LAWRS is pleased to announce a new 5-year project that seeks to transform support for migrant victims and survivors of violence against women and girls (VAWG). The project is led by Southall Black Sisters and also comprising Safety4Sisters, Bawso, Shakti Women’s Aid and Foyle Women’s Aid, and funded by The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK. This new UK-wide partnership will be an opportunity to drive policy change at a large scale at both national and local level ensuring migrant survivors’ needs are better reflected in law, policy and frontline practices. This collaboration reflects a shared commitment to advancing structural change for Black, minoritised and migrant women, drawing on the combined specialist experience of all organisations in delivering support and change.
For LAWRS, this project marks a significant opportunity to expand work that we have been leading for several years. Through our coordination of the Step Up Migrant Women campaign and our work on safe reporting issues, we have consistently challenged the structural inequalities faced by migrant survivors and advocated for equal access to protection, safety and justice regardless of immigration status.
This work has never been more urgent. Across the UK, migrant victims and survivors face intersecting barriers that increase their risk of abuse, destitution, homelessness and exploitation. Recent immigration policy proposals and changes risk deepening these barriers and further deterring survivors from seeking support.
Current policies continue to prioritise immigration control over women’s safety, leaving migrant survivors excluded from life-saving support and access to justice. Despite growing evidence of these harms, there is still no comprehensive national framework addressing the needs of migrant women experiencing VAWG.
“This partnership presents a critical opportunity for by and for organisations to work together across the four nations to challenge both national and local policies, strengthen accountability and drive systemic change so that migrant women can access safety and support without fear linked to their immigration status.
Despite years of advocacy and evidence building, migrant women continue to face systemic barriers to protection shaped by immigration policies that prioritise control over protection. The government has yet to respond with a comprehensive policy framework that addresses these gaps and truly protects migrant women across services.
For LAWRS, this project is pivotal. This is an opportunity for us to expand years of work on safe reporting mechanisms, led by our Step Up Migrant Women campaign, and to take our knowledge and expertise beyond London at a time when coordinated actions across the UK and the VAWG sector is more urgent than ever.” – Gisela Valle, Director, Latin American Women’s Rights Service
At its core, this work is about transforming systems that have consistently failed migrant survivors. It is about building safety, trust and access to justice for women who are too often excluded from protection because of their immigration status.
This is a pivotal moment. As the government has pledged to halving VAWG within the next decade, it is essential that migrant women are not left out of that commitment. Through this partnership, migrant victims and survivors and specialist ‘by and for’ organisations will be at the heart of change.