Step Up Women Migrant Women is a campaign for the implementation of safe-reporting mechanisms and an end to data-sharing policies when victims with insecure immigration status report abuse.
Supporters of women seeking sanctuary will know that Insecure immigration status is often a tool of control used by perpetrators to abuse their partners and threat them with deportation. This situation put migrant women in a vulnerable position: they fear the abuser and also fear asking for help.
The Domestic Abuse Bill is due to be heard in the House of Commons on April the 15th.
Three important amendments to protect migrant women passed with cross-party support at the House of Lords. The campaign is now seeking your help to ensure these necessary amendments are retained at the House of Commons. They invite you to write to your MP urging them to vote in favour of these amendments. Here is a tool to find your MP, and here is the Template letter which you can adopt in an email to your MP.
You can follow campaign updates on Twitter: @lawrsuk and @Safety4Sisters
Step Up Women Migrant Women is led by The Latin American Women’s Rights Service, supported by Southall Black Sisters and around 50 other organisations.
Latin American Women’s Rights Service and Safety4Sisters North West organised “The Domestic Abuse Bill: How to Make Sure Migrant Women are Supported” to celebrate the solidarity and common need to continue building networks and campaigns advocating for all survivors’ rights to live a life free from violence and with access to protection.
You can watch a recording of the event here.
Safety for Sisters wrote a report ‘Locked in Abuse, Locked Out of Safety’ documenting the shocking experiences of migrant women abuse survivors and their children who have no recourse to public funds surviving under Covid-19.