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Original poster

For those who need it, evidence that women in the UK do not have equality and suffer institutionalized discrimination.

37 replies

Thistledew · 18/01/2011 13:29

This new research report makes interesting reading: Unsustainable: the quality of initial decision-making in women's asylum claims. The full report can be downloaded from the website here

There are long held concerns about the treatment of women seeking asylum in the UK, and the research findings only deepened this concern. Looking at a sample of forty-five cases from three UKBA regions, Unsustainable found that:

? the UKBA did not accept the credibility of women's asylum claims in the vast majority of cases;

? women were refused asylum on grounds that were often arbitrary, subjective, and demonstrated limited awareness of the UK's legal obligations under the Refugee Convention;

? the UKBA case owners at times displayed a striking failure to understand the nature of the persecution from which women might flee. This poor understanding led to case owners doubting the credibility of applicant?s accounts for no good reason. For example:

? One woman ? whose passport had been confiscated by her husband, and from whom she had been subjected to threats, abuse and humiliation ? was informed by the UKBA that she was not considered a victim of domestic violence because her husband had only tried to hit her once

? One refusal letter made repeated reference to an arranged marriage when considering the case of a woman who had been forced into marriage at fourteen to a man who had subsequently abused her over many years

? At one asylum interview, the case owner stated that they had never before heard the term ?female circumcision?

? a disproportionately high number of the asylum refusals issued to women were subsequently overturned on appeal. 42% of the initial refusals in our sample were overturned by an independent immigration judge (the average across all cases is just 28%); this number rose to 50% when including rulings made after the reconsideration of an initial appeal 


? case law and Country of Origin Information was used selectively or unrepresentatively
Responding to the research, the UKBA has acknowledged for the first time that its own internal figures also show that a disproportionately high number of the refusals issued to women asylum seekers are overturned on appeal.

The executive summary is available here .

OP posts:
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Anniegetyourgun · 21/01/2011 13:49

If the qualification for a case owner is five GCSEs, that means it's done at administrative officer level, what they used to call clerical officers. Decisions on people's lives are being made at the second-lowest level in the civil service. £15k a year - that's what I was paid to do the filing in my last job.

Original poster
Thistledew · 20/01/2011 17:07

Because for the large part, the law does protect womens rights. If a woman is able to get her case brought before a Tribunal, and have a suitably knowledgeable lawyer to represent her, then she has something approaching a fair chance of having her rights protected. The issue is the home office officials failing to apply the law for discriminatory reasons or failing to believe a woman is telling the truth because of some biased attitude.

Overt discrimination is easy to tackle. For instance if the protction laws were different for men and women that would be easy to see and easy to tackle. It is the more subtle forms of discrimination such as attitudes of individuals and institutions that are so insidious and hard to point to and demonstrate they exist.

That is why I think this report is exciting from a feminist point of view. It actually puts a statistical marker on the discrimination against women that is usually so hard to evidence, apart from anecdotally.

OP posts:
HopeForTheBest · 20/01/2011 12:41

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ on request of its author.

Original poster
Thistledew · 19/01/2011 21:49

Just because there is a remedy for discrimination does not negate its existance in the first place.

OP posts:
HopeForTheBest · 19/01/2011 20:09

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ on request of its author.

Original poster
Thistledew · 19/01/2011 18:19

But bless you for sitting there flipping a coin just so you can back up the argument you want to have. That is really sweet of you Smile

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Original poster
Thistledew · 19/01/2011 17:19

Oh I give up! Will you read the report! Those figures are not just based on the 45 person sample.

It seems that misogyny is (from the sample in this thread) definitely founded in stupidity and/or wilful ignorance.

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JBellingham · 19/01/2011 16:33

But the findings on this report (as someone posted earlier) are based on 45 women. 45!! out of 24675 (their yearly number of 8225 x 3 years).

This equates to a 0.18% sample. That is a nonsense statistically. Also there is no information as to how they were selected.

I just flipped a coin 5 times, i got 4 tails and a head. It doesnt mean that tails is 4 times as likely as heads to appear, it means my sample is unrealistic.

For this to be meaningful they should say how the people were selected and should have interviewed a larger sample.

Original poster
Thistledew · 19/01/2011 11:40

It may be hard to understand, if you have no knowledge of the asylum process, so let me explain.

When someone seeks asylum in the UK, their claim is first considered by the UK Border Agency. If it is refused, that person has a right of appeal to an independent Tribunal, where hopefully, they will be represented by a lawyer who can put forward their case according to the law.

What this report shows, is that a significantly higher percentage of women have their appeals allowed, as compared to men, ie. more women were wrongly disbelieved by the Border Agency.

The report says, in the next paragraph to the one that you read:

"Using these figures it can be calculated that 28% of applicants were granted some form of leave at
initial decision and 72% were refused. This proportion is the same for male and female applicants.
Home Office statistics state that 4,150 asylum appeals were allowed by the Tribunal in 2009,
constituting 28% of all asylum appeals heard.24 These figures are not disaggregated by gender.
However, after being given advanced notice of the findings of this research, the UKBA stated that
a disproportionate number of refusals of applications from single females are overturned at appeal
and that it is analysing the reason for this.25 The UKBA have confirmed that internal management
information for all asylum appeals heard in the last 12 months suggests a similar pattern, with an
allowed appeal rate of 35% for women where the asylum decision was made within 6 months of
application and 41% where the asylum decision took longer than 6 months. The comparable rate
for men is 26%, irrespective of how long the decision took to make."

Now do you see?

OP posts:
JBellingham · 18/01/2011 19:25

According to the report you posted, exactly the same percentage (an unlikely statistic so I suggest massaging) of men as women were refused asylum.

Original poster
Thistledew · 18/01/2011 19:25

Keep trying! It will come to you eventually. Smile

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JBellingham · 18/01/2011 19:22

I am not doubting any of the things you claim, I am just looking for the evidence that you said was there.

Original poster
Thistledew · 18/01/2011 19:17

Because proportionately more women are wrongly refused asylum by UKBA than men. And the reasons given are everything to do with gender discrimination. It's not hard to see.

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JBellingham · 18/01/2011 19:12

I can see the table on page 12 where it states -
23% of women and 14% of men 'recognised as refugee and granted asylum'
72 % of women and 72% of men were refused.
How is this discrimination? or are you talking about the vast study of 45 women that has no equivalent benchmark that is mentioned in the first section?

Original poster
Thistledew · 18/01/2011 19:04

Maybe I am being unfair, as being familiar with this area the conclusions of the report are obvious to me.

The report shows that a significantly higher percentage of women are wrongly disbelieved when claiming asylum than men.

This is due to discrimination and prejudice on both an individual and institutional level. Individual, because the UKBA employees consistently find that the violence women suffer, including rape, female circumcision, is not so severe as to amount to persecution; or that it is acceptable for a woman to be returned to a situation were her only source of income would be from prostitution; or that it is culturally acceptable for her to experience some domestic violence. Or just generally that a women is lying. To give but a few examples.

It is instituionalised because UKBA fail to give their employees sufficient training to break down these prejudices and educate them as to the fact that the law does recognise the particular ways in which women suffer persecution and does (to an extent, it's still far from perfect) offer women protection.

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Original poster
Thistledew · 18/01/2011 18:09

Yes. You are being obtuse. Maybe read the full report?

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JBellingham · 18/01/2011 18:05

I must be being obtuse, I have looked through the link you posted and the exec summary, I see no evidence that women who apply for asylum are treated any differently than men who apply for asylum?

JBellingham · 18/01/2011 17:58

I do not find any conclusion yet, so therefore I neither accept or reject it. I am open minded.

Original poster
Thistledew · 18/01/2011 17:56

And I will ask again- why do you find the conclusion so hard to accept?

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Original poster
Thistledew · 18/01/2011 17:55

JB - the first link will bring you to a page with the full report and summary. I am on my phone now so difficult to do links.

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JBellingham · 18/01/2011 17:53

I am always sceptical of statistics, they can be used to prove anything. Do you have a link to the data (i seem to have missed it)? thanks

Original poster
Thistledew · 18/01/2011 17:52

JB - read the report. You are correct that the comparator I quoted there is not exact, but if you took the womens results out of the national average it would show a greater, not lesser disparaty between the sexes. I think that is obvious to anyone. Do you have a particular reason to be so sceptical of the conclusions?

OP posts:
Original poster
Thistledew · 18/01/2011 17:40

Chibli- the full report sets out their methodology and shows that their own findings are very close to national statistics.

OP posts:
JBellingham · 18/01/2011 17:40

Thisteldew - Comparing A against (A+B) is not the same as comparing A against B, this is not a fair statistic.

chibi · 18/01/2011 17:30

good lord i sound snarky, apologies to hopeforthebest, i wasn't having a go really

i am having to write lit reviews for a course i am doing, and so the validity of research is v much on my mind

if i could rewrite, i would have said

perhaps it is too small, i would want to see their rationale first before dismissing it out of hand

soz again Smile

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