Whilst the majority of us consider the home a safe and comfortable place, for one in five people aged 16 and over, it represents a place of fear and violence if they are victim-survivors of domestic abuse. However, what is often lost amongst the already devastating facts and figures about domestic abuse is the reality for those victim-survivors who are also immigrants subject to the harsh realities of the UK’s strict immigration laws.
At the end of April 2021, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 came into force, representing a sea change in law around domestic abuse in England & Wales. Before this, governance and legislation on protecting against domestic abuse was fragmented, with domestic abuse undefined in the law. The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 sought to address many of these problems. It would have been legitimate cause for optimism about the future of victim-survivors’ rights in England & Wales, if it was not for one significant oversight.
When the Domestic Abuse Bill was being debated by the Government, the problem of migrant victim-survivors’ rights regularly surfaced as a problem demanding urgent attention. It was a key campaign focus of many migrant women’s charities, known as “by-and-for” organisations, and the subject of many tabled amendments, particularly by the House of Lords.
But why exactly does being an immigrant make the situation of a victim-survivor of domestic abuse any different? It all comes down to the way the law impacts on those who are both at the mercy of an abuser and the strict immigration laws in the UK. The latter is known as the hostile environment policy, which has existed since 2012. For years, victim-survivors of domestic abuse who found themselves also subject to UK immigration law were in a unique position of fear – already fearful of consequences from abusers and the authorities when reporting their experiences of domestic abuse, but also fearful of whether they would risk deportation because of also being precarious migrants.
It was all the more problematic that despite the perfect opportunity to address a grave gap in the law, the Government chose to exclude protection for migrant victim-survivors. The Government also decided to opt out of certain Articles of the Istanbul Convention, the main international human rights treaty tackling violence against women and girls globally. These would have guaranteed residency rights for immigrants who were victim-survivors of domestic abuse. It pointed to a lack of serious concern from the Government for the plight of migrant victim-survivors. This was on top of already denying migrants rights to welfare under a scheme known as No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF), which restricts benefits for anyone with non-permanent residence status in the UK.
It is important to recognise that there are some existing concessions for migrant victim-survivors in the law. One allows for a 3-month temporary right to remain and access to benefits, known as the Migrant Victims of Domestic Abuse Concession (MVDAC); the other more substantial right is to independent permanent residency under Appendix Victim Domestic Abuse (VDA). Generally, victim-survivors are on dependent spousal visas and rely on their abuser for rights. This right emancipates them from abusers. However, scratching beneath the surface of these concessions, they emerge as insufficient because of being ignorant of the real needs and experiences of those migrant victim-survivors forgotten by the mainstream legal provisions.
Three elements in particular can be said to be most indicative of this. Firstly, to be eligible for settlement, you must show evidence of your relationship breaking down. This is more onerous than it seems because what is accepted is generally forms of official proof from authorities. These are the same authorities that victim-survivors fear because of consequences of the hostile environment for migrants in the UK. Secondly, if you are not married to your abuser or are the partner of a student, worker or a graduate, you are excluded from being able to seek settlement independently. Thirdly and relatedly, if you claim the concessionary MVDAC, the law dictates that after 3 months, you must have found another right to remain, or otherwise be forced to leave the country. If you are the partner of a student, worker or graduate, you would not have been eligible for settlement. Therefore, if you claim rights under the MVDAC, after 3 months, you are left on a cliff-edge, scrambling to obtain a more permanent right to remain, but ineligible for the most secure status.
The Government’s official reason for excluding migrant victim-survivors’ rights from the only piece of legislation specifically combating domestic abuse in England and Wales is that they wanted to gather more evidence via a specifically established Support for Migrant Victims Pilot, running since July 2020. This would allow them to determine whether there needed to be more specific support for migrants. The context is that the MVDAC was introduced in early 2024, after the Pilot’s first Evaluation Report was published in August 2023. It was supposed to be a response to the Pilot. However, as explained above, the MVDAC is flawed and insufficient. This also describes the overall response from the Government to migrant victim-survivors rights.
It is a harsh reality for the one in five people who are victim-survivors of domestic abuse if they are also unlucky enough to be immigrants in the UK’s hostile environment. Being at crossroads of protection against domestic abuse and immigration law enforcement presents a less talked about dire situation. They are caught in the trap of not wanting to report their abuse to begin with, made worse by their fear of being deported.
For all these reasons set out above, it is necessary to continue shining a spotlight on this problem for migrant victim-survivors of domestic abuse. The Government must recognise how it is exacerbating and prolonging the problem, created out of its own strict immigration laws. This will go some way towards eventually ending such discrimination against migrants, already vulnerable because of their risk and experience of domestic abuse.
The post was first published on Transforming Society.
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