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Little attention has been paid to the particular needs of women asylum seekers, but refugee groups are now putting pressure on the Home Office to take gender into account when assessing claims. Natalie Valios investigates.

Imagine witnessing your husband's murder, before being tortured and raped yourself. Then imagine the terror as you flee your war-torn homeland with your children. And then imagine your feelings as you arrive in the UK, speaking little English and knowing no one. Far-fetched it may sound, but women currently seeking asylum in this country may well have experienced trauma similar to this.

Women don't uproot themselves very readily, says Helen Bamber, director of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture. When they do, the reasons are most commonly persecution, imprisonment and torture. Women face forms of persecution that are unique to them, such as rape, sexual violence, forced sterilisation, genital mutilation and domestic violence, and from which they can't get state protection.

It is for these reasons that the refugee women's resource project was set up by Asylum Aid in April 2000. It provides free legal representation and advice, and enables women facing serious human rights violations to gain protection in the UK.

When women claim asylum in the UK there is a lack of awareness from officials about how their gender has shaped their experience of persecution, says the project, and so their genuine asylum claim risks failure.

In the past, limited attention has been focused on the protection needs of women as asylum seekers.¹ More recently, however, refugee organisations have been putting pressure on the Home Office to take gender, and the specific issues that women suffer, into account when determining their asylum claims.

Between April and December 2000, women accounted for 25 per cent of those seeking asylum in this country, and 19 per cent of heads of household were women. But even after escaping their homeland, female asylum seekers still face particular problems in the UK while they await the outcome of their asylum claims.

According to the refugee women's resource project, one of the biggest problems arises around the safety of women and children who have to share accommodation with male strangers.

As well as exposing them to the risk of sexual harassment, in many cases female occupants are likely to come from cultural backgrounds where unrelated men and women would not mix in public places, let alone private ones.

A general lack of interpreters means that women may find themselves having to discuss intimate or sensitive issues, such as rape, abortion or medical conditions, with unknown male interpreters or even a male family member.

A further problem is the trafficking of vulnerable female asylum seekers for sexual exploitation. The number of women trafficked in the UK is estimated to be in the hundreds rather than thousands. Refugee organisations are aware of women who have presented to them and then quickly "disappeared".

What do female asylum seekers need when they arrive in this country? First, sensitivity and understanding, says Bamber. If they are dispersed before they have been properly assessed as being in need and vulnerable, they may find themselves in an area with insufficient facilities to offer basic care, let alone the specific services they might need.

Women may not be used to dealing with authorities, such as Home Office officials, solicitors and agencies, says Helen Muggeridge, a caseworker for the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants. They need to be informed of their rights - for example, their entitlement to a female interpreter or female interviewer, and free legal advice.

They should have access to specialist legal advice, as well as any necessary interpreting and translating support, in order to have the best chance of securing the protection they need.

If women are dispersed to areas where there is a lack of legal advice or if their solicitor is based, say, in London and they have been dispersed elsewhere, it can have a negative impact on their asylum claim, warns Muggeridge.

Dispersal areas may have mainstream services such as those for victims of rape, but they won't necessarily be able to provide the specific understanding needed in these cases, she says. "Because they may end up having to talk to lots of strangers, who may also be male, they might not want to disclose all the facts, which could discredit their asylum claim," Muggeridge adds.

Women who can't speak English are obviously at a disadvantage, but the lack of child-care facilities lessens the opportunity for them to attend language classes. If women arrive in the UK with their husbands, their asylum claim is not considered separately, unless they make a separate claim. On the whole this is unlikely, as few will have the courage or the resources. And as vouchers can only be spent by the "principal applicant", most married women have no access to money, even though they generally shoulder the child-care responsibilities.

Hounslow-based charity Refugee Arrivals Project is contracted by the government to provide a service to asylum seekers when they first come to the UK. Its particular remit is the London airports of Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton. It provides advice independent of the immigration service and helps asylum seekers access the National Asylum Support Service (Nass).

The project's executive director, Elizabeth Little, wants to see refugee organisations and services properly resourced and able to pick up on special needs. "We are in discussions with Nass at the moment. It says that the new induction centres will provide a better process for identifying people with special needs, so that they can be met in the dispersal area."

Little is concerned that Nass's definition of special needs will not be wide enough to include, for example, vulnerable mothers with young children. She says there should be more specific social care, health and education services in dispersal areas.

"At the moment, it's a struggle for anyone dispersed to these areas to get anything," says Little.

At the same time, she warns, such services already need to be in place for the indigenous population.

If these issues remain unaddressed, the dispersal system, or a future network of induction and accommodation centres as described by home secretary David Blunkett (News, page 6, 1 November), will continue the legacy of discrimination against female asylum seekers.

¹ H Crawley, Refugees and Gender: Law and Process, Jordans, 2001

'She thought she was safe'

Mrs S, aged 26, lost her husband and her livelihood when the Taleban seized power in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s. Her husband, a former Afghan army officer, was arrested at home and has not been seen since. She was badly beaten and slashed with a knife when she protested as they dragged him away.

A professional singer, she found herself unable to earn a living when the government banned music. Desperate to feed her three children, she began making clandestine trips across the border to carry out singing engagements in Pakistan.

When the Taleban found out, they forced her children out of the house, tied her up and started a fire. Fortunately her screams, and the cries of her children, alerted neighbours who were able to rescue her.

Badly burned, she resolved to flee the country, but had just enough money to take her two youngest children, a son aged seven and a daughter aged five, with her. She left her nine-year-old daughter in the care of a relative.

When she reached the UK, she thought she was safe. However, the local council, which had accepted responsibility for her case, placed her temporarily in a hostel largely occupied by young male asylum seekers who started to harass her. Leaving the room - a daily necessity as both the bathroom and toilet were down a long corridor - became a major ordeal.

Eventually she resorted to wearing the veil again, for protection, as it was taken as a sign that she wished to be left alone. Her children were also subjected to abusive remarks.

Her mental health began to suffer. Depression and insomnia set in, accompanied by flashbacks to her experiences in Afghanistan. Concerned for her well-being, the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture took up her case with the housing department of the local council. As yet, no solution has been found.