Domestic Abuse and Women with No Recourse to Public Funds: Where Human Rights Do Not Reach

Abstract

If they are subject to immigration controls, women who experience domestic abuse in the United Kingdom face particular barriers in finding safety and support. This PhD thesis explores the impact of the No Recourse to Public Funds rule (NRPF), which means women subject to immigration control on a variety of visa statuses cannot access benefits, and therefore they cannot access safe accommodation or other support. This research critically evaluates this impact within a human rights framework to consider whether law and practice falls short of international obligations the UK government has undertaken. It argues that women who experience domestic violence face even greater risks and more human rights abuses if they have NRPF. It concludes that the state should change law and practice to uphold the right to life and the prohibition of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment. The research uses a mix of desk based investigation and data from interviews with professionals who have had contact with women with NRPF also experiencing domestic abuse. Between May 2013 and February 2014 I conducted 51 interviews of service providers (statutory and voluntary), in four focus cities: Belfast, Bradford, Glasgow and Luton. Additionally, I gained further insight into policy contexts by interviewing service providers and advocacy workers in London and Edinburgh. The data gathered in this research therefore reflects a snapshot of a variety of areas across the UK.The results showed that women experiencing domestic abuse who are subject to immigration controls are doing risk assessments, after which they choose to stay with abusers, as they have nowhere else to go. We do not have reliable estimates of women who are 'trapped.' Women who do leave may find safety and support through some legal duties and concessions. Voluntary agencies, in particular, make efforts to assist women with safe accommodation and outreach support. However, women face risks when they present to statutory and service providers as awareness of legal duties within those organisations is inconsistent. Attempts to seek help, even if the women are eligible for assistance, sometimes fail. Only women on one type of visa, spousal visas, are eligible for the Destitute Domestic Violence Concession, whereby they may access safety and support while they apply to regularise their immigration status. Women on other visas--dependents, students, overstayers, refused asylum seekers, and others--are not eligible. When these women flee domestic violence and are turned away, they face increasing vulnerability, discrimination, abuse and violence. Some disappear, into what service providers suggest may be grave danger. Through three Domestic Homicide Reviews and one Serious Case Review, this research identifies cases where NRPF appears to have been a contributory factor to fatalities. Analysed against human rights frameworks, the violence as it is experienced by women subject to immigration control spans the different forms of violence against women and girls, including so-called honour-based violence, forced marriage, domestic violence including sexual violence, systematic sexual exploitation in the commercial sex trades, trafficking, harassment, stalking and homicide. these women may experience violence in the family, in the community, when they have contact with agents of the state and when they cross national borders. These forms of violence are underpinned by the use of immigration status to reinforce coercive control. Far from protecting women from these abuses, state policies actively collude in abuse of women subject to these controls and may in some cases have contributed to their deaths. Domestic abuse when women are subject to immigration controls engages simultaneous social and political processes that are gendered, minorities and radicalised. The legal exclusions that result from immigration status both reflect and reproduce these dynamics. In conclusion, I briefly outline legal measures which some other states have taken in this area. the thesis concludes with recommendations for reform to law and practice within the UK to more effectively realise women's rights to life and not to be tortured or treated inhumanly or degradingly.