by Gemma Lousley and Sarah Cope
About this report
Women for Refugee Women has demonstrated the harm that immigration detention does to women who are seeking asylum. In our previous reports, are Detainedand I Am Human, we were able to show that the majority of asylum-seeking women who are detained are survivors of sexual or gender-based violence, and that locking them up in detention re-traumatises them. We also showed that their detention serves no purpose, as the vast majority of asylum-seeking women are subsequently released back into the community to continue with their claims.
We have been running the Set Her Free campaign against the detention of women seeking asylum since 2014 and have raised these issues with the Home O ce and ministers on many occasions. In 2015, in response to the concerns of organisations campaigning against the current system of detention, including Women for Refugee Women, the government commissioned a review into the welfare of vulnerable people in immigration detention. The Shaw review, published in January 2016, recommended the government should reduce its use of immigration detention and implement reform “boldly and without delay”. It said that pregnant women should never be locked up in detention, and that survivors of sexual and gender-based violence should not be detained.
Full report here