The UK needs a Gender Sensitive Asylum System

We need a Gender Sensitive Asylum System:

Last week the government launched its strategy to end violence against women and girls. This rightly refers to the progress made by the police, Crown Prosecution Service and courts in dealing with violence against women and girls. For example, if you report a rape nowadays you can ask for a female police officer to be present at your interview and you get supported by a specially trained officer throughout the police investigation and at any subsequent trial. Contrast this treatment with that in the asylum system. Rani, who escaped Sri Lanka after her husband was murdered and she was raped by soldiers, told me that at her asylum interview:

I was happy with a lady interviewer but not a male translator ... Because he was a man I felt ashamed. If it was a woman I would have said more.

A gender-sensitive system should prevent this taking place. This week we at Asylum Aid have launched Every Single Woman, a new campaign under the Charter of Rights of Women Seeking Asylum, which highlights that the criminal justice system has at least 26 laws or policies on working with women victims of crime while the UK Border Agency has just two.

Cecilia had the misfortune to spend time in both prison and an asylum detention centre. When I asked her the difference between them, her answer shocked me:

I'd prefer, rather than going in a detention centre ... to be in prison for the rest of my life.

She talked about male staff at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre, appearing unannounced, entering her room and searching through her possessions, including her underwear. Having herself experienced rape in Cameroon, this was particularly frightening. In prison, a search was always undertaken by a female prison officer and always after she had been warned that this would take place. In fact, UK prison policy is that there should be at least 60% female staff in a women's prison because "women who have been abused by men may feel safer in a predominantly female environment". No such policy exists in detention centres for women. At Tinsley House, near Gatwick Airport, there is room for 116 men and five women. With such a disproportionate number of males to females, women can feel intimidated, scared and isolated. Quite often a woman can be the only female detainee surrounded by 116 men. Women would never be placed in a men's prison in this way.

If a young woman is homeless and pregnant in the UK she is eligible for housing benefit, income support and one-off maternity grants worth £690. But not if she is a refused asylum seeker. Rahel is from Ethiopia and found herself without any support after her asylum claim was refused. For the first three months of her pregnancy she slept at Victoria Station in a sleeping bag given to her by the Red Cross. Only when she became so ill that she had to be hospitalised was she offered basic accommodation and vouchers to pay for food.