’s associations (and refugee associations generally) set up since the 1990s, have faced entirely different circumstances. First, far larger numbers of asylum seekers and refugees have arrived in the 1990s and 2000s compared with the 1970s and 1980s. Second, those arriving in Britain and France to seek asylum have faced a repressive immigration regime whose main aim is to exclude them. Third, refugees who have settled since the 1990s include a higher proportion of people from working class backgrounds. Consequently, the nature of the struggle waged by these populations in the country of destination is vastly different from the struggles of refugees in the 1970s and 1980s and refugee women’s associations in the 1990s and 2000s have had to compete more heavily for support from their own communities, NGOs and state agencies as they try to accomplish the multiple functions of identity preservation, interest representation and citizenship-building. Fourth, the associations formed more recently (i.e. in the 1990s and 2000s) reflect the growing diversity of refugee populations in terms of countries of origin. However, the most numerous and influential associations are formed by the nationals of countries which have strong colonial links with Britain (e.g. Somalia, Iraq, Zimbabwe) and France (Algeria, Congo, Mali). The overwhelming majority of refugee women’s groups and associations

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are based in and around Paris and London simply because these cities are home to long-established migrant populations; they constitute the base for the most important public institutions of governance from which support is sought and given; and they offer the best opportunities such as they exist for refugee migrants to make a success of their situation. However, in Britain, refugee associations generally and refugee women’s associations more specifically, are emerging in other major cities where refugee populations have grown as a result of government dispersal measures set out in the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act.A national dispersal framework was introduced to relieve pressure on London and south-east England local authorities which were required to house and support increasing numbers of asylum seekers throughout the 1990s. Other areas in the Midlands, northern and eastern England were designated ‘cluster’ zones for the reception of asylum seekers. At the beginning of the 2000s Birmingham emerged second to London as far as the density of refugee community associations is concerned while cities such as Leeds and Sheffield have overtaken in recent years. Most of these associations emerged from loosely established collectives or networks of asylum-seeking and refugee women sharing a common ethnic background and/or interests. There are several reasons as to why refugee women’s networks and groups, whether undeclared or legal, have been set up. One is the desire among asylum-seeking and refugee women to organise separately from their main community associations.While most of the literature on refugee associations presents a view of fairly unproblematic relations within associations and between them and the communities from which they emerge, the reality is that associations can be riven with tensions resulting from ideological, tribal, intergenerational or class divisions present within refugee communities. Some studies of longer established migrant associations in Britain have challenged the assumption that associations are united and representative of all sections of their communities (see for example, Goulbourne 1991; Werber 1991). The solidity of associations has also been put to the test by unequal power relations based on gendered roles and it is this last tension that has pushed some asylum-seeking and refugee women to organise themselves separately from men, especially where such tension is imported from political associations and parties in the country of origin.This has been the case particularly with some of the oldest, more politicised networks, groups or associations of Moroccan, Chilean and Algerian women who felt that after long years of being pushed to ‘prioritise’ liberation goals or similar, they wanted to think of their own needs and rights. It is also true however of recent groups of women who arrive from areas of the world where social conflicts are based on long-established ideological and political cleavages, as in Palestine: We, that is Palestinian women, were faced with a dual challenge; the struggle against the occupation and the struggle for our freedom as women. We were

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permanently faced with the question of ‘priorities’ and we found it difficult to be heard as women within political parties and other organisations. … as a woman, I continue to be an activist but it’s difficult to assert yourself as a woman in a movement that is first and foremost committed to national resistance while you’re torn between several imperatives. (Abu Youssef 2004)

As far as recent refugee migrants are concerned, Congolese and Somali women have also spoken of tensions within their main community associations (ideological, tribal and those related to gender roles) as a reason for organising separately in order to connect with other ‘black’ women’s organisations, construct a different identity and thereby side-stepping differences of tribe, ideology and gender-role expectations: Yes, here [in Britain] it [collective black identity] is more stronger, and in Somalia it is mainly warlords and militia, most of the grassroots they don’t want fighting. But here everybody is a tribe … differences is [sic] fought out through petty everyday issues which makes it even more dangerous. Different clients even among the people in the South, they fight with different tribes. So the people who fight, they were coming to live here even though they know they were different from another tribe and they have seen that I don’t belong to any tribe because I don’t believe in it, I don’t need it. What is it they need a tribe? Because they want protection? I don’t need any protection from them. (Dhabo, cited by Davis and Cooke 2002: 6)

The trigger for setting up refugee women’s networks, groups or associations can also often lie in the most mundane of events such as coffee mornings or social gatherings organised by women from a particular community wishing to talk about common problems.This was certainly the case of the Midlands Refugee Women’s Association (MRWA, which closed down in 2006 due to lack of funding) and the Birmingham-based Arab Women’s Association or the many small African refugee women’s groups located in and around Paris. For example, several women’s groups have been set up with the support of charities such as Secours Catholique since the mid-2000s. Among these are groups of Congolese (Bien-être de la femme et de l’enfant Congo Démocratique), Cameroonian (Femmes Bazouaises de France et de Cameroun), and Djiboutian women (Comité des femmes Djiboutiennes contre les viols et l’impunité) who see themselves as ‘groupes de parole et de réflexion’ (support groups) on the conflict and violent events which have taken place in their countries of origin and on the effects of violence on women and families trying to settle in French society. All these groups aim to raise awareness about gendered violence and to help women suffering trauma and/or conflicts within the family. Alternatively, associations have emerged from campaigns against particular injustices or in favour of particular rights or on the basis of geo-ethnocultural background. For example, apart from feeling unrepresented by their main community associations, Iranian and Kurdish women in Britain set up

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the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation in 2002 to focus on stamping out ‘honour crime’ and domestic violence in their communities. The Kurdistan Refugee Women’s Organisation (KRWO), was established in 1999 for similar reasons (against all forms of violence against women and polygamy) and continues to campaign strongly today. Similarly the Latin American Women’s Aid Refuge (LAWAR) was created in 1997 as an association to help women from London’s Latin American communities who were homeless and/or escaping domestic violence. On the other hand, certain associations, not distinguished along nationality lines, may start up in response to a particular set of problems and end up providing asylum-seeking and refugee women with a wide range of services. For example, the Parisbased Rajfire (Réseau pour l’autonomie des femmes immigrées et réfugiées) first emerged in 1996, in the wake of the sans papiers protests, met regularly as an undeclared association from 1998, focusing on issues of undocumented migrants and did not become a legal association until 2002. In Britain, the Women Asylum Seekers Together (WAST) network was established under the aegis of the organisation Women for Refugee Women mainly to help women asylum seekers through the refugee status determination process and to campaign against deportations. Both Rajfire and WAST have extended their services and have increased the engagement of their members in activities related to education, training and awareness of a range of issues related to health, violence, homelessness and so on. The pressure for networks and groups to become registered associations (France) or charities (Britain) has resulted from the expansion of refugee women’s activities and the concomitant need for funding. In France, a further impetus for the formation of associations proper is the Association Law of 1901 which stipulates that any network or group which wishes to organise along more formal lines (in terms of accessing funding, employing staff or engaging with national or sub-national state and civil society institutions) is obliged to declare itself an association. However, refugee women’s associations together with migrant women’s associations, whether undeclared or legal, form a small part of the migrant association landscape due to shortage of funds. Refugee women’s associations are particularly fragile, relying on irregular and meagre individual subscriptions, small amounts of financial aid from municipal and regional authorities, the EU (e.g. the European Refugee Fund), British and French government sources (for instance, the British government’s Time Bank and Invest to Save programmes or the French government’s Fonds d’action et de soutien pour l’intégration et la lutte contre les discriminations (FASILD), now ‘fonds ACSE’ (L’Agence nationale pour la cohésion sociale et l’égalité des chances) and money raised from cultural events. Refugees and asylum seekers constitute the most disadvantaged of socio-economic groups in EU destination countries.

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It can justifiably be stated that, in general, migrant groups, including those of refugee migrants, have found it easier to organise and form associations in Britain than in France. This may be explained by the different histories of migration and related legislation in the two countries.While it is not possible to go into the details of this explanation here, three points are worth highlighting. First, large-scale non-European immigration to Britain which began in the 1950s brought in New Commonwealth citizens from the Caribbean and South Asia who were entitled to unrestricted entry (until 1962), British citizenship and the political rights attached to it. Consequently, armed with political rights, immigrants from the New Commonwealth found it relatively easy to establish a vibrant and relatively influential association culture with which subsequent generations have continued. In France, on the other hand, immigrant communities have been unable to lay strong foundations for an active associative culture due to the fact that early generations from France’s ex-colonies, with the exception of Algerians until 1962, were denied certain civil and political rights. Hence, more recently arrived groups have found it difficult to build on this poor legacy. Moreover, although immigrants obtained the right to form legally registered associations in accordance with the Socialist Law of October 1981, this was not accompanied by other basic political rights (such as the right to vote). In fact, it may be argued that the October 1981 Association Law served to disincentivise certain refugee and migrant groups from civic and political participation not only because the 1981 law had failed to encompass other formal political rights (as migrant groups had called for) but also because registering an association meant accepting greater constraints (imposed through state financing and regulation) and hence a loss of autonomy vis-àvis the French state. Second, the term ‘association’ has been used very loosely in Britain and can refer to various groupings of people: from church groups and leisure circles to workers’ welfare groups or overtly political organisations. In France only a body recognised by the Association Law of 1901 and which at the very least requires a formal constitution is termed ‘association’. Hence, it is possible to acknowledge publicly many more associations in Britain than in France. Third, migrant and refugee associations in Britain appear to have greater scope in gaining public funds directly from central government, through municipal councils or through designated voluntary sector organisations.This may be explained by the fact that the British approach to the integration of immigrants (of whom many become part of established ethnic minority communities) allows for the expression of minority cultures within a multiculturalist policy framework while the French approach to immigrant integration rests on a universalist world-view in which differences, including those based on ‘race’/ethnicity and culture, must be effaced in public life.

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One of the effects of lesser funding opportunities in France has meant that women refugees who want to set up groups or associations find it easier to join existing immigrant associations or to become part of state recogised umbrella organisations such as the FASTI (Fédération des Associations de Solidarité avec les Travailleurs Immigrés) or other networks of community associations. However, in both countries, it is impossible to even roughly estimate the number of refugee women’s associations in existence.The fact that many are undeclared and suffer a chronic lack of resources means that there is a continual process of association demise and renewal. Hence, many of the associations in France and Britain which we identified at the beginning of this project on refugee women were no longer in existence by the time of its completion. In Britain, the future for refugee women’s associations could be bleaker than before as government policy (at the time of writing this chapter) dictates a move away from funding so-called ‘single-interest’ groups to mainstream organisations embracing generic issues, in a bid to serve all sections of a community thereby increasing ‘community cohesion’ and countering the apparently segregating effects of multi-culturalism. The Refugee Council has pressed the government to rethink this policy:‘We are lobbying hard to change the way so-called single interest groups are perceived, as we know how important they are for refugees themselves and for the communities in which they live … the dual role they play – both providing practical support and giving refugees a voice – is crucial to sustaining stable, cohesive communities’ (Goff 2008). How do refugee women’s associations contribute towards citizenshipbuilding?

Let us turn to the question of asylum-seeking and refugee women’s participation in associations and what associations do. In both Britain and France, refugee women’s associations engage in activities that fall into two main categories: first, ‘destination society enrichment’ activities are designed to inform the destination society about the presence of asylum-seeking and refugee women, why they are there, where they are from and to make known their aspirations, opinions, culture and customs not only to the public but also to a range of policy and decision-makers; and second, ‘refugee community advancement’ activities which offer asylum-seeking and refugee women a better understanding of the destination society and which plug gaps in state and NGO provision of services to this group of women in order to promote their socio-economic and political progress in the destination country. In establishing and maintaining a two-way relationship with the destination society through the two categories of activities mentioned, the majority of refugee women’s associations aim to: empower their members, to

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counter oppressive practices against their members, to fight for equality, justice and diversity, to improve their members’ quality of life in the destination country and to create the conditions in which refugee women and those hoping to gain refugee status can access citizenship in its broadest and ultimately its formal, legal sense. The associations questioned for this research engage in a variety of activities through which the destination society can learn of the circumstances in which asylum-seeking and refugee women have fled their countries of origin and the situation(s) that they encounter in western destination societies. ‘Destination society enrichment’ activities include: •

• •

•

•

public meetings, demonstrations and other one-off events, often in conjunction with other social movements or progressive NGOs; for example, on 1 May, International Women’s Day, International Refugee Week; and more recently associations and their members have participated in rallies and demonstrations against the war in Iraq; campaigns against racism, deportations, female genital mutilation, forced marriage and ‘honour’ crimes against women; lobbying political decision-makers through petitions and letters – this kind of activity is undertaken by all of the bigger associations often in conjunction with refugee NGOs, and with the support of the smaller ones; provision of witness accounts by individuals to sympathetic journalists – normally through personal contacts between individuals in associations and in the media; cultural evenings, open to the public, organised (separately or jointly) by refugee women’s associations and NGOs supporting refugee migrants.

The second category of ‘refugee community advancement’ activities, aimed at increasing knowledge and understanding of the destination society in order to settle and progress, consists of providing asylum-seeking and refugee women with basic education, practical skills and help, and recreational space and experiences.They include for example: • • • • • •

legal advice and advocacy vis-à-vis asylum claims; interpreting services for women who need to consult with asylum process agents, healthcare, education and housing professionals; advice on money management and debt; workshops on effective communication and assertiveness; leadership training through inclusion of members in agenda setting and decision-making within the association’s own structures; clinics on health (e.g. HIV awareness, trauma and depression, drug misuse, contraceptive advice) and related issues (domestic violence), good parenting skills;

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• • • • •

‘sign-posting’ services on behalf of public institutions that deal with asylum and refugee issues; language classes and basic employment-related training such as acquisition of IT skills, preparation of CVs and interviews; cultural visits and outings (to theatres and museums for instance) for women and their children; workshops on the destination country’s history and culture; childminding and homework clubs for school-age children.

Both these sets of activities in which refugee women’s associations engage can be said to contribute towards citizenship-building.The first set of activities get asylum-seeking and refugee women directly involved in a number of political participation options ranging from the conventional (lobbying politicians) to the informal (discussion of political and social issues in spaces provided by the association) and to the more militant (demonstrations and even occupations as in the case of the sans papiers movement in France supported by associations such as Rajfire and ASFAD (Association de Solidarité avec les Femmes Algériennes et Démocrates).Their direct involvement in political actions has a number of impacts. First, asylum-seeking and refugee women are more likely than women from labour migrations to experience increased awareness of political issues generally and to become familiar with the political structures and cultures that operate in the society. Many of the associations consulted during this research stressed the fact that in their experience a large proportion of asylum-seeking and refugee women have higher levels of formal education, qualifications and work experience than women who arrive as part of labour migrations and that this equips them with the tools to participate politically in the country of reception.While there is generally insufficient data on the resources that asylum-seeking and refugee women bring with them, the 2002 survey of refugee women’s skills and qualifications (mentioned in Chapters 2 and 3), published by the Greater London Authority, found that 68 per cent of refugee women were educated to university level and that the same proportion were employed in their respective countries of origin. Of the survey sample, 33 per cent had trained and worked as teachers, 32 per cent as nurses and 25 per cent as doctors while the rest were students, or had trained and worked in professions as varied as architecture, social work, business and marketing (Dumper 2002b). A more recent skills audit (Kirk 2004) gives a breakdown of refugees’ qualifications and occupational status in country of origin by gender, age and nationality. Second, the women inevitably come across other social actors and associations with whom they can network. Being part of a larger collective which includes some very visible organisations can create a sense of empowerment through being seen and making one’s voice heard. Of course, as mentioned

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above, it also eases the financial pressures of running an association. In this respect many refugee women’s associations work on a regular basis with each other, and transversally with some of the longer established migrant support organisations, feminist organisations and NGOs. For example, among the larger refugee women’s associations in France, Rajfire collaborates with ASFAD, Groupe Femmes Asile, Amnesty International (French section) and is a part of the CADAC (Coordination des Associations pour le Droit à l’Avortement et à la Contraception) whereas ASFAD maintains a regular connection with GFAMS (Groupe Femmes pour l’Abolition des Mutilations Sexuelles), ELELE (a Turkish association the vast majority of whose members are women) and GISTI (Groupe d’Information et de Soutien des Immigrés). In Britain, refugee women’s associations such as the Sudan Women’s Association, the Horn of Africa Somali Women’s Organisation, IKWRO, and others are sometimes brought to work together under the umbrella of organisations such as the RWRP,7 Action for Refugee Women (AfRW),8 Women for Refugee Women,9 the Refugee Women’s Association (RWA)10 or Amnesty International’s women’s section in campaigns over issues of common concern among which are FGM, sexual violence, ‘honour’ killings and the fight against racism and injustices in Europe and elsewhere. Third, direct involvement enables asylum-seeking and refugee women to bring the political experience and know-how that many have gained in their countries of origin to political arenas in the destination country. Refugee migrant women arrive in EU countries as political exiles either in their own right, because of family links with anti-government or radical movements in their countries of origin or because they form part of a persecuted ethnic group. Hence, unlike labour migrant women and for that matter majority society women generally, many are schooled in forms of radical action which others have only heard of or witnessed through media reports. Large numbers of refugee women are not experienced activists but nevertheless display high levels of politicisation in their ability to see the broader issues at stake in a given conflict situation. This, for example, has certainly been the case of Palestinian women who were involved with movements such as the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) or Hamas and who participated in or were influenced, through family or friends, by the women’s demonstrations of the first intifada.11 The political know-how that refugee women may bring with them adds to the resources and perspectives of the associative and social movements of which they form a part. Many acknowledge the usefulness of experience gained in past struggles in continuing to fight for their own rights in Britain and France and for the human rights of families and communities left behind in the country of origin. This was expressed by all the participants gathered at a round-table meeting, on the theme of ‘exile: struggles over here and over there’ which was held in Paris, 11 March 2004 (Abu Youssef 2004).

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The activities falling into the second category described above (‘refugee community advancement’ activities) fill a crucial gap in service provision by statutory and voluntary agencies and teach asylum-seeking and refugee women about the destination society. In this sense this second set of activities fits in with the integration paradigm which currently dominates mainstream political thinking and studies of refugee community associations. While the ‘integration’ role that refugee women’s associations play is not to be forgotten, it must also be recognised that many are concerned that their members should be empowered and to this end they endeavour to equip asylum-seeking and refugee women with the four main ‘weapons of the powerful’ (Cornwall 2002: 28): first, information of various types is given to their members (see the list above); second, members are invited to offer opinions in both role play (communication and assertiveness training) and real situations (at association meetings for example); third, members are invited to discuss and set priorities to do with the activities that associations undertake; and fourth, many associations (in particular those that are not highly and formally structured) include as many of their members in decision-making as possible. Given situations of political repression in countries of origin from which asylum seekers and refugees escape and given that women’s associations often emerge as a result of the lack of democracy in the male-dominated refugee associations, the majority of refugee women’s associations are keen to include, if possible, all members in their democratic functioning. In addition to the main roles and functions described above, associations also enable asylum-seeking and refugee women to deal with different notions of women’s status in destination societies, with their aspirations and how to negotiate a place for themselves within their families and communities which allows for the construction of a sense of self and control over their own life. Many associations simply provide a physical space and psychological support, outside the home, for women to meet and talk about their aspirations and gain the confidence to set themselves up independently. SubSaharan African women’s associations (especially from West and Central Africa) have over years imported networking skills from countries of origin whereby groups of women may pool their human and financial resources in order to set up businesses run on cooperative lines or where financial resources are pooled in order to create small savings and credit unions (tontines).12 Tontines have provided numbers of refugee women with exposure to micro-financial methods and helped them to become familiar with banks and other business institutions in Britain and France as well as to create selfemployment. An example of such an association is the ADEMAF – Benin (Association pour le Développement Economique et la Micro-Activité des Femmes) supported by regional funding in the Loire. As tontines also have

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political clout in traditional African communities, the asylum-seeking and refugee women involved in them gain personal esteem vis-à-vis family, friends and community in destination society.13 Finally, while associations do not interfere directly between women and their husbands (barring cases of domestic violence) or family, the strength that is developed by the women through associative activities often puts pressure on male heads of household and communities to rethink their attitudes and practices towards women and girls. Such pressure is further increased when associations gain public recognition for their work and links with public governance institutions. For example, the above mentioned London-based, Kurdistan Refugee Women’s Organisation has gained enormous recognition from statutory bodies such as the Metropolitan Police, the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Big Lottery Fund in its educational and activist campaigns against domestic violence, polygamy and the advancement of Kurdish women’s autonomy and rights. Similarly, the Paris-based association AFAVO (Association des Femmes Africaines du Val d’Oise), which works in the field of socio-cultural mediation between migrant women, their families and civil society, has strong links with NGOs, municipal and regional authorities. For asylum-seeking and refugee women, the knowledge of having an alternative support to husbands, fathers, uncles, brothers and even sons brings a sense of freedom which may then push them to participate further in the public domain. It can develop the idea that they can operate as mothers, volunteers/workers and political subjects in a number of arenas and consequently reinforces self-identity in a different society. The discussion above has shown that broadly speaking there are more similarities than differences between the associations in Britain and France as far as their role and functions in relation to citizenship-building are concerned. The majority of refugee women’s associations and networks in Britain and France work on the principle that access to and use of citizenship (in its broadest sense) must be based upon the knowledge of one’s rights and the capacity to gain and exercise them. They therefore aim to provide their constituents with the necessary tools with which they can understand and negotiate the social, political and cultural environments of destination society. In addition, they assume responsibility as transmitters of knowledge about refugee communities to majority society in destination countries. In this respect they share many of the same characteristics as immigrant associations generally. However, refugee womens’ associations can be said to occupy a unique role within the landscape of associative life in Britain and France not only because they are involved in positioning some of the most disadvantaged members of society in political arenas normally dominated by traditional protest movements and groups claiming equality and justice but also because, in doing so, they challenge the existing, criss-crossing dynamics

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and relationships between a range of actors, for example: the state and migrant associations; the state and women’s associations; NGOs and the state; NGOs and mainstream migrant or male-dominated refugee associations; male-dominated migrant associations and the communities they represent, to name just a few. In turn, the challenge to established relationships can lead to a reconfiguration of the available arenas of protest and resistance and to possibilities for real autonomous action in favour of citizenship-building. Conclusion

The study of refugee women’s associations in Britain and France strengthens the conviction that their role and goals deserve to be examined and made visible. If one subscribes to the view that citizenship is as much about becoming part of an active political community as it is about achieving a particular legal status tied to the possession of rights, then refugee women’s associations can act as citizenship builders for some of the most disadvantaged groups of people in European societies.While some of these people may go on to achieve formal rights, a large number of others will not but they will, through their participation, have avoided some of the worst aspects of marginalisation that asylum seekers and refugee communities face today. They will have come together in networks of solidarity and collective action, gained some sense of their own power, rendered some legitimacy to their concerns, and made some contact with the destination society and its institutions. While this chapter has presented refugee women’s associations as significant sites of autonomous action, mediation (between different groups of refugee women; between refugee women and their communities; and between refugee women and the destination society), challenge (to established thinking and practices in their own communities and the destination society) and hence as important citizenship builders, it should not leave the reader with the impression that they work in an unproblematic way. Of course, these associations encounter various problems as do most others and of course independent discourses and action towards active citizenshipbuilding can give way to discourses and practices that do not suit all its members or that become neutralised and sometimes ineffective as some associations become more heavily involved in formal public governance. Furthermore, these associations are dealing with women of negligible material resources who are often in mental anguish and turmoil. So, while large numbers of refugee women participate politically (in the widest sense), there are vast numbers who cannot think beyond the everyday concerns of finding accommodation, feeding their families and progressing their asylum applications. Such women are unable to add to the resources of the association(s) from which they seek help.The question of the limitations (financial

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constraints, factionalism, accountability, legitimacy and so on) of refugee women’s associations is one which certainly requires further research but it is one which cannot be considered here, given the parameters of this chapter. Notes 1 The term ‘association’ is used here to include both registered associations as well as collectives, groups and networks of women which run on more informal lines but which have decided for one reason or other not to set themselves up as formally structured or declared associations. 2 For an endorsement of neo-liberal citizenship see: Roche (1992) and Mead (1986). For a left critique of it see Plant (1991). 3 In an attempt to break the recent monopoly of the neo-liberal right over discourses of civic responsibility, progressive-minded citizenship theorists have put forward political participation, represented by dynamic, collective politics as a civic obligation. See, for instance, Dietz (1992). 4 Such spaces, outside state and other formalised institutions of governance have been referred to elsewhere in a number of different ways. For a discussion of this see Cornwall (2002). 5 The five sub-categories of active civic participation are: civic participation; social participation; formal volunteering; informal volunteering; employer-supported volunteering (Attwood et al. 2003: 77–90). 6 Studies of earlier refugee movements of the 1970s and early 1980s found that refugees, as opposed to other categories of migrants, bring with them high levels of skills and knowledge. For example Ugandan Asians to Britain brought with them useful, transferable business skills while the majority of Chileans in Britain and France were highly educated and had exercised an intellectual profession of one kind or other in Chile.Vietnamese refugees who arrived in France were a mix of skilled manual workers and people who had held civil service and white-collar jobs in their country. However, in contrast, the Vietnamese refugees who arrived in Britain (as a last resort having been rejected by France and USA) included few who had exercised an intellectual profession and many (75 per cent ) skilled and semi-skilled manual workers who were not able to effectively transfer their skills to the British labour market, partly because of the way in which their resettlement was handled and partly because of their total inability, initially, to communicate in English (Robin et al. 1999). 7 RWRP is funded via Asylum Aid and was set up to provide women asylum seekers and refugees with free legal representation and advice. Since 2000, its aims have extended beyond representation and advice. It also acts as an umbrella for refugee women and their associations. 8 AfRW, set up in 1997 and funded mainly through Refugee Action, is a network bringing together refugee women and their associations across Britain. 9 Women for Refugee Women works mainly to raise awareness of the reasons why women seek asylum in Britain and of the problems they face in trying to gain refugee status. 10 RWA was launched in 1995 to empower refugee women, raise public awareness of the problems and needs of refugee women and to provide a model of good practice in working with women from diverse backgrounds. 11 The first intifada, an action of mass civil disobedience and protest against an increasingly brutal Israeli occupation, began in 1987 and lasted until the early 1990s. One

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Refugees, gender and citizenship in Britain and France of its characteristics was the repeated mass demonstrations by the Palestinian women of the refugee camps (of Gaza in particular). 12 In both Britain and France the most common businesses set up in recent years (mainly by Nigerian and Congolese women) are small grocery stores (often combined with hair-plaiting and beading) and community cafés. 13 For more information on migrant women and tontines, see Dumes (2006).

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This chapter begins from the hypothesis that refugee women, politically active in their countries of origin, will be motivated to participate in their country of destination, but that their opportunities to participate may be constrained by institutional/organisational, social and cultural barriers. It highlights refugee women’s agency, countering the perception that they are passive victims, and describes their individual motivation and resources, and their experiences of NGO participation. As Chapter 5 has shown, some studies have focused on refugee women’s activism in refugee community associations. There has been less interest in refugee women’s participation in other political or civil society organisations. A notable exception is the work of French historian Claudie Lesselier (2005a, 2005b) who has unearthed evidence of refugee women’s participation in groups of refugee women, or in groups including refugee women, from countries such as Cambodia, Chile, Brazil, Morocco, Algeria and Iran over the past 30 years. Lesselier’s cataloguing of these forms of participation is reminiscent of the early work carried out by political scientist Vicky Randall (1982) to demonstrate that women are not politically inactive, but that their activism has rarely been the subject of academic and media interest, and falls outside mainstream definitions of ‘the political’. Recent government interest in encouraging civil society participation as a means of enhancing social capital and active citizenship has coincided with broader reconceptualisations of the political to produce studies such as the UK Electoral Commission’s report on the gender gap in activism (Lovenduski et al. 2004). This study finds that women are equally or more engaged in activities aimed at influencing specific issues and policies outside the electoral arena, whereas men are significantly more active in campaign politics and are more likely to belong to voluntary associations, with the exception of church groups. It finds that explanations for women’s lesser participation in parties and associational life lie in a combination of lack of resources, including time, money

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and civic skills; lack of access to networks; more limited interest; and institutional obstacles. A feeling of being able to influence public affairs, a sense of civic duty and political interest, are all found to play an important role in explaining activism (Lovenduski et al. 2004: 35). The migration literature also tends to highlight the alienation of immigrants from mainstream politics, although again this is partly attributable to the emphasis placed on electoral politics in many studies of participation. In order to counter this, Miller (1989: 129)1 developed a typology of non-electoral participation, which has subsequently been influential in the migration and refugee literature as a means of drawing attention to forms of political activity obscured by a narrow focus on mainstream institutional politics. He identifies five areas outside electoral politics in which migrants might participate: (1) homeland participation, (2) consultative voice, (3) unions and factory councils, (4) political, religious and civic organizations, and (5) extra-parliamentary opposition (Miller 1989: 134). Alice Bloch (2002a: 86–7) has applied Miller’s typology of migrant participation to refugees in the UK and found evidence of involvement in most of these categories. Bloch finds that refugees are involved in homeland politics; religious and civic organisations; and demonstrations, meetings and marches. She states, however, that dispersal can reduce the concentration of refugee populations from particular countries, making it less likely that they will be able to organise and participate collectively; and high levels of unemployment amongst refugees preclude workplace activity, although trade unions may offer support. Finally, Bloch states that political parties, particularly of the left, may offer opportunities for refugee participation. However, our study failed to find evidence of interest in encouraging this on the part of British and French political parties. These studies of participation by women, migrants and refugees (although not specifically refugee women) provide a useful starting point for the questions addressed in this chapter.They enable us to suggest that refugee women may find the route into mainstream politics barred to them, either as a result of citizenship and nationality laws or as a result of less explicit but equally obstructive barriers such as exclusion from the types of profession which constitute the pool of political office holders, or discrimination on the part of party selectors.We can therefore expect to find them excluded from mainstream politics for the same reasons as other non-nationals and/or for the same reasons as other women. However, this does not mean that refugee women in Britain and France are politically inactive, as this chapter shows, by taking as an example their participation in NGOs. This chapter focuses on NGOs for a number of reasons. First, refugee women are more likely to be active in NGOs than in other political and civil society organizations (with the exception of refugee community associations, as we have seen in Chapter 5).The reasons for this include: restricted political

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rights; denial of the right to work or greater likelihood of unemployment or employment in a sector with low levels of union membership and activity; and language difficulties. NGOs, and in particular refugee, migrant and human rights NGOs, may be more receptive to refugee women’s participation in an attempt to reflect the client population, as a form of diversity policy, or because they have explicit needs for skills found in the refugee population, including empathy, experience, and language or cultural knowledge. Refugees may look for voluntary and employment opportunities in NGOs, because they already have contact with the organisation or because they feel their language and cultural knowledge will be recognised as an advantage. Second, the number, size and activities of NGOs have increased substantially since the 1990s in particular, and they have become the focus of much public policy and academic interest.This is because of their increased role as service providers, as the state withdraws from welfare provision; their role in contributing to refugee integration through, for example, language training and education in civic institutions; and recent interest in the relationship between participation in civil society and the enhancement of social cohesion and active citizenship. Third, NGOs are also the source of considerable knowledge about refugee women.They use the knowledge gained from their frontline contact to support another essential facet of their work, which is to raise awareness of refugee issues and to lobby and campaign for their rights.The knowledge they gain of the specific experiences, needs and interests of women refugees is an indispensable resource for refugee women themselves, for their legal caseworkers, and for those attempting to influence public policy. A growing number of high-quality research publications have been produced by UK NGOs in the past few years, specifically addressing gender issues, whether this is the excellent work on gender-based and gender-specific persecution by the Refugee Women’s Legal Group (RWLG), the country of origin studies by the RWRP, or studies on refugee women’s experiences of the asylum process and settlement by the Refugee Council, Refugee Action, the RWA and the RWRP. In addition, the recognition of gender issues has led to the creation of women’s sections or committees, women’s associations and networks. This especially the case in Britain, but is also emerging as a trend in France. NGOs have played a central role in bringing gender onto the refugee policy agenda and in campaigning for policy change.They make demands on the state, attempt to influence policy, drawing on their knowledge and experience to substantiate their arguments about the impact of policy proposals or the need for policy change. They acquire a certain amount of legitimacy as experts in this field and have some privileges, for example access to detention centres.

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Civil society participation has both individual and collective benefits, and these will be discussed in relation to refugee women in Britain and France in this chapter. However, there is a tension between these benefits and the potential role of civil society participation in excluding participants from mainstream sites of decision-making and absolving the state of its welfare responsibilities.This too will be discussed later in the chapter. This chapter discusses individual, organisational and environmental (eg. racism, poverty, exclusion) opportunities for and obstacles to NGO participation. It presents information, on the one hand, about the NGOs, the work they do with refugee women, and the body of knowledge they have accrued as a result and, on the other hand, about the individual refugee women who participate in these NGOs as volunteers or paid employees, what motivates them, what resources they bring to the organisations, and what opportunities and obstacles they face. The relationship between these two aspects of refugee women’s participation in NGOs is two-way and interdependent. This chapter focuses on NGOs which have been particularly active in the triple role of providing material support and advice to refugee and asylum seeking women; campaigning for their rights; and fostering empowerment, participation and capacity building. These are: Refugee Council; Asylum Aid/RWRP; and Refugee Action/AfRW in the UK and la Cimade, and FASTI in France. Sources include materials produced by these and other organisations, including Oxfam and the Red Cross, and a small number of academic studies and reports by the UN and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Finally analyses of these written sources have been informed by the results of a small questionnaire survey conducted amongst refugee women active on a paid or unpaid basis and 12 semi-structured interviews with women from these NGOs. Questionnaires were distributed by post and email to refugee and human rights organisations in Britain and France with the request that they be passed on to refugee women active within that organisation. Twelve completed questionnaires were returned. In addition, a group discussion with refugee women and women from NGOs was held at the Maison des femmes in Paris in September 2005. Refugee Council

The Refugee Council is the largest organisation in the UK working with asylum seekers and refugees and was formed in 1981 as the result of a merger of the British Council for Aid to Refugees and the Standing Conference on Refugees. It has nearly 180 members, many of which are refugee community organisations. It perceives itself as a strongly independent organisation, registered as a charity, and funded by government departments, the European Commission, trusts and members.

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In common with other refugee NGOs, its work combines providing support, advocating for change, and empowering refugees. The provision of support is varied and wide ranging and includes advisory services; care for unaccompanied refugee children; and training and employment courses to enable asylum seekers and refugees to use their skills and qualifications. It receives funding from the government (some of which originates at EU level in ERF or INTI, an EU funding programme which promotes the integration of non-EU citizens in the EU member states) in order to provide specific services, including accommodation. Advocacy work includes campaigning and lobbying for refugees’ voices to be heard in the UK and abroad; keeping refugees high on the political agenda and in the media; and attempting to influence asylum policies. Finally, a significant aspect of its activities aims to empower refugees, and this includes specific actions and projects focused on women. The Community Development Team has a women’s development worker, who encourages the greater involvement of women in refugee-led organisations and builds the capacity of refugee women to develop their own services and support systems. The Community Development Team gives one-to-one support to refugee communities, distributes information, organises training within London, and produces publications such as Women, Doing it for Ourselves: Step-by-step Guidelines for Setting up Women Refugee Community Organisations. It has produced RCO Women’s News since 2003. The Refugee Council pressed, with the RWLG, for the introduction of Gender Guidelines in refugee status determination. These were introduced by the Home Office in March 2004 (Refugee Council 2004c: 16). It has a women’s network and a strategy for improving its service for refugee women and asylum seekers, published in 2005 as Making Women Visible.The awareness of a need for a strategy for women grew out of the Refugee Council’s frontline contact with refugee women. The collection of gender disaggregated data of service users is an essential factor in the analysis of the capacity of service providers to meet the needs of women. The Refugee Council found that in 2003, 40 per cent of the 67,411 adults who accessed their services were women (these figures include repeat visits), and in the Brixton office, this rose to 53 per cent (Dumper 2005: 18). In recognition of their specific experiences of the journey and asylum process, Making Women Visible marked a commitment to improve the organisation’s service to its women clients. It does this through identifying their needs, ensuring their access to services, and monitoring the service they receive. The strategy also includes making women more visible: involving women service users in representing the organisation to funders, seeking to employ refugee women and involving them in speaking to policy makers and talking to the media.

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Refugee Women’s Resource Project (RWRP)

The RWRP was set up in 2000 as part of Asylum Aid. Like the Refugee Council, Asylum Aid undertakes the dual roles of refugee support and advocacy. It provides legal representation and advice, accompanies clients to Home Office interviews, offers advice on access to services, welfare benefits and accommodation, and produces information on policy and law. Asylum Aid also delivers training to refugee community associations, supported by an advice line and mentoring scheme. The RWRP was created in recognition of the specific needs of refugee women. It provides information to women asylum seekers and collects documentation on women in a resource centre accessible to those who seek evidence to support their own case or that of their client.This includes research on the impact of asylum policy on women asylum seekers, for example, how gender cases are assessed, the experiences of women in detention, and the impact on women of the idea of ‘safe countries’. The RWRP has produced a series of reports, including Women Asylum Seekers in the UK:A Gender Perspective (2003); Safe for Whom? Women’s Human Rights Abuses and Protection in ‘Safe List’ Countries:Albania, Jamaica and Ukraine (2004); and They Took Me Away:The Experiences of Women in Detention in the UK (2004). These reports improve knowledge and understanding of refugee women’s experience of the asylum process and of living in the UK as asylum seekers and refugees. They provide information about the impact of policies and practices and about refugee women’s needs, which supports frontline community organisations and advisers. The RWRP also produces the monthly bulletin Women’s Asylum News, which has an international circulation of 1,200, including a number of electronic networks. The RWRP works actively with the RWLG and provides training which focuses on women asylum seekers and the law; gender awareness; and multiple discrimination experienced by women asylum seekers. The RWRP lobbies ministers and the Home Office using evidence collected from casework and research to campaign for gender-sensitive asylum policies. It conducts country of origin research, which focuses on the situation of women and gender relations, information which is often absent from Home Office country of origin documentation and which can be an important element in women’s case for asylum. RWRP caseworkers provide legal advice on asylum claims and practical help with accommodation and finances. They hold regular outreach sessions at Holloway Prison and at Positively Women. Refugee Action/AfRW

Refugee Action’s work with women refugees also arose out of its experience as a refugee support and advocacy organisation. It identified specific problems

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faced by women: ‘from gender based persecution in their country of origin, to male biased asylum procedures in the UK, inadequate housing, child care needs and healthcare that is not culturally or gender sensitive’ (Refugee Action 2005). It helps statutory agencies to develop appropriate services for women, including women-only English language classes or home tuition, and the option of a female doctor or interpreter. It also supports other advice agencies to give women the choice of a female caseworker and interpreter, women-only drop-in sessions, social events and to assist women’s self-help groups. Refugee Action publishes multi-lingual leaflets on UK law and women’s rights aimed at women asylum seekers and refugees. The leaflets contain information on issues such as child protection; UK law on marriage, cohabitation and divorce; and protection from racial and sexual harassment and domestic violence. In 2002, Refugee Action published Is it Safe Here? (Dumper 2002a), a report based on a detailed study of the lives of refugee women in Britain. It found that 83 per cent of women interviewed feel so unsafe in the UK that they live under self-imposed curfew, locking themselves indoors after 7 o’clock at night. A third have been spat on or shouted at in the street. One in two feels so depressed and anxious they cannot sleep at night. Refugee Action launched a campaign aimed at bringing about specific policy changes which would improve refugee women’s safety. As a result, NASS agreed to fund places in women’s refuges for women fleeing domestic violence; to offer all women single-sex accommodation if preferred; and to join a working group to look specifically at the needs of women refugees and asylum seekers (Refugee Action 2005). Refugee Action supports the network Action for Refugee Women (AfRW), which brings together individuals and community organisations interested in developing policy and services for refugee women. It was set up in 1997 to provide refugee women with the opportunity to participate in the development of policy relevant to them, and it strives to act as a voice for refugee women. AfRW’s objectives include bringing about changes that will improve the quality of life of refugee women and creating opportunities to promote and celebrate the positive contribution of refugee women. AfRW organises seminars and conferences; campaigns and lobbies; co-organises with the Refugee Council the celebration of International Women’s Day; organises training and information exchange workshops; and promotes good practice in dealing with refugee women’s issues. It highlights the gendered effect of legislation to policy makers and assists statutory and voluntary organisations in offering advice and services to women and in making their services more gender sensitive.

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Cimade

Cimade is a Christian organisation created in 1939 to help displaced persons in the camps in Southern France. During World War II, it played an active role in the Resistance and in saving Jews. After the war, it worked for the reconciliation of France and Germany, and, later, for the independence and development of former colonies, in particular Algeria.Today, Cimade works with Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and secular organisations to assist refugees and other migrants in France and to improve development in the countries of the east and the south. Cimade has 800 members, 105 paid staff and 700 volunteers. Its actions include public awareness raising, service provision and media campaigns. It provides legal advice and support for foreigners and refugees; produces information and organises training for members of the legal profession, social workers, activists, journalists and caseworkers. An agreement with the Ministry of Social Affairs gives Cimade the right to operate within the centres where foreigners are held prior to deportation. Cimade is also involved in the integration of foreigners legally present in France. It offers support to refugees facing housing, employment and language problems, runs French classes and, since 2001, Cimade has operated a CADA in Bézier, funded by the Direction Départementale Affaires Sanitaires et Sociales (DDASS). Cimade is a member of ANAFE (Association Nationale d’Assistance aux Frontières pour les Etrangers), a collection of organisations and trade unions which are opposed to the way in which transit zones have developed at ports and airports which are outside the law of the country. In addition to providing legal aid to those held in these zones, ANAFE tries to introduce clear legal regulations which guarantee rights to foreigners. Cimade is also part of the Coordination Française pour le Droit d’Asile (CFDA); CERE/ECRE (Conseil Européen sur les Réfugiés et les Exilés); and CEME (Commission des Eglises auprès des Migrants en Europe). Cimade began women-only consultations in Paris in December 2004. These are aimed at women migrants or asylum seekers whose legal status is affected by their gender and advises mainly on legal issues. Cimade aims to help them with their status and in relation to violence, working together with specialist associations. The women-only service was established in response to growing awareness of gender specific problems, including gender-related violence, gender-related or gender-specific persecution, female genital mutilation,‘honour’ crimes and rape as a tool of war. It advises asylum seekers whose claims are based on gender-related persecution. It also supports women migrants and asylum seekers who are victims of violence in France. This can affect their legal status: women who have left their violent partners, for example, can be refused the renewal of their residence permit; wives of polygamous men can find themselves illegally present in France;

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and, because of agreements between France and a number of North African countries, women of certain nationalities are subject to discriminatory codes de statut personnel, regardless of their immigration status. Uncertain legal status in France can make it very difficult for women to exercise their rights and can expose them to violence and discrimination as women and as foreigners. The women-only service attempts to address this (Gueguen 2005: 2; 2006). FASTI

FASTI (la Fédération des Associations de Solidarité avec les Travailleurs Immigrés) is a federation of associations which defend and support immigrant workers. The associations are autonomous and exist all over France. FASTI was created in 1966 at the time of immigrant protests against the state of shanty towns outside Paris.The first congress took place in 1967, bringing together 60 associations fighting for equal rights for immigrant workers. Originally, it provided aid and helped resolve administrative problems, but when the borders were officially closed in 1974, and detention and deportation practices spread, it shifted its focus. Now the associations are involved in a wide variety of activities, including, for example, the provision of French language teaching, help with schoolwork, legal aid, cultural activities, and accommodation. They campaign at the local and national level in favour of migrants’ rights, in support of the sans papiers, against deportations, for the cancellation of Third World debt, and for the recognition of genderbased persecution. FASTI publishes information and campaigning materials, often jointly with partner associations, takes part in demonstrations, and cultivates contacts within the media and with policy-makers. FASTI is managed collectively, with horizontal decision-making mechanisms. There are 200 paid employees, and 1,500 volunteers. Currently, most of the organisation’s work is with asylum seekers and sans papiers. Only 20 per cent of their clients are immigrant workers who have been in the country for a long time and have problems with, for example, their employment contract, family reunion, or their children’s schooling. FASTI has access rights to detention centres at the airport in order to monitor the conditions for newly arrived asylum seekers and those who are about to be deported, and in order to intervene on behalf of those who are awaiting deportation. They no longer have the right to accompany asylum seekers to their asylum interviews, but help them prepare their case and find a lawyer. Funding difficulties have been severe since 2004 and have had a significant impact on the work of the organisation. FASTI and the local ASTIs have autonomous women-only women’s committees, which run French language and literacy classes, but also creative writing classes, which have helped refugee women to express some of their pain. The national women’s committee is publishing a collection of refugee

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women’s writing. Other current creative projects involve a collage of women’s images of asylum and a play which they have taken on tour. FASTI stresses the importance of cultural activities as a means of restoring a sense of self-worth. Refugee women in NGOs

This study of refugee women involved in NGOs in Britain and France enables us to draw some conclusions about the way in which they perceive their participation, the institutional, social and cultural conditions which facilitate it, and the obstacles which stand in their way. Refugee women’s participation in their country of asylum is influenced by their experience in their country of origin; their awareness of collective needs and interests; possibilities for collective organisation and democratic participation; and, for many, their exclusion from work and mainstream politics.The motivation of individual refugee women to participate in NGOs varies, can change over time, and can be multiple. For many, it is a form of service provision, in recognition of the need and in gratitude for services received from these organisations, and an attempt to meet the needs of the refugee’s own community and/or the community of refugees. For others, it can be seen as a route into paid employment or a result of exclusion from paid employment. Finally, it is increasingly presented as a way of enhancing active citizenship and improving democracy. Individual resources and motivation

Asked about the influence of the skills, knowledge and experience they brought from their country of origin, refugee women now active in UK NGOs cited their history of activism on women’s issues, their skills and experience of running organisations in their country of origin and their empathy, language skills, and understanding of people of other cultures. Respondents in France cited their history of activism and their experiences running women’s organisations in their country of origin. One had experience as an elected representative in local politics, others as teachers and university lecturers, a broadcaster, and a businesswoman. Three cited their knowledge of other languages and cultures, and two their familiarity with the refugee experience and human suffering. Cultural activities are also an important part of some refugee women’s participation. One refugee woman in France stated: Whenever we have meetings, we talk about refugees’ problems. We always talk about problems. But I have seen other refugees as well and I am sure that refugees are not just problems. We bring cultural and intellectual riches. It’s a shame they go to waste.

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She is currently setting up a cultural centre with language and dance classes and festive celebrations for the children: I am trying to bring people out of these problems, out of their depression. We always seem to be victims. It is important to feel that we are capable of doing things here and not just coming together to ask for aid.We really want to work, rather than asking for support. But the problem really is language.

Having experienced the difficulties of arriving in Britain or France and going through the asylum process, many refugee women want to use their knowledge and experience to help new arrivals facing the same problems. Meeting the needs of the community

Awareness of immediate and unmet needs influences refugees’ choice of activism. In Britain, where state provision for asylum seekers, refugees and other marginalised groups has declined dramatically since the 1980s, the voluntary sector has played an indispensable role in providing emergency aid and longer term support. The importance of providing these services often means that resources (including time) are not available for other activities such as campaigning and lobbying. Refugee women bring with them motivation, energy, commitment and a range of skills and experiences that can make a valuable contribution to the organisations in which they participate, as well as society more generally. Numerous sources point to the immense motivation and energy of refugee women involved in community organisations and larger NGOs. In addition to the wide range of paid and unpaid voluntary activities undertaken by refugee women in UK and French NGOs, some are active in local community groups, in refugee community associations and in networks or joint campaigns or projects with other associations. Some refugee women seek voluntary or paid work in an organisation which helped them when they arrived and some move from voluntary to paid employment. A UK NGO employee whose job involves contact with refugee community associations stated: Refugee women are very active in the refugee community. They come from political backgrounds. If they come from countries where women have no rights, then they can enjoy their rights here and participate fully.They talk about gender in their community and try to raise awareness of it. They see the need and they want to help. Refugee women are very active in terms of learning the language, studying and finding jobs.They try to find a kind of job that satisfies them politically. Helping the community is one of the areas that I found women, individual women, find as a way to carry on their activism. They try to set up organisations, to raise awareness about women’s issues in their community. A lot of them have knowledge of women’s issues and know the sort of problems they

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face. They organise after-school classes, classes on confidence building, provide advice on different issues to women.

Similar comments were made by interviewees in France, particularly with relation to organising activities in the refugee community, sharing knowledge and information, for example, on accessing services and accommodation, and sharing childcare and organising cultural activities and after-school clubs for the children. Routes into employment

Participation in NGOs may also be perceived – by government and refugees themselves – as a route into employment.The British government is encouraging volunteering, ostensibly in order to create a cohesive community, although the efforts appear to be closely tied to reducing unemployment, as a means of addressing social exclusion.Volunteering is seen, at least partly, as a route into paid employment, and this is important, since most employers require UK work experience. Refugee NGOs are more welcoming to refugee volunteers and paid workers, and have greater need for their language skills and their empathy with the service users. However, some mainstream NGOs are attempting to diversify their voluntary and to a lesser extent paid staff, potentially increasing opportunities for refugee women here too (Erel and Tomlinson 2005). However, Erel and Tomlinson’s UK study found that volunteering does not always lead into employment. Refugee NGOs are unable to take anywhere near the number of refugee women who are looking for a post. Other NGOs are less accessible to refugee women who may not make it through interview procedures designed for people with English as a first language, for example. Erel and Tomlinson found a tendency for women participants to see their future within refugee-based organisations, or organisations serving their national/ethnic community. Refugee organisations and refugee projects recognise the advantages offered by refugees in terms of knowledge of refugee communities and the refugee experience and of community languages. However, mainstream or non-refugee voluntary organisations do not necessarily value these (Erel and Tomlinson 2005: 9–10). Enhancing active citizenship

Many see participation in civil society as a way of enhancing active citizenship and improving democracy. Theories of social capital claim that participation within voluntary organisations such as trade unions and associations promote interpersonal trust, social tolerance and co-operative behaviour, which cement the bonds of social life and create the foundation for building local communities, civil society and democratic governance. Participation in associations is thought to generate individual rewards, such

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as career opportunities and personal support networks, as well as benefits to the community by fostering the capacity of people to work together on local problems. Putnam suggests that civic organisations such as unions, churches and community groups, play a vital role in the production of ‘bridging’ social capital.This can bring people together and create a diverse social infrastructure.The collective benefits may include a contribution towards social justice, the redistribution of resources, and bringing about social change, as well as immediate material support and advice for the clients or service users of the NGO concerned. Individual benefits may include social and employment opportunities and empowerment. It can also contribute to integration, which again has collective and individual benefits (Lovenduski et al. 2004: 13). Amongst the individual benefits are a sense of self-worth and contribution. Respondents in our study commented: The association was the only thing that broke my solitude. I got involved because I think their work is worthwhile. It also gave me a reason for living, a reason to revalue myself. (Refugee woman in France) It offers a place where you can talk a bit, let out some of the pain. It gives a reason for living. Allows me to revalue myself as a person, as a woman. It is an opportunity for me to express my pain. (Refugee woman in UK)

This form of participation can also stimulate or reinforce forms of participation which aim to influence decision-making (Jochum et al. 2005: 11). Lovenduski et al. write: For a variety of reasons – including the way that voluntary associations can strengthen social networks, foster leadership skills, heighten political awareness, create party linkages and facilitate campaign work – people affiliated with church-based or union organizations can be expected to participate more fully in public life. (Lovenduski et al. 2004: 18–19)

Critics of large, highly professionalised NGOs contracted by the state to provide services to refugees and asylum seekers dismiss the contribution of their supporters, members and volunteers. However, Jochum et al. argue that the combination of service provision with advocacy and campaigning can influence decision-making and lead to improved services (Jochum et al. 2005: 12).They argue that civil society participation ‘is socially valuable in its own right’. Its benefits include the generation of social capital, connectedness and trust, but voluntary associations also create a space for argument and deliberation and can therefore be ‘a catalyst for political engagement, particularly for marginalised communities, who otherwise have the greatest difficulty in making their voices heard’ (Jochum et al. 2005: 34). As the state withdrew from various welfare functions during the 1980s and 1990s, essential service provision came increasingly from voluntary, non-

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profit associations, and civil society was seen as the key to democracy. It was portrayed on the right and the left as operating on a higher ethical plane than either politics or the economy, since it was characterised by activities that were voluntary rather than required by law and undertaken for altruistic reasons rather than motivated by profit. Strengthening civil society was accepted by influential NGOs as an essential feature of a healthy polity (Jaggar 2005: 9). Civil society is seen as a vital component of a good society, and the more developed it is, the better the wider political community is expected to be (Parekh 2004: 15). Participation in civil society organisations is increasingly seen as an indicator of good governance. However, some caution must be exercised in seeing participation in civil society as the primary means of achieving democratic citizenship. Critics argue that the virtues of civil society, although undeniable, have been exaggerated. Critics of an excessive focus on NGOs have highlighted their dependence on funders, their formal hierarchical structures which impinge on the democratic participation of their members, and in some cases their distance from their constituents, who are excluded from the internal decision-making process (see for example Jad 2004). The NGO-isation of civil society and the professionalisation of NGOs have both been the subject of critical comment. Parekh argues that freedom of association, valuable as it is, is not equally exercised in an unequal society. The poor and marginalised often lack the confidence, skills and resources to establish vibrant and effective associations, and civil society is almost always dominated by the middle classes, even those organisations set up in order to support the oppressed and marginalised (Parekh 2004: 23–4). Civil society associations can be undemocratic and exclusionary. Moreover, civil society is only partially autonomous of the state and the market.Therefore activism in it is often continuous with other forms of political and economic activity. Jaggar writes: For these reasons, women’s empowerment as citizens often depends less on whether we choose formal politics or civil society – or indeed the economy – as our arena of activism and more on the nature of our work within each arena. Most important is that, in every arena, our work should sustain a commitment to both democratic empowerment and social equality. (Jaggar 2005: 17)

Placing the relation between the empowerment of the individual and the distribution of resources at the centre of our interrogation of refugee women’s participation in NGOs enables us to balance the importance of this participation in terms of individual citizenship and benefits to the community on the one hand, with a critical consideration of the social and welfare functions performed by NGOs rather than by the state and the extent to which NGOs are able to influence public policy in a way that increases social justice, on the other. In order to do this, NGOs must

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represent the interests of those who are marginalised and excluded, and must successfully campaign for the redistribution of economic, social and cultural resources in their favour. If, as Jaggar suggests, it is not the arena in which the activism takes place that matters, but the commitment behind it, a similar approach can then be taken to the question of whether paid employment in NGOs is a form of activism or a job: it is not the status which matters, but the commitment to both democratic empowerment and social equality. So refugee women’s participation in NGOs can be a means of pursuing their political activism with individual and collective benefits, and contributes to the dual roles of organisations such as Refugee Action and the Refugee Council: to empower individual refugee women and to campaign for their rights.The balance between the two is sensitive, however, and neglecting one side can diminish the benefits of these organisations for refugee women. There are other concerns about their capacity to bring about real redistributive outcomes. As Shirin Rai writes: While I see the expanded confidence of feminist movements and networks, I also worry that the spaces for negotiations and deliberations leading to radical redistributive outcomes are decreasing. The seduction of engagement with governance institutions and influencing policy outcomes, which provides a sense of agency against all odds – at times through emphasising the process over outcome, at others through emphasising ‘empowerment’ without the transfer of resources that denotes changes in power relations – also provide cautionary tales. (Rai 2004: 593)

One interviewee from a refugee NGO in the UK, describing the dual process of empowering refugee women and attempting to influence policies, stressed the problem of resources, the piecemeal chipping away at policymakers and then the uncertainty about whether policies, even when achieved, are implemented. As Alison Jaggar writes: Critics of the contemporary emphasis on civil society and NGOs argue that addressing social problems through private rather than public channels depoliticises the poor. Involvement in ‘self-help’ micro-projects encourages poor women to exhaust their scarce energies in developing ad hoc services or products for the informal economy, rather than mobilising as citizens to demand that the state utilise their tax monies for the provision of public services.Thus, even though NGOs create programmes that involve and serve women, their private provision of services tacitly acquiesces in the state’s shedding […] its public responsibilities. (Jaggar 2005: 14)

Obstacles to participation

Difficulty obtaining funding in general and for women’s projects in particular is frequently highlighted as an obstacle to refugee women’s participation.

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Women are not present in the mainstream networks and forums that make decisions on funding. Those who hold the resources need to be informed about women’s issues and involved in projects which target them. Racism is also a barrier to refugee women’s access to sites of decision-making. In the UK, the most commonly cited obstacle for refugee women’s participation, particularly in mainstream organisations, was language. Other obstacles include the lack of time available for networking, lobbying and campaigning, when there are services to provide and immediate community needs to be met. In other words, awareness of local needs may prevent them from moving into larger, national, more public policy orientated NGOs and more overtly ‘political’ activism. Time constraints also limit their ability to attend training courses. Refugee women also need tools and knowledge about how to influence policy in their destination country. Political activism in their country of origin does not mean familiarity with the political culture of the country in which they arrive. An Iranian woman in the UK stated: Coming from a revolutionary background, it is difficult to get used to the British way of working – the need to be patient, more paperwork, more discussion, more consultation, I have to equip myself in this way as well in terms of influencing policy makers, but again, you see – refugee [sic] want to influence, but politics is another thing, and politics behind the scene is another thing.This makes it more difficult as a refugee to influence as much as you want. As a political activist working in my country and here, I know the frustration, I know the difficulty as a woman, what sort of barriers we are facing.This requires the raising of awareness about women’s issues, but also the tools and knowledge about how to influence policy here, because coming from countries with different kinds of politics and different kinds of activists – as a refugee working in hiding, for example, not having this democracy that you have here – somehow, as an activist we manage to fight and develop our strength in this area. And sometimes we work in opposition. Here you have freedom to demonstrate, to write letter [sic] to MPs, to go to Parliament, but sometimes, people from refugee communities may not have this kind of opportunity in their country. Learning to influence policy-making in this country, learning the culture of British society’s campaigning, lobbying, influencing policy is one area that the refugee community needs in my view to be equipped for. There is a need for training, networking, sharing information and experiences. This is one side of the coin.The other side is raising awareness among mainstream services, so that they become more inclusive in terms of giving the opportunity to the refugee sector to come to meetings, talk about their problems, contribute to the discussion in terms of influencing policy. At the moment we see a lot of consultation, but when you look at it, this consultation is pages and pages with big vocabularies, but RCOs and women, may not have all of this language. Questionnaires not always user-friendly, refugee-friendly. All of these barriers make it more difficult for refugee women to influence policy. We need to insist that governmental agencies provide an environment for the contribution of people with

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English as a second language and make it much easier for them to lobby. They should organise focus groups, and get their views as well. It is a very complicated area, but there is a lot of need to work on it as well.

The Working Lives Research Institute’s project on volunteering identified a lack of childcare provision as the main barrier to refugee women’s participation as volunteers (Erel and Tomlinson 2005: 68). Other obstacles are lack of information about voluntary and employment opportunities in the media that refugee women have access to; lack of understanding of cultural values, hindering communication and leading to inaccurate assumptions; and family and work commitments. One woman stated that, ‘being an asylum seeker is in itself an obstacle’. Other obstacles include racism and a hostile political environment, lack of funding, and the absence of women from sites of decision-making. Prioritising within the organisation can also sometimes deflect from gender issues. Two refugee women in the UK stated in their questionnaire responses, for example: The last ten years have been very hostile: legislation, which is aggressive towards refugees, the government’s five-year plans, restrictions, making it difficult for refugees to live and contribute to society. It is also difficult for the refugee sector. Although large NGOs, with well-established equal opportunities policies and monitoring in place, and small refugee NGOs are welcoming towards refugees there is still a degree of racism and uncertainty towards refugees in mainstream not-for-profit sector.There is a need for awareness on refugee issues.

Refugee women active in France cite problems with housing and bureaucracy; dispersal, isolation, confinement to one room; no right to work; uncertainty of legal status; lack of support, inability to afford transport costs to go to meetings.They may come from a country where activism is not encouraged or is punished. Immigrants may not have experience of social organisation. Language, funding, and childcare – especially when one of the children is traumatised – were also mentioned as obstacles to activism. Conclusion

It is important to be wary about celebrating refugee women’s participation too uncritically, especially where this involves the provision by them of welfare services not provided by the state. Nonetheless, participation brings advantages at the level of the individual, the constituency or clients of the NGO, and society as a whole. Refugee organisations in the UK are increasingly aware of the need for diversity amongst their employees and volunteers, and are employing formal or informal measures to increase it. The Refugee Council carried out an audit of its employees in 2005 as a first step in addressing this need. AfRW,

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when it introduced a formal organisational structure in 2004, insisted that the newly created post of chair be occupied by a refugee woman not currently in full-time employment. Although NGOs do not generally offer specific opportunities for refugee women, some are perceived by the refugee women within them as encouraging, and offer ESOL courses, information, advice, support and training. One refugee woman in an UK NGO stated: ‘My organisation is very welcoming. It is very good for women. I feel safe in my environment.’ UK NGOs have a longer history than their French counterparts of conducting studies on refugee women and gender and asylum, of targeting services specifically at refugee women and of campaigning on refugee women’s issues. French NGOs have demonstrated less interest in looking at the specific needs and interests of refugee women and at their ability to meet them.They have largely ignored the specific needs of refugee women and the relation between gender and asylum.This can be partly explained by the emphasis on universalism; distinctions are not made between refugees and the general population, or even between immigrants and the general population. French NGOs do not attempt to diversify their teams of employees or volunteers, neither do they try to ensure that they reflect the client population, for the same reasons that political representatives have never been expected to reflect the electoral body, but are rather mandated to represent the interests of the nation as a whole. There are no internal policies on appointing refugees in general or refugee women in particular, and there are few special projects or programmes aimed at refugee women. However, the persistence of a number of committed activists who have come together from Amnesty International Section Française, Cimade, Femmes de la terre, Rajfire, Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (LDH), le Comité Médical pour les Exilés (COMEDE), and FASTI since 2005 to form the Groupe Asile Femmes (GRAF) suggests that French NGOs will be increasingly unable to ignore the relation between gender and asylum.The 2006 conference at the Sorbonne on gender persecution and asylum was ground-breaking, bringing together academics and practitioners, and highlighting the Cimade women’s consultation service, the work of GFAMS on FGM, and the fledgling networking of the GRAF. Notes 1 In Britain, refugees and those with extended leave to remain or humanitarian protection status do not have the right to vote unless they have Commonwealth citizenship or have become naturalised British citizens.They may apply for citizenship once they have had status for one year and have lived in the UK continuously for five years. Subsidiary protection, which is increasingly used, particularly for women, does not bring with it the full range of rights accorded by refugee status, and this includes the denial of political rights. In most countries, the right to vote is restricted to citizens (Blais et al. 2001: 52). Some countries, however, allow refugees

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Refugee women in Britain and France to vote at the local level and have found that, when this is the case, refugee issues are higher on the political agenda with politicians becoming more responsive and aware of the concerns of this group. In Ireland, for example, where asylum seekers and refugees were allowed to vote and stand for election in local elections in June 2004, refugee-related issues were debated, and immigrants and refugees were successfully elected (ECRE 2005: 20).

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Women asylum seekers and refugees make up a third of the refugee migrant population in Britain and over half the population group in France. Nevertheless they remain largely invisible within both refugee communities and the female migrant population. One of the main aims of this book has been to place their story at the centre of accounts of refugee migration and migrants in Britain and France in order to increase our knowledge and understanding of their place and role in these two countries and to highlight their agency rather than present them as passive victims or accompanying dependants. First, it sets out the legal/institutional framework within which women asylum seekers have their status determined. It shows how this decision is made in Britain and France and the extent to which gender is recognised as a factor influencing the kind of persecution experienced and the reasons for it. It shows that gender-neutral legal texts, processes and procedures will have a different impact on refugee women and men, and that this must be recognised and addressed explicitly if gender justice is to be achieved in asylum decisions and decision-making. Second, this book paints as comprehensive a picture as possible of refugee women populations in Britain and France, showing how these have changed over time, how they relate to the refugee population and migrant population more generally, and why it has been so difficult to make them visible. Third, it gives as detailed a view as possible of refugee women’s lives and experiences in Britain and France, from their arrival to their asylum decision and integration or removal. At each stage, it highlights the specificities of women’s experiences and the way in which the reception, status determination, detention, integration and removal structures often fail to respond appropriately to the needs and experiences of women, despite the fact that they constitute almost half of the adult refugee population. Finally, it analyses refugee women’s participation in refugee community

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associations and NGOs in order to draw some broader conclusions about participation and citizenship. It shows that within the refugee women population are women who are keen to participate socially, economically and politically for a wide range of reasons and that voluntary and statutory organisations, as well as trade unions, political parties and public- and privatesector employers could do more to remove the barriers preventing them from doing so. This would contribute to social cohesion, active citizenship and better use of skills and training in the labour market and voluntary sector. In carrying out this study of women asylum seekers and refugees in Britain and France, we found that academics, decision-makers and NGOs in France have been far slower than their counterparts in the UK to pay attention to the relation between gender and asylum. In Britain, Gender Guidelines have become part of the asylum policy instructions issued to border officials and asylum application caseworkers, but this is not the case in France. In Britain, academics and NGOs have produced a number of studies and reports on gender and asylum, and these have been used to put pressure on policy-makers and service providers. In France, this is only a very recent emerging trend. Hence, although the broader arguments of French and British governments have been similar - i.e. that refugee migration must be restricted in order relieve pressure on public services, increase security and ostensibly favour the entry of those in genuine need of sanctuary and humanitarian protection – the earlier admission of the relation between gender and asylum in Britain has produced differences between the two countries at micro-policy level which impact on the RSD experiences, the daily life of asylum-seeking and refugee women and on their efforts to improve their situation in the destination society. The French reluctance to admit the importance of gender in the asylum claim and other refugee policy areas can be attributed to the influence of republican universalism which posits all individuals as equal before the law and therefore, as far as the public sphere is concerned, the same. Differences of gender, ‘race’/ethnicity and so on are relegated to the private sphere and have no bearing on an individual’s life or relation with the state. In principle, this should prevent any form of discrimination. However, it also includes a refusal to recognise the existence of a racist or gendered discrimination. Let us remind ourselves of the main issues of concern and problems faced by women seeking asylum and those who have gained refugee status from the beginning of their ‘journey’ in Britain and France. Asylum seekers and refugees as a population group are confronted by a general climate of suspicion and hostility on their arrival in Britain and France.This climate of opinion is fomented by sensationalist media headlines about ‘scroungers’ and would-be ‘terrorists’ who at best place a ‘strain on resources’ and at worst provoke chaos, social instability and eventually the collapse of border control

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and security and of the health and welfare systems. Contributions made by refugee community associations are barely mentioned. Public hostility towards asylum seekers and refugees runs counter to the development of asylum and immigration policies based on considerations of human rights and justice. Instead, government policy in France and Britain has become straitjacketed by the dominant arguments of those keen to base asylum and immigration policies either on a security agenda (borders must be tightly controlled to keep out undesirables) or on one of economic costs (migration must be managed, asylum seekers and refugees are an unnecessary drain on scarce resources and therefore constitute a poor migration bet) or both. Government and individual politicians also fear being blamed for not making so-called tough choices and of failing to keep control over ‘the system’. The national policy priorities of British and French governments (in common with those of other EU states) vis-à-vis security and economic costs have had the effect of producing a paradigmatic shift where asylum is concerned. Asylum is no longer about sanctuary and human rights protection but about the control and ‘management’ of movements within regions and across borders.This shift is manifested in the way women are treated in the RSD procedure.Those who deal with RSD can be faced with complex questions as far as women are concerned and to which many would argue there are no conclusive answers. For example, the determination of what constitutes political opinion and resistance can be critical and often this is conflated with religious opinion, as in the case of a woman refusing to obey religious or cultural norms written into law. There is also the question of whether or not women can constitute a PSG in certain circumstances while debates about the parameters of gender-based persecution and fear of it are on-going and relate to what are often deemed private family practices or abuse (e.g. FGM). Questions such as these can be difficult to resolve and as we have seen asylum caseworkers operate in circumstances where numerous factors can compromise good decision-making. Asylum caseworkers are pressured to process cases quickly but without sufficient funding and training to work efficiently. Moreover, a culture of disbelief, regarding the true migration motivations of asylum seekers, is promoted by managers in OFPRA and the UK Border Agency and is often approved of implicitly if not openly by the minister responsible. So, despite there being a significant body of British case law on gender in asylum claims to draw upon and despite the fact that Gender Guidelines are contained in asylum policy instructions given to caseworkers in Britain, it is all too easy for the latter to apply exclusionary measures to women asylum claimants or dependants as a means of making up for their lack of knowledge and the time allocated per case or because they fully subscribe to the prejudices of their managers and/or ambitious and tough-talking ministers.

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Further and more recently, the externalisation of the asylum process, so that decisions are made outside the borders of the destination country and, increasingly in the case of Britain and France, outside the borders of the EU, has a gendered impact, in that preliminary decisions on the validity of the claim and access to the decision-making process rarely take into account considerations of the relation between gender and the asylum claim. This applies for example in zones d’attente in France and in detained fast-track procedures in the UK. It has implications for future UK and French policy and increasingly policy made at the EU level. Security considerations also impact negatively on other asylum reception arrangements and certain fundamental rights.The creation of waiting zones in France at entry points well within territorial borders, for example at airports and railway stations, has produced a three-tier entry system to France where a no-border policy operates in favour of nationals of Schengen Agreement countries; an external border system regulates the entry of nonSchengen and third country nationals entering France for work, study, tourism or other ‘normal’ and legal purpose; and an in-country border which controls the entry of asylum seekers. The administrative and material deficiencies and of the waiting zone system compound the distress of all asylum seekers affected but particularly that of women, children and other disadvantaged or vulnerable categories. While there are no waiting zones at British border entry points, it is arguable that detention centres located near sea or airports are often used in the same way for what border officials call ‘ambiguous’ or ‘problematic’ cases and there are instances of asylum seekers being taken into detention from an entry point even though their case has not received attention from a border official and formal expulsion orders are not in place. Not only is the waiting zone system, established in 1992, discriminatory it is also a challenge to freedom of movement principles which are enshrined in international law and in the liberal democratic constitutions of France and Britain. Economic cost arguments where asylum seekers and refugees are viewed as an unnecessary burden are responsible for an inadequately funded reception system and integration programme. Reception facilities in both Britain and France are severely under-funded and poorly equipped and consequently there is little of hope of formal consideration of the needs of women asylum seekers. In Britain, the policy of dispersing asylum seekers gives no consideration to the fact that women who are more likely to be confined to the home for cultural reasons or because they are tied down by family responsibilities will benefit from being placed within or close to established refugee communities rather than being dispersed to communities with no history of receiving migrants. In both countries, the location and material state of some accommodation heighten feelings of insecurity among vulnerable young women who may fear being preyed on by pimps or becoming

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the target of racially prejudiced neighbours. In addition, in both countries there is insufficient state funding of daytime activity programmes or courses in which young women or mothers with babies can participate or which will prepare them to be independent on receiving refugee status.The unwillingness to resource reception structures and programmes sufficiently for asylum seekers has a disproportionately damaging effect on women who are more restricted to the home and isolated as a result than men. Moreover, austerity measures are often trialled by governments on the weakest populations before being rolled out generally. One of the justifications put forward by French and British policymakers for withdrawing resources from reception structures and processes is that it frees up funds for integration programmes. However, serious integration policies and programmes require proper resourcing rather than a little more than was previously allocated. For most refugees, the functional aspects of integration – i.e. decent, secure housing in localities which afford them social networking opportunities, prospects of employment, education and training – are most important and most believe that the emotional aspects of belonging and aspirations of equality and citizenship will follow. As we have seen in previous chapters, decent and safe housing for women refugees beginning life as permanent residents is rare. Accommodation in secure neighbourhoods where women feel able to develop social networks is the most important building block and locality probably has the strongest impact upon refugees’ experiences of integration. Refugees generally, but more so women than men, also suffer high unemployment rates in both countries but often do not speak good enough English or French to enrol on educational and vocational training programmes which may lead to stable jobs. While there are numerous free ESOL and FLE programmes available, through local authorities and other accredited non-statutory agencies, to refugees in both countries, it remains to be seen how efficient these programmes are in helping refugees to become part of the working population and find a place in society.The importance of education for women in developing countries as well as for the most disadvantaged women in industrialised societies has been emphasised by various international conventions. It has long been recognised that improving women’s educational prospects is crucial in empowering women, increasing their participation in civic life and decision making and ultimately improving the well-being of families and communities. Finally, as far as state support is concerned, one of the biggest barriers to be overcome is that of attitudes towards asylum seekers and refugees in general among state service providers. There are high levels of ignorance among those working in frontline services for refugee migrants in terms of the entitlements of their client group and where specialist services can be accessed. Much of this ignorance is fed by prejudice and results in discrimi-

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nation against asylum seekers and refugees. The tension between frontline staff working in health, education, employment, housing etc. and refugee migrants is not helped by the fact that there are too many statutory agencies doing similar work and competing for limited resources. There is a lack of ‘joined-up thinking’ and no government in either country has carried out a major audit of the needs of women asylum seekers and refugees in order to streamline services, share best practice and improve systems. The shortcomings of state provision of services for asylum seekers and refugees are mitigated to some extent by what refugee support NGOs do. The role of NGOs in all EU states has become pivotal in the functioning of reception and integration systems and France and Britain are no exception in this. Although many NGOs do not officially adopt gender-sensitive policies to inform their practice, the sector as a whole has more of an awareness of gender issues than is the case in other institutions, although this is more apparent in Britain than in France. Many find themselves in this sector because they are doing more than ‘just a job’ and invariably good practice flows from this approach. Those working in NGOs are more often than not highly trained and skilled professionals and are aware of the different needs that women asylum seekers and refugees have. Often the influence of particular managers or leaders in the NGO sector, whether in a CADA or in a refugee trauma counselling centre, determines how her/his unit or organisation works. Most NGOs whether in France or Britain work with dwindling resources in the face of increasing needs yet perform a crucial public service mission.This is not to say that NGOs work in an unproblematic way, and perhaps one of their biggest failings is that they do not recruit enough staff from refugee communities. If they do, refugees are recruited to lower order positions and often do not have the opportunity to gain further training for top NGO positions. NGOs do however rely on large numbers of volunteers, of which a large proportion are asylum seekers or refugees. Few volunteers appear to make it to higher positions in the large NGOs even if they gain excellent skills and experience. But if models of good practice in the services offered to asylum seekers and refugees are sought, they are likely to be found in this sector.Asylum seeking and refugee women form a significant part of NGOs’ volunteer programmes and for many involvement in NGOs offers training for participation and decision-making in civic life and therefore the opportunity to influence their own personal and professional development and that of their friends and family. The presence of asylum-seeking and refugee women in NGOs and the work that the latter undertake in respect of this population of women is supported by refugee women’s community associations. However, community associations differ from NGOs in that they can provide genuinely autonomous spaces for women from refugee communities in which to train and gain experience in active citizenship and political engagement.The space

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for autonomous action is important to refugee women, many of whom feel like outsiders even in the most open of NGOs. Also, unlike NGOs, refugee community associations can entertain making real challenges to government policies and become sites of radical thinking and action. This has been demonstrated in recent years as refugee women’s associations have come into greater contact with other migrant women and with feminist and left-wing protest movements, in the context of events such as the European Social Forums, in order to undertake transversal action not only on issues affecting women but also on issues of global concern such as the war in Iraq. In examining the relations between asylum-seeking and refugee women with state actors and institutions on one hand and a variety of civil society actors and agencies on the other hand, our aim has been to highlight the issues of importance to this population of women and the barriers that they encounter in their search for security and a new start in societies which can be very different from their own. However, we also wished to demonstrate that asylum-seeking and refugee women are neither victims to be pitied or patronised nor selfish consumers ‘taking advantage of the generosity’ of British and French health and welfare systems as so often portrayed by politicians and media in both countries. We have been concerned, therefore, to emphasise the agency of women asylum seekers and refugees and the fact that they can and do become active citizens in societies where political leaders complain about the indifference of citizens, mistrust of political leaders and the resulting crisis of legitimacy of existing political systems. Hence, women asylum seekers and refugees are able to make a useful political, socio-cultural and economic contribution to the destination societies in which they find themselves. Our research has also shown that refugee and asylum policy and practice are far from gender neutral. Everything about women’s experience is gendered, from the initial persecution to their settlement in their destination country.This does not mean that women are only ever persecuted as women or because they are women. In many ways, they act in exactly the same way as men and for the same reasons as men, but assumptions about gender, about women’s place in society and in the family, about the nature of politics and who is a political actor and a political refugee, all influence ideas, practices and decisions. It is tempting, having summarised what we have aimed to do in writing this book and having reached the end, to finally state ‘In conclusion …’. However, we are not convinced that it is appropriate or even possible to reach conclusions about on-going and seemingly unstoppable migration processes and about the continual interaction between established policies, new and progressive thinking about women’s rights, the increasing action and activism of refugee and migrant women and the development of national and international asylum and migration laws. For now, it is enough to insist that

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all the relevant actors in the field of refugee protection recognise the relation between gender and asylum and keep asylum-seeking and refugee women’s well-being on the agenda despite the confusions which currently reign, at the heart of Europe, over the meaning and role of migration(s).

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Bibliography Watson,T. (2008).‘Written Answers for 17 June 2008’. Hansard. www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080617/text/80617w0030.htm, accessed 21 November 2008. Watson, M. and Danzelman, P. (1998). Asylum Statistics United Kingdom 1997 (issue 14/98). London: Home Office. Watson, M. and McGregor, R. (1999). Asylum Statistics United Kingdom 1998 (issue 10/99). London: Home Office. Weatherill, B. (1990). Speaker’s Commission: Encouraging Citizenship. London: HMSO. Weaver, M. (2006). ‘Breastfeeding Mothers Detained Away From Babies.’ Guardian, 18 August. Werbner, P. (1991).‘The Fiction of Unity in Ethnic Politics.’ In P.Werbner and M. Anwar (eds). Black and Ethnic Leaderships in Britain.The Cultural Dimensions of Political Action. London: Routledge. Werbner, P. and Anwar, M. (eds.) (1991). Black and Ethnic Leaderships in Britain.The Cultural Dimensions of Political Action. London: Routledge. Wihtol de Wenden, C. (1988). ‘Associations d’immigrés, une citoyenneté concrète.’ Les Cahiers de l’Orient, 11: 115–35. —— (1992). ‘Les Associations ‘beur’ et immigrées, leurs leaders, leurs stratégies.’ Regards sur l’Actualité, 178: 31–44. —— (2004). L’Asile en crise. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Willetts, P. (2002). ‘What is a Non-Governmental Organisation?’ Output from the Research Project on Civil Society Networks in Global Governance. www.staff.city.ac.uk/p.willetts/CS-NTWKS/NGO-ART.HTM, accessed 30 September 2004. Wluczka, M. (2005a). Chief medical officer ANAEM, interviewed, 10 June, Paris. —— (2005b). La Santé des demandeurs d’asile hébergés en CADA et CPH en 2004. Paris: ANAEM. Women Asylum Seekers Together (WAST) (2008).‘WAST Manchester: Sara Must Stay’. www.wast.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog& id=5&Itemid=10, accessed 12 June 2008. Women’s Asylum News, Monthly Bulletin of the Refugee Women’s Support Project, 69, September-October 2007. www.asylumaid.org.uk. Woodbridge, J., Burgum, D. and Heath,T. (2000). Asylum Statistics United Kingdom 1999 (issue 17/00). London: Home Office. World Health Organisation (2000) Declaration of Cooperation: Mental Health of Refugees, Displaced and Other Populations Affected by Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations, endorsed at the International Consultation on Mental Health of Refugees and Displaced Populations in Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations, 23–25 October, Geneva. Wyman, M. (1998). DPs: Europe’s Displaced Persons: 1945–1951. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Young, I. (1989). ‘Polity and Group Difference: A Critique of the Idea of Universal Citizenship.’ Ethics, 99: 250–74. —— (1990). Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Yuval-Davis, N and Werbner, P. (1999). Women, Citizenship and Difference. London/New York: Zed Books. Zetter, R. and Pearl, M. (2000).‘The Minority Within the Minority: Refugee Community Based Organisations in the UK and the Impact of Restrictionism.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 26(4): 675–98. Zetter, R. et al. (2003). An Assessment of the Impact of Asylum Policies in Europe 1990–2000. London: Home Office.

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Index

Notes: ‘n.’ after a page reference indicates the number of a note on that page (e.g. 95n.3). References to tables are given in italics. Abu Youssef, J. 139–40, 146 accommodation see housing Action for Refugee Women (AfRW) 146, 150n.8, 157–8, 168–9 activism, political: level of: migrant women 152–3 ADEMAF - Benin 147 Adshead, Kay 95n.7 AFAVO (Association des Femmes Africaines du Val d’Oise) 148 African (sub-Saharan) women’s associations 147–8 Agence Nationale de l’Accueil des Etrangers et des Migrations (ANAEM) 97, 106, 117, 127n.1 Agence Nationale pour l’Emploi (ANPE) 117 Agence Nationale pour la Cohésion Sociale et l’Egalité de Chances (ACSE) 117, 128n.8 Ager, A. 31–2 Agrali S. 113 Ahmed, M. 73 aid, humanitarian 14 aide médicale d’état 43, 110 Albert, S. 96 Aliens Act (1905) 23 allocation d’insertion 43 allocation temporaire d’attente 43, 106 Amnesty International 2, 29, 86, 146

Section Française 41, 42, 97, 104, 146 Anafé (Association Nationale d’Assistance aux Frontières pour les Etrangers) 104, 106, 159 APIs (Asylum Policy Instructions) 35, 37 appeals for refugee status 25–7 Arab Women’s Association (Birmingham) 140 Araujo, A. M. 138 arrival procedure Britain 75–81 France 99–104 ASFAD 145, 146 Ashton, Catherine (Baroness) 37 Association d’Accueil aux Médecins et Personnels de Santé Réfugiés 118 Association de Solidarité avec les Femmes Algériennes et Démocrates 145, 146 Association de Solidarité avec les Travailleurs Immigrés,Valence 1 Association Law (1901) 141, 142 Association Minkowska 112 Association pour les Victimes de la Répression en Exil 112 Association Primo Lévy 97, 112 associations, refugee 2, 3, 5, 12n.1, 33, 129–51, 176–7 women’s 22, 137–51 funding 141, 142–3 associations, voluntary, and social cohesion 31, 143 ASTI,Valence 1 asylum: European Community legislation 19–23

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Index Asylum Act (France, 1998) 39, 40 Asylum Aid 38, 79, 86, 150n.7, 157 Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc.) Act (2004) 24 Asylum and Immigration Act (1996) 24, 89 Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act (1993) 24 Asylum and Immigration Tribunal 26, 36 asylum appeals 2 Britain 38–9 France 41–2, 99 asylum applications: gender guidelines 34–8 asylum claims statistics 61–4 Britain destination of claimants 63 origins of claimants 62–5 France destination of claimants 64 origins of claimants 63–4, 68, 70 asylum legislation: history Britain 23–39 France 39–46 asylum policies gender bias, studies 3 migration flows, impact on 51–2 Asylum Policy Instructions (2004) 35, 37 asylum procedures: access to 41 Britain 38–9, 75–81 France 39–42 asylum seeker: definition 8–9 asylum seekers: hostility to and fear of 32 Asylum Statistics (Home Office) 64–6 Atelier Grand Lyon – PLH 111 Athwal, H. 30 Attwood, C. 135–6, 150n.5 autorisation provisoire de séjour (APS) 99 babies: Britain: detention 83 Bacci, M. L. 50 Bade, K. 50 Bail for Immigration Detainees 74, 82 Baldwin,T. 31 Barab, S. A. 98 Barkham, P. 130 Barnett. M. 14 Bassel, L. 4, 98 BBC News 88, 91 Belluz, J. 84

benefits, welfare: legislation Britain 27–9 France 42–4 Bernadot, M. 104 Bertheleu, H. 96 Bertrand, D. 98 Beski, C. 138 Bézier CADA 159 Bhabha, J. 3, 53 Bien-être de la Femme et de l’Enfant Congo Démocratique 140 Birnbery Peirce and Partners 88 Black Women’s Network 134 Black, S. 51 Blais, A. 169n.1 Blake, J. 27 Bloch, A. 3, 4, 32, 74, 88, 89–90, 91, 94, 153 boat people 59 Bogus Woman, The (Adshead) 95n.7 Bohning,W. R. 50 bombings, London (July 2007) 31 Booth, H. 50 Border Agency, UK 124–5 culture of disbelief 173 Bosnia-Herzogovina 41 Bouaoumeur, Louisa 103 Boumedienne-Thierry, Alima 98 Bourne, J. 30 Bowcott, O. 31 Boyle, P. 53 British Medical Association 91 British National Party 78 British Nationality Act (1948) 54 ‘Britishness’ 6, 30, 31, 47 Brocard, L. 45, 46 Buijs, G. 53 Building Cohesive Communities (Denham, 2001) 31 Butler, C. 92 Byrne, Liam 83 CADA 42–3, 106–9, 110–11, 113, 115, 118, 127n.5–6 CADAC (Coordination des Associations pour le Droit à l’avortement) 146 CAFDA (Paris) 111 Callamard, A. 3 Campani, G. 4 Canada: Gender Guidelines 35 Cantle Report (2001) 31

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Index Carriers’ Liability Act (1987) 24 carriers’ sanctions 41 Carter, R. 54 caseworkers: asylum procedure 173 France 101–4 Castles, S. 8, 31, 50, 51 Catani, M. 134 Catarino, C. 127n.2 CCIPH 85 CEME (Commission des Eglises auprès des Migrants en Europe) 159 Ceneda, S. 36–7, 67, 82 Centre d’Etude de Documentation et de Recherches 99–100, 102 Centre de Formation Journalistes 118–19 Centre de Recherches Politiques, Sorbonne 98 Centres d’Accueil pour les Demandeurs d’Asile 42–3, 106–9, 110–11, 113, 115, 118, 127n.5–6 Centres de rétention administratives 104–6 Centres Médico-Psychologiques 111–12 Centres Provisoires d’Hébergement 108–9, 111, 113, 115 Cercle des Femmes Brésiliennes 137 CERE (Conseil Européen sur les Réfugiés et les Exilés) see ECRE CESEDA 39, 40, 41 CFDT 117 CGT 117 Chaib, S. 117 Charlaff, L. 89, 91–2, 93 Chemiller-Gendreau, M. 96 Chenais, J. 51 childbearing and exile 113–14 children: education: France 119–21 Chile: migrants to France 59 Chuberre, M. 104 Churchill,Winston 54 Cimade, la 97, 105, 106, 128n.9, 159–60, 169 citizenship 129–51 concepts of 131–3 participation in civil society and 164–5 Cleary,T. 82 CNDA 99 CNT 117

Code on the Admission and Residence of Foreigners and the Right to Asylum 39, 40, 41 cohesion, social 31, 143 Collard, S. 51 Collectif des Femmes Chilliennes 137 colonies: migration from (1945–75) 50–1 Comede 7, 112, 113–14 Comité d’Aide Exceptionelle aux Intellectuels Réfugiés 118 Comité de suivi des lois sur l’immigration 98, 103, 127n.2 Comité des femmes Djiboutiennes contre les viols et l’impunité 140 Comité interministériel de contrôle de l’immigration 42 Commission des Recours des Réfugiés 39, 45–6, 99 Commission for Citizenship 132 Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health 85 Commission for Racial Equality 31 Commission Nationale d’Admission (CNA) 107 Common Agenda for Integration, A (European Commission 2005) 22 Commonwealth Immigrants Act (1962) 24, 54 Commonwealth, New: migrants to Britain 53, 54 Commonwealth, Old 71n.3 community advancement, refugee: refugee women 144–5, 146–7, 176–7 community associations, refugee 2, 3, 5, 12n.1, 33, 129–51, 176–7 community cohesion 78 community relations: refugees: Britain 94 comparative analysis: British and French situation 124–7 Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail 117 Confédération Générale du Travail 117 Confédération Nationale du Travail 117 confidentiality: in asylum procedures 23 Conseil de l’Ordre des Médecins 110 Conseil Représentatif des Associations Noires 123, 128n.10–11 Constitution, French (1793) 39 Constitution, French (1946) 39 Constitutional Act (1993) 40

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Index Contract of Reception and Integration 44–5, 47 contributory citizenship 131–2 Controlling our borders (2005) 26–7 Convention against Torture and other Cruel and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 15 Cooke,V. 134–40 Coordination de l’accueil des familles demandeuses d’asile (Paris) 111 Coordination Française pour le Droit d’Asile 159 Cornwall, A. 135, 147, 150n.4 Council for Assisting Refugee Academics 91 Council of Europe 29, 30 Directive 2003/9/EC 30 Recommendations 1478 and 1732 (2006) 22 countries of origin: information on 37 Cour nationale du droit d’asile 42 Couverture Médicale Universelle (CMU) 43, 110 CPH 108–9, 111, 113, 115 Crawley, H. 3, 15, 18, 22, 28, 29, 34, 35–6, 38, 53 Credible Witness (Wertenbaker) 95n.7 credit unions 147–8 Crick, B. 132 Crick Report (2003) 31 Cris d’Exil 1 Crying Shame, A (McLeish et al.) 83 Cutler, S. 3–4, 81–2 Dag, Firsat 78 D’Avanzo, C. 98 Davis, S. 134, 140 Deakin, N. 54 Delafontaine Hospital (St Denis) 114 Denham Report (2001) 31 Department of Health 85 Department of Work and Pensions 74 dependency: on spouses 64–5, 130 deportation from Britain 88 from France 106 destination: choice of: asylum seekers: France 100–1 destination society enrichment: refugee women’s associations 143–4, 145–6

destitution: women asylum seekers: Britain 80–1 detention 29–30 DFT (detained fast-track) 29–30, 81–2, 174 racism by staff: France 123 waiting zones 40, 174 women asylum seekers: Britain 76, 81–3 women asylum seekers: France 104–6 Dhabo 140 Dietz, Mary 132, 133, 150n.3 Direct Airside Transit Visas 25 Discretionary Leave 27, 82 dispersal Britain 28, 63 impact on political activity level 153 women asylum seekers 76–7, 174–5 health issues 86 labour market and 89 maternity 87 women’s associations 139 France 43 displacement (1945–75) 50 dispositif national d’accueil 104 Diversity Equality Scheme and Action Plan (UKBA) 38 divorce: France 121–2 Dobson, J. 55, 56 Doctors for Human Rights 86 documentation: legislation on 25, 27, 38, 89 domestic violence see violence, domestic domestic work, illegal: France 115–16 Domingues, C. 100–1 Drake, H. 51 Dublin Convention 18, 19, 40, 43. 107–8, 110 Dublin Regulation see Dublin Convention Dumes, A. 151n.13 Dumon,W. A. 53 Dumper, H. 3, 26, 36, 64, 67, 73, 75, 76–7, 78, 81, 84, 86, 88, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95n.3, 145, 156 ECHR see European Convention on Human Rights economic migrants 14 ECRE 20, 22, 74, 159, 169–70n.1

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Index education access: France 118–21 level of: and work: refugee women: France 116 skills and: refugee women: London 64, 67, 145 Education sans Frontières 120 Electoral Commission, UK 152–3 ELELE 146 ELENA 20 Elle-Fondation 118–19 Elshtain, J. 132 Employability Forum 33, 74, 93 employment participation in NGOs and 163 Britain 89–93 restrictions 27 services: stakeholder partnerships 33 France 115–17 empowerment: by NGOs 155, 163–6 entry controls: asylum seekers: Britain 24–5 Equal fund 117, 118, 119 Erel, U. 163, 168 étrangers: definition 9 Etudes sans Frontières 119 Eurodac 18 European Commission against Racism and Intolerance 122–3 European Commission of Social Rights 43 European Community legislation: asylum 19–23 European Convention on Human Rights 8, 26, 28, 40, 104, 124 breaches 28, 34, 83 sans papiers and 60 European Council Meeting on Justice and Home Affairs 19 European Council on Refugees and Exiles 20, 22, 74, 169–70n.1 European Fund for Integration 48n.3 European Ministerial Conference on Integration (Vichy, 2008) 21 European Network against Racism 123 European Pact on Immigration and Asylum (2008) 21 European Refugee Fund 117 European Social Forums 177 European Union: free movement within 130

European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia 123 European Women’s Lobby 23 ‘Europeanness’ 6, 130–1 Eveil, L’ 137 Eversley, J. 92 Exceptional Leave to Remain 27, 169–70n.1 Express, L’ 101–2 FAAR 118, 128n.9 families: refugees: Britain 94 Family Act (1996) 95n.10 family migration disregarded by social scientists 53 to Britain 55–6 to France 58, 59–60, 61 family reunification: France 122 family reunification migration (post1975) 51–2 Farés, S. 107 Fassman, H. 50, 51 FASTI 143, 160–1 fast-track schemes: asylum claims 25, 38, 41–2 detained 29–30, 81–2, 174 Favell, A. 51 Fédération des Associations de Solidarité avec les Travailleurs Immigrés 143, 160–1 Fédération Nationale des Associations pour l’Enseignement 7 Fédération Nationale Solidarité Femmes 121 Fédération Syndicale Unitaire 117, 128n.7 Feldman, N. 97–8, 134 feminist context 6 Femmes Bazouaises de France et de Cameroun 140 Femmes en Résistance 98 flight, internal: alternative to asylum 36 forced marriage 2, 45–6 Formation, Accueil des demandeurs d’Asile et Refugiés (FAAR) 118, 128n.9 Formation des Travailleurs Immigrés et de Leurs Familles 7 Fornah v. Secretary of State for the Home Department (2005) 36 Fortress Europe 5–6

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Index Forum Réfugiés 109, 111, 117 Français Musulmans d’Algérie (FMA) 58–9 France Terre d’Asile 7, 42, 44, 106 Freedman, J. 4, 97, 98 French Sociological Association 98 ‘Frenchness’ 6 Front National 44 FSU 117, 128n.7 FTDA 107, 108, 109, 117, 127n.6 Full and Equal Citizens (2001) 31, 32 Fyvie, C. 56 Galvin,T. 3 Gantin, K. 98 Gateway Protection Programme 33 Gbadamassi, F. 116 Geddes, A. 20, 50 Gender Equality Duty 38 Gender Guidelines Home Office 75, 125, 156 Immigration Appellate Authority 34–5, 37 UNHCR 16–17, 22, 23, 48, 126 Gender Issues in the Asylum Claim (2004) 35 gender neutrality, false: RSD processes: France 125–6 gender related persecution see persecution, gender related Geneva Convention (1951) 8, 10, 13–15, 19, 20, 21–2, 24, 46, 48n.2, 99, 100, 104, 124 asylum decisions and: Britain 36–7 asylum decisions and: France 104 Cessation Clause 48n.4 ratification by Britain 24 ratification by France 40 genital mutilation, female 2, 36, 45–6, 48n.7 maternity care and 86, 87 GFAMS 146 Gill, M. 28, 29 Gil-Robles, Álvaro 40, 41, 43 Giovannoni, L. 42 GISTI 118, 146 Goff, C. 143 Goulbourne, H. 139 Gould, C. 132–3 GRAF 46, 146, 169 Greater London Authority 64, 67, 91,

145 Greenslade, R. 78 Griffiths, D. 5, 28, 31, 32, 134 Groupe Accueil et Solidarité 7 Groupe Asile Femmes (le Graf) 46, 146, 169 Groupe d’Information et de Soutien des Immigrés 118, 146 Groupe Femmes Algériennes 137 Groupe Femmes pour l’Abolition des Mutilations Sexuelles 146 Guardian, The 74, 83, 89 Gueguen, M. 45–6, 160 Guidelines on International Protection: Gender Related Persecution (UNHCR, 2002) 48n.2 Guidelines on the Protection of Refugee Women (UNHCR, 1991) 48n.2 Gynécologie sans Frontières 115 Hague Programme 20–1 Halfacree, K. 53 Hammarberg Thomas 30 harm, private: distinguished from persecution 16 Harmondsworth immigration removal centre 29–30 HARP 85, 95n.12 Harrell-Bond, B. 3 Harris, C. 54 Harris, Hermione 86 Hathaway, James: hierarchy of rights 15 Hautefeuille CADA 111 headscarves 44 health care: access to 43 Britain 83–7 detention centres 82 France 110–15 Health for Asylum Seekers and Refugees Portal (HARP) project 85, 95n.12 health services: in detention and removal centres 30 High Council for Integration 9, 44 High Court: ruling on health care entitlement (2006) 84 Hinsliff, G. 34 Home Office 74 culture of disbelief 37 skills audit (2001) 90–1, 92 ‘honour’ crimes 2, 45, 46 Hopwood, F. 78

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Index Horn of Africa Somali Women’s Organisation 146 Hortefeux, Loi 40 hostels: women asylum seekers: Britain 77 Housing Act (1996) 95n.10 housing benefit 42 refugees: France 108–9 women asylum seekers Britain 76–8, 79, 81 France 106–9 women refugees 174–5 Hughes, Beverley 36 Human Rights Act (1998) 24, 26 Human Rights Watch: attestation of rape in Uganda 2 Humanitarian Protection 27, 33, 82, 169–70n.1 Hunt, L. 4 ICAR 36 identity documents 38 IGAS 110 IKWRO 146 ILPA 82 immigrant: definition 8–9 Immigration and Asylum Act (1999) 24, 28, 29, 32, 89 Immigration and Nationality Directorate 24 Immigration Appellate Authority Gender Guidelines 34–5, 37 immigration choisie 2 immigration policy: studies of gender bias 3–4 Immigration Rights Project 73 Immigration Status Documents 33 Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act (2006) 24 immigration interpreted as threat 18 to Britain: quantitative evaluation 55 to France: quantitative evaluation 58 immigrés: definition 9 Indefinite Leave to Remain 27, 33 Independent Race and Refugee News Network 148 Indra, D. 3, 53 Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees in the UK 73–4, 79

INSEE (Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques) 59, 136–7 Institute for Employment Studies 74, 89, 93 integration 74, 147, 175 measurement of 47 policies 21, 31–4, 44–5 General Secretary for Integration 44 Integration Matters 32–3 Inter Service Migrants 100 Interministerial Integration Committee 44 internally displaced persons 14 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 15 International Women’s Day 158 interpreters: access to Britain 84 France 100 interpreters: right to denied 41 interviews: asylum process Britain 75 France 101, 102–3 Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation 140–1 Ireland: refugees’ voting rights 169–70n.1 Is it Safe Here? (Dumper) 67, 158 isolation: women asylum seekers: Britain 77, 80 in detention 83 Jad, I. 165 Jaggar, A. 164, 165, 166 Jenkins, Roy 30 Jenkins, S. 134 Jobcentre Plus 33–4 Jochum,V. 164 Joly, D. 14, 15, 134 Joshi, P. 18, 21, 23, 54 journalism, training in: France 119 Kabila, Joseph: government of Democratic Republic of Congo 1 Kachepa,Vera 130 Kirby,T. 27 Kirk, R. 90–1, 92, 145 Kofman, E. 53, 61, 134 Koslowski, R. 51

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Index Kosovan conflict: and domestic violence 79 Kovess,V. 111 Kurdistan Refugee Women’s Organisation 141, 148 Kyambi, S. 28 labour market: refugees 33–4, 89–90 demand (1945–75) 50 Britain 89–93 France 115–17 labour market: restructuring (post-1975) 51 Labour Market System (LMS) 33–4 labour migration 51 to Britain 53–5, 56 to France 57, 58, 59, 60–1 labour movement: France 116–17 Lacaze, F. 45, 46 laicité 44 language needs: asylum seekers 74, 88, 161–2, 175 detention 82, 83 health care 84 language skills: asylum claims 41–2 NGO participation and 163, 167–8 refugees 91 language tuition, access to 45, 88, 118, 161–2 Latin American Women’s Aid Refuge 141 Latin American Women’s Rights Service 137, 138 Laurain, S. 134 Layton-Henry, Z. 134 Le Gall, Catherine 101–2 Le Hérou, A. 110 Le Pors, A. 96 Le Vésinet Hospital (Yvelines) 115 Lebon, A. 53 legal representation: access to 82 legislation, asylum: European Community 19–23 legislation, restrictive 4 Lemercier, E. 134 Leprince, C. 114 lèse majesty 39 Lesselier, C. 5, 100–1, 138, 152 Lester,T. 34, 35–6, 38 Lettre d’Information du GAS, La 7

Leveau, R. 96, 134 Lévi, F. 53 L’Hostis, H. 112 Ligue de l’Enseignement 120 Ligue des Droits de l’Homme 120 Lister, R. 132 literacy rates 88 Livret du citoyen 132 Lloyd, C. 134 loans: integration loan scheme 33 Locaux de rétention administratives (LRAs) 104–6 Lochak, D. 44 Loescher, G. 14 loi de finances de 2006 43 loi Relative à l’Entrée et au Séjour des Etrangers en France et au Droit d’Asile 59–60 loi Sarkozy 40 London bombings (July 2007) 31 refugee women: education and skills 64, 67, 145 Mayor of 74 London Framework for Regional Employment and Skills Action 90 London Skills Commission 90 loneliness: women asylum seekers: Britain 77, 83 Lovenduski, J. 152–3, 164 Lutz, H. 130–1 Maastricht Treaty 71n.2 Maghreb countries: migrants to France 58–9, 60–1 Maison des Journalistes 118–19 Making Women Visible 81, 156 MANA (Bordeaux) 113 managed migration 2 Marocaines en France, Les 137 marriage, forced 2, 45–6 Marshall,T. H. 131 Martin, S. 53 Masson, S. 111 Maternity Alliance 3–4, 74, 86–7 maternity care Britain 86–7 France 113–15 Maux d’Exil 7 McLeish, J. 3–4, 81, 83, 86, 87, 95n.1 Mead, L. 150n.2

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Index Médecins du Monde 86, 111, 112, 113, 114 media discourse on asylum and refugees 4–5 hostility to asylum seekers 78, 79, 172–3 medical care see health care Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture 85 Medical Practitioners Union 85–6 Meeting the Health Needs of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the UK (DoH) 85 Melis, C. 134 mental health Britain 85–6 France 110, 111–13 Messina, A. M. 50 Midlands Refugee Women’s Association 140 migrants, economic 14 migration flows 50–2 Migration Information Source 74 Migration PoIicy Institute (MPI) 59 migration: feminisation of 52–3 Miller, M. J. 50, 51, 153 Minister for Foreign Affairs 42 Ministry for Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Development 21, 42 Missed Opportunities 90 Mlloja, Blerim 27 Moch, L. P. 50 Morokvasic, M. 53, 127n.2 Morris,T. 19 Mothers in Exile (Maternity Alliance) 86 mothers: asylum process and Britain 77 France 102, 108 Mouffe, Chantal 132, 133 Mouterde, F. 132 MPSG 46 legal definition 35 MRAP 120, 124 MRWA 79 Münz, R. 50, 51 Muslim communities: Britain 30 Muslim women: vulnerability 78 Muslims: French Algerian 58–9 Musulmans, Français, d’Algérie (FMA) 58–9 muticulturalism: arguments against 31

Najjemba, Rose 36 Nantois, B. 134 National Asylum Support Service (NASS) 28, 74, 76–7, 78, 79, 80, 81, 158 National Insurance numbers 33 National Refugee Integration Forum 32, 33 National Union of Journalists 79 Nationality Act (2003) 130 Nationality Code 60 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act (2002) 24, 26–7, 28, 29 Nettleton, C. 15 New and the Old, The (Crick, 2003) 31 New Asylum Model (2005) 26–7 Quality Team 82 New Commonwealth: migrants to Britain 53, 54 New Right: conceptualisation of citizenship 131–2 New York Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (1967) 13, 40 Newham Refugees Forum 95n.6 NGOs comparative impact: Britain and France 47 refugee women’s participation 161–8, 176–7 NIACE 90 Noiriel, G. 96 non-refoulement: principle of 14, 20 Nygothi, Kamwaura 78 Oakington reception centre 26 Oasis (Observatoire pour l’Accueil des demandeurs d’asile) 118, 128n.9 Offences Against the Person Act (1861) 95n.10 Office Central pour la Répression du Trafic des Etres Humains (OCRTEH) 116 Office for Criminal Justice Reform 76 Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides see OFPRA Office National d’Immigration 57 OFPRA 38, 39–42, 45, 46, 63, 67–71, 98, 99–104, 106, 107, 108, 124–5, 126 culture of disbelief 100, 173 oil crisis (1973–74) 51

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Index Old Commonwealth 71n.3 OMCT 105 ‘one-stop appeal’: asylum claims 25 opinions, political: basis for refugee status 46 Owers, Anne 82 Oxfam 19–20, 74, 79, 80, 155 Palestinian women in Britain 139–40, 146 Palidda, S. 134 Palmer , C. 36–7 Parekh, B. 164, 165 Paris-Dépôt CRA 105–6 Parmar, P. 134 Parti Socialiste 44 participation, civic: statistics 135–6 parties, political: involvement of migrants 153 Pasqua law (1993) 60 passports 38 Pateman, C. 132 Pearl, M. 134 persecution definition 15, 16, 17 fear of 13–14 sexual orientation or gender grounds 19 gender related 16–18, 19, 22–3, 35–6, 37, 45–6, 129–30, 159–60 medical evidence 102 see also rape; sexual violence; torture non-state agents 19, 22, 34, 35, 36, 37 Phillips, Anne 132, 133 Phillips,Trevor 31 Phizacklea, A. 53 Piore, M. J. 50 Plant, R. 150n.2 police: racism: France 123 policy: refugee and asylum: ideological aspects 13 political activism: level of migrants 153 women 152–3 political opinions: basis for refugee status 46 political participation concepts of 133 cultural issues 167–8 political refugees (1945–75) 51 Poppy project 76

population, refugee proportion in Europe 2 proportion of women 2 poverty: women asylum seekers: Britain 80–1 Praxis Community Projects 92 préfectures: fast-tracking asylum claims 41 pregnant women: asylum process and: Britain 76–7 detention 83 press: hostility to asylum seekers 78, 79, 172–3 Proasile 7 Procedures Directive, European Community (2005) 19–20 gender issues 22–3 prostitution: France 116 Protection from Harassment Act (1997) 95n.10 PS (Parti Socialiste) 44 Qualification Directive, European Community (2004) 19, 20, 37 gender issues 22 qualifications: refugees: Britain 90–3, 145 Quiminal, C. 134 racism Britain impact on women asylum seekers 78–9, 82 maternity services 86, 87 NGOs 168 France 122–4, 126–7 schools 120 violence 126–7 Rai, S. 166 Rajfire 45, 46, 95–6, 100, 116, 141, 145, 146 Randall, A. 66 Randall,V. 152 rape ECHR and 36 Ugandan military 1–2 see also persecution, gender related Rapoport, M. 96 RCO Women’s News (Refugee Council) 156 Recchi, E. 51

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Index reception centres 30 asylum seekers: France 106–9 Reception Conditions Directive, European Community (2003) 19, 43 reception procedure 174–5 Britain 75–81 Red Cross 76, 79, 86, 155 Reeves, K. 56 refoulement 106 Refugee Action 29, 74, 77, 79, 95n.3, 150n.8, 157–8, 166 Refugee Convention (1951) see Geneva Convention (1951) Refugee Council 19, 27, 34, 38, 74, 76, 79, 80–1, 86, 87, 91, 143, 155–6, 158, 166, 168 Refugee Integration and Employment Service 33 Refugee Integration Strategy 32–3 Refugee Media Agency 79 refugee migration to Britain 55, 56 to France 58, 59, 71 Refugee or Person in need of International Protection (Qualification) Regulations (2006) 37 refugee status: determination procedures 25–7, 124–7, 173 studies 4 France 99–104 refugee studies: academic field 4 Refugee Women and Domestic Violence (RWRP) 95n.9 refugee women: education and skills 64, 67 Refugee Women’s Association 74, 146, 150n.10 Refugee Women’s Legal Group (RWLG) 34, 35, 154, 156, 157 Refugee Women’s News 7 Refugee Women’s Resource Project 7, 21, 23, 28–9, 35, 36–7, 38–9, 74, 75, 79, 80, 82, 95n.9, 125, 146, 150n.7, 157 refugee: definition 8–9, 13–14, 19 gender issues 22 Refugees and Asylum Seekers Mass Media 79 refuges, women’s 80 Regional Protection Programmes 20–1

relocation: alternative to asylum 36 Rémy, J. 101–2 repatriation programmes, ‘voluntary’ 14 research: on asylum seeking and refugee women: France 97–8 Réseau pour l’autonomie des femmes immigrées et réfugiées see Rajfire RESEDA 59–60 resident’s permit: requirements for 45 Revenu minimum d’insertion 44 Rex, J. 134 rights: James Hathaway’s hierarchy of 15 rights, concepts of 132–3 Rigoni, I. 98 Robin, A. 150n.6 Robinson, D. 56 Robinson,V. 51 Roche, M. 150n.2 Roma women: pregnancy: in France 114 Royal College of Nursing 93 Rozenberg, G. 31 Rubin, J. 116 Rudge, P. 51 RWRP see Refugee Women’s Resource Project safe conduct pass 99 ‘safe countries’ 19–20, 25, 26, 41 asylum seekers returned to 106 failure to protect women 38–9 trafficking from 75 Safe for Whom? (RWRP) 157 Salinas, M. 134 Salisbury, Marquis of 54 sans papiers 60–1, 111, 130, 145 Sarkozy, Nicolas 2–3 Savoirs et Formation 7 Schengen Agreement (1985) 18, 40 Schlenzka, N. 4 Schuster, L. 23, 24 Schwertz-Favrat, O. 1 Scottish Executive 91–2 Scottish Refugee Council 91–2 SDFE 122 Secours Catholique 97, 140 Secure Borders, Safe Haven (2001) 31 Ségur, P. 96 Séhili, D. 98 ‘selective’ migration 2–3 sex work: France 116

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Index sexual harassment detention 82 hostels, hotels and shared accommodation 77, 87, 95n.1 sexual orientation: persecution for 46 sexual violence see violence, sexual Shah and Islam case (House of Lords, 1999) 35–6 Sharia law 31 shelter, right to 28 Shutter, S. 3, 53 Sigona, N. 28, 31, 32, 134 Siim, B. 132, 133 Simmonot, C. 104 Single European Act (1986) 18, 71n.2 single women: asylum process and Britain 77–8 France 108 Sissoko, A. 134 skills: refugees: Britain 90–3, 145, 150n.6 social capital: NGO participation 163–6 Solomos, J. 23, 24 Somalis in Britain 86, 88, 92, 94 women 66–7, 140 Somerville,W. 48n.1, 73 Sommo, L. 4 SOS-Racisme 124 South Asian immigrants: rotation system 55 Spijkerboer,T. 3 Sriskandarajah, D. 78 Stancer, C. 3–4 state: relationship to citizens 131–2, 148–9 State Medical Aid (AME) 43 statistics asylum seekers and refugees: Britain: qualifications 92 civic participation 135–6 dependent spouses 130 gender disaggregated 125, 126 lack of 49–50 immigration to Britain 54, 55, 56 immigration to France 57–9, 61 migration: by gender 52 Britain 64–7 France 67–70 racism: France 123 refugees: Britain: employment levels: 89

refugees: London: women: education and training 145 women’s use of NGO services 156 Stewart, J. 42 Strang, A. 31–2 Strasbourg CADA 111 subsidiary protection 45, 169–70n.1 Sudan Women’s Association 146 Sudbury, J. 134 suicide: in detention and removal centres 30 Sukula, Flores 81 Sunrise (Strategic Upgrade of National Refugee Integration Services) 32–3 Taboa-Leonetti, I. 53 Tait, K. 90, 91, 93 Temporary Protection 48n.5 terminology 8–9 territorial asylum 40 Thatcher, Margaret 24 They Took Me Away (RWRP) 82, 157 Thiara, R. K. 134 Tiberghien, F. 96 Tomlinson, F. 163, 168 Tomlinson, S. 134 tontines 147–8, 151n.13 torture reason for asylum claims 82 risk of 15 Ugandan military 1 see also persecution, gender related trade unions: France 116–17 trafficked women: asylum procedure and Britain 75, 76 France 116 trafficking, human 45 transit centres: France 109 transit visas 41 Traumatic Stress Clinic 85 ‘Traumatised Refugees in Europe’ (EU Commission funded project) 8 Tribalat, M. 58–9 UCIJ 41 Uganda: ‘safe-houses’ 1 UK Border Agency 124–5 culture of disbelief 173 UK Border and Immigration Agency 24 UK Electoral Commission 152–3

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Index UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire) 2–3 unemployment: refugees 33–4 Union pour un Mouvement Populaire 2–3 Union Syndicales Solidaires 117, 128n.7 United Nations Committee against Torture 48n.8 United Nations Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) 73 United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) 2, 14, 15, 75, 83, 104 Gender Guidelines 16–17, 22, 23, 48, 126 Handbook 15 Universal Declaration of Human Rights 15 Universal Medical Coverage 43 universalism, republican 47, 172 NGOs and 169 University of East London 95n.6 USS 117, 128n.7 Valluy J. 4, 98 Vasquez, A. 138 Veith, B. 134 Vertovec, S. 134 Viché, C. 134 Vie Privée et Familiale 59–60 Villepin, Loi de 40 violence, domestic 95n.8–10 Britain 75, 79–80 France 45, 121, 159 violence, gender-related: as persecution 16–18, 22–3, 36, 37 violence, racist 126–7 violence, sexual reason for asylum claims 82 see also persecution, gender related violence: against asylum seekers: Britain 78 deportations 88 violence: detention centres: France 105 visa requirements 25 Vogel, U. 132 voluntary associations: and social cohesion 31, 143 voluntary sector: integration and 32, 33–4, 163–5 refugee women’s participation 161–8 vote: right to 169–70n.1

voucher system 28 Wadia, K. 4, 67, 88, 98, 99, 134 wages: refugees: Britain 89–90 Wahlbeck, O. 134 waiting zones 40, 99, 174 Wales Media Forum 79 Wallace,T. 50 WAN see Women’s Asylum News WAR (Women Against Rape) 36 Wareham, Rachel 79 Watson,T. 56 Weaver, M. 83 welfare benefits: legislation Britain 27–9 France 42–4 Werbner, P. 132, 139 Wertenbaker,Timberlake 95n.7 Wetherill, B. 132 widowhood rites 46 Wihtol de Wenden, C. 96, 134 Wilpert, C. 134 Wluczka, M. 111 Women Against Rape 36 Women Asylum Seekers in the UK (RWRP) 157 Women Asylum Seekers Together 141 Women, Doing it for Ourselves (Refugee Council) 156 Women for Refugee Women 141, 146, 150n.9 Women’s Asylum News 7, 29, 37, 82, 83, 95n.1, 157 women’s refuges 80 work, right to 42, 89, 115 Working Lives Research Institute 73–4, 168 Working to Rebuild Lives (DWP) 33 World Health Organisation 74, 84–5 Wyman, M. 50 Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre 29–30, 75, 76, 81, 82, 88 Young, I. 132, 133 Yuval-Davis, N. 132 ZAPI-3 106 Zetter, R. 28, 31, 32, 43, 134 Zolberg, A. R. 50 zones d’éducation prioritaire 119–20 zones d’attente 40, 99, 174