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As highlighted in our recent blog series, ‘Promises vs. Policy’, migrant women and girls are missing from all three government strategies. There is no acknowledgement of their disproportionate vulnerability to poverty, homelessness or VAWG. Concrete measures to address their needs are almost completely absent. In particular, the strategies propose no reforms to a key structural barrier for migrant women: the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) condition. 

Whilst the government’s strategies skim over migrant women and girls, this is not due to a lack of available evidence. The link between immigration status and vulnerability to child poverty, homelessness and VAWG is well-established:

• Children born to migrant parents are twice as likely to experience poverty, and make up one-third of all children in poverty.¹
• A quarter of people owed a homelessness prevention or relief duty were born outside the UK.²
• Three-quarters of NRPF households spend more than a third of their income on housing.³ 
• 85% of applications to remove NRPF conditions are made by women, mostly single mothers.⁴
• Women with NRPF are three times more likely to experience domestic violence.⁵
• 28% of victims and survivors who are turned away from refuges have to sofa-surf after fleeing abuse; 9% are forced to sleep rough.⁶
• Most migrant victims and survivors are ineligible for protections like the Migrant Victims of Domestic Abuse Concession, blocking them from financial support to flee abuse. 

As the gulf between policy and reality grows, by-and-for organisations like LAWRS are left to plug these gaps with diminishing resources. Increasingly, we find ourselves pushing public services to uphold their statutory obligations. These services remain critically underfunded, causing direct harm to migrant victims and survivors. For example, Women’s Aid’s found that the majority of women supported by the 2025 No Woman Turned Away project had NRPF. Most experienced “inadequate and unsafe responses” from statutory services. Additionally, 61.5% of families with NRPF were refused support by children’s social care.⁷

Year on year, the resources available to specialist VAWG services is shrinking, whilst external factors like living costs increase the demand for support. This leaves by-and-for organisations in a deeply precarious position — we are forced to shoulder a progressively heavier burden, as the safety net which should protect victims and survivors disappears. This issue is made worse by the current commissioning model: specialist by-and-for organisations supporting Black, minoritised and migrant women are six times less likely to receive government funding⁸. As a result, many organisations operate at a significant shortfall. This situation is unsustainable.

If the government believes in lifting children out of poverty, making homelessness rare and halving VAWG within a decade, it must use its Budget to set out a safety net for the most vulnerable victims and survivors. Prioritising access to safety and justice means changing course on proposed immigration and asylum policies. We are continuing to raise urgent concerns about the Immigration and Asylum Bill, the ‘Family Returns’ proposals and the ‘Earned Settlement’ model. Each of these policies will deepen barriers to support, locking victims and survivors into long-term financial hardship whilst increasing their exposure to repeated violence, exploitation and abuse. 

Another year without sustainable investment in specialist by-and-for VAWG services means another year that victims and survivors struggle to access life-saving support. Strategies establish commitments, but budgets are where these promises are tested.  – iIt is time for the government to deliver for the sector, and for all victims and survivors of VAWG.

We call on the government to:

• Address the needs of migrant women and girls with funded support measures, as part of cross-government strategies to reduce child poverty, homelessness and VAWG.
• Publish an impact assessment which evaluates the effect of immigration and asylum proposals on cross-government strategy implementation.
• Establish ring-fenced, long-term funding for specialist by-and-for services who are currently plugging the gaps in statutory support.

References:

1. IPPR (March 2025). ‘Revealed: Nearly half of UK children with parents born abroad are in poverty’
2. Joseph Rowntree Foundation, ‘Families with no recourse to public funds are trapped in hardship.’
3. Ibid.
4. The Unity Project, Access Denied: The cost of the ‘no recourse to public funds’ policy
5. Ibid.
6. Women’s Aid. (2025). Nowhere To Turn, 2025.
7. Ibid.
8. Domestic Abuse Commissioner. (2022). A Patchwork of Provision.

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By Isabella Rooney, Research and Engagement Policy Officer, and Monserrat Escudero, Policy and Communications Manager on VAWG.

This is our third entry analysing three of the government’s key policy strategies to see if they hold water when it comes to migrant women and girls. If you missed our first entry on the Homelessness Strategy, you can read it HERE and our second entry on the Child Poverty Strategy, HERE.

VAWG Strategy 

During his Manchester mayorship Andy Burnham launched a 10-year campaign to tackle gender-based violence¹, where he aimed to tackle sexual harassment in public spaces. He recognised his “personal responsibility to lead a new conversation about the change we need to see” introduced a new campaign aimed at men and boys², committed to promote accountability of their behaviours. 

The Labour Government previously pledged to halve VAWG within a decade³. In spite of these commitments, our analysis demonstrates that these pledges will again be impossible without specific measures to address the specific barriers migrant women and girls face as survivors of VAWG. Here are a few key aims in the VAWG Strategy and the ways they will be impossible to achieve without incorporating the perspectives and needs of migrant women:

• Break cycles of abuse through prevention and early intervention

The Strategy enshrines prevention as one of the three pillars to achieve its goal, placing particular focus on targeting online abuse and child sexual abuse. It makes provisions to strengthen school response to VAWG and misogynistic attitudes, providing training on healthy relationships. It also establishes the need to support families in parenting, as well as an increased investment in social services for early intervention. Finally, echoing Burnham’s claim to involve men and boys in VAWG efforts, it establishes a national summit to address root causes of VAWG. When outlining methods to achieve these goals, the Strategy completely omits the experiences faced by migrant women and girls, who face dehumanising and harmful misogynistic content online⁴, ignoring how structural factors such as NRPF and poverty perpetuate cycles of abuse. Targeted early intervention will not break cycles of abuse if migrant victims are not believed or supported by statutory services. Statutory failures prolong the time that children spend experiencing domestic violence first-hand.

• Increase accountability for perpetrators of VAWG

The VAWG Strategy commits to ending perpetrator impunity through its second pillar, pledging to address barriers to reporting and lack of trust within Family Courts and Criminal Justice System. It acknowledges survivors are re-victimised and there is need for reform and improved awareness of dynamics of domestic abuse, including coercive control, within the justice system. In spite of this, violence perpetrated against migrant women is conspicuously omitted when approaching accountability mechanisms. Fear of deportation is the most common barrier to reporting for migrant victims of VAWG⁵, and data-sharing practices prevent effective investigation of VAWG, allowing perpetrators to repeatedly abuse with impunity and continue committing crimes⁶. The Government cannot deliver real accountability if crimes against migrant women and girls go unreported, uninvestigated and without redress. 

• Provide wrap-around, targeted support for victims and survivors

The Strategy recognises immigration status as a barrier for migrant victims, and pledges to introduce a consent-based data-sharing policy between the police and Immigration Enforcement to improve engagement and access to justice. This policy is a recognition of the importance of safe reporting mechanisms for victims of VAWG⁷. However, the structural power imbalance with the police, the mistrust in the Government’s data collecting practices, and the hostile immigration environment are pressing issues that a consent-based form does not address. A full firewall between statutory services and Immigration Enforcement is needed, and structural barriers to accessing services must be removed, to ensure migrant women have equal access to support, protection and justice.

Tailored, holistic support that meets victims’ diverse needs is essential, including specialist by and for services. The intersection between VAWG and other forms of discrimination shapes experiences of abuse and makes it harder to access services or justice. By and for organisations have to press statutory services to support vulnerable victims, with the 2025 Nowhere To Turn Project finding that 67.4% of women supported had ‘inadequate and unsafe responses’ from statutory services and 61.5% of families with NRPF failed to be supported by children’s services⁸. In spite of the Strategy’s claim that  ‘no one should be forced to remain in an unsafe situation because they fear becoming homeless’, the housing system consistently bars migrant women from escaping abuse. Another pillar is access to healthcare, with the NHS being crucial in early identification and support, as healthcare is often the first point of disclosure. 

Migrant victims face systemic challenges barring them from safe accommodation and healthcare, including fear of reporting, lack of information about rights, and the consequences of abuse/exploitation, requiring extensive specialist advocacy to access. Many women are forced to remain with, or return to, the perpetrator to avoid homelessness, who prevents them from accessing healthcare. The specific barriers to wrap-around support for migrant victims and survivors are not addressed in the VAWG strategy. 

Conclusion

Across all three of these key  strategies analysed in our 3-part series, the omission of migrant women and children is glaring and harmful. We see a joint-up, across-the-board effort to marginalise migrants by enforcing a harmful narrative, maintaining a hostile immigration environment, and introducing laws and policies that either rollback on previous rights and protections or introduce new restrictions. All of this amounts to discrimination on individuals and groups on the grounds of their immigration status. 

This concerted effort to marginalise migrant women cannot continue to take hold of the public agenda if the government is serious about meeting its policy objectives. We call on the Prime Minister to keep his promise, change course, and build a country that works fairly for everyone, everywhere.

References:

1.  Greater Manchester Combined Authority (September 2021). Gender-Based Violence Strategy.
2. Greater Manchester Combined Authority (December 2021). ‘Mayor Andy Burnham launches new campaign to tackle gender-based violence.’
3. Great Britain. Home Office. (2026). Freedom from violence and abuse: a cross-government strategy to build a safer society for women and girls. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/freedom-from-violence-and-abuse-a-cross-government-strategy/freedom-from-violence-and-abuse-a-cross-government-strategy-to-build-a-safer-society-for-women-and-girls-accessible
4. Young Women’s Advisory Board. (February 2026). Voices of Young Latinas: Peer research on online abuse and the impact of fetishisation
5.  Mcilwaine, C., Granada, L. and Valenzuela-Oblitas, I. (May 2019) The Right to be Believed: Migrant women facing Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) in the ‘hostile immigration environment’ in London 
6.  Gracie Mae Bradley (December 2018). Care Don’t Share: Hostile environment data-sharing: Why we need a firewall between essential public services and immigration enforcement. Liberty. 
7.  LAWRS (18th December 2025). ‘Government’s new VAWG strategy: Safe Reporting Mechanisms for Victims and Survivors of VAWG’
8.  Women’s Aid. (2025). Executive Summary: Nowhere To Turn, 2025. 

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By Isabella Rooney, Research and Engagement Policy Officer, and Monserrat Escudero, Policy and Communications Manager on VAWG.

This is our second entry analysing three of the government’s key policy strategies to see if they hold water when it comes to migrant women and girls. If you missed our first entry on the Homelessness Strategy, you can read it HERE.

Child Poverty Strategy 

The Child Poverty Strategy highlights the scale and harms of child poverty in the UK, but completely overlooks the disproportionate vulnerability of migrant children to severe destitution¹.  Children born to migrant parents are twice as likely to experience poverty, and make up one-third of all children in deep poverty in the UK². In contrast to other groups, the strategy does not address the structural factors driving this vulnerability. This omission undermines the strategy’s ambition and objectives. Alongside this, the Home Office’s proposed policies will significantly increase long-term child poverty, making it impossible for the government to achieve its aims:

• Guidance on No Recourse to Public Funds:
  

  The Strategy contains no measurable, concrete goals to reduce migrant child poverty. The only commitments made are to issue guidance to local authorities on supporting destitute children with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF), and to “consider” this group when making future decisions. Addressing the root causes of migrant child poverty would involve looking at the immigration system itself, which causes “destitution by design”, according to Parliamentary research³. Whilst the NRPF guidance for local authorities has since been published and importantly emphasises the need to safeguard children regardless of their immigration status, this stands to be completely overturned by the Home Office’s ‘Family Returns’ proposals, which would see local authorities prohibited from acting on safeguarding concerns and barred from supporting destitute undocumented children. Even the very limited measures included for migrant children in the Strategy would be dismantled by the Home Office’s proposals.

• Improving access to employment and childcare:
  

  Growing child poverty rates are driven by the increase in low-paid, insecure work and the inaccessibility of childcare. However, the strategy completely overlooks the systemic barriers to increasing income and accessing childcare for migrant families. Most people already on 10-year settlement routes work in low-paid, essential sectors such as care work and cleaning, in which Black and minoritised migrant women are over-represented⁴. The visa sponsorship system restricts people from changing employers, forcing many workers to endure long-term exploitation or unfair working conditions⁵. Moreover, the NRPF condition prevents parents from accessing state-funded childcare. Many of the women we support have to take on low-paid, insecure and part-time work whilst they wait to be eligible for settlement. As outlined above, the proposed settlement changes will trap migrant mothers in a vicious cycle of prolonged poverty without opportunities to increase their earnings. This will directly counteract the strategy’s aim to reduce child poverty through improved access to secure employment and childcare.

• Preventing homelessness and chronic temporary accommodation use:
  

  The Child Poverty Strategy calls for a preventative approach to homelessness. It highlights that the number of children living in temporary accommodation (TA) has doubled since 2010, significantly harming children who are trapped in long-term TA use. However, it fails to acknowledge the heightened risk of homelessness for migrant families. A quarter (26%) of people owed a homelessness duty were born outside the UK or EU, and three-quarters of households with NRPF spend more than a third of their income on housing, placing them at significant risk of homelessness⁶. Penalising use of public funds will harm families who need a safety net against destitution. We anticipate that many people will be discouraged from accessing public funds altogether, forcing them into homelessness to avoid longer settlement routes. Extending settlement timeframes will also increase the total visa fees that families must pay, compounding their vulnerability to destitution. By failing to address immigration policies as a root cause of homelessness, and setting out harmful proposals that increase economic precarity, the government will directly undermine the strategy’s preventative measures.

• Empowering young people:
  

  Both the Child Poverty Strategy and Youth Strategy highlight the importance of empowering young people in order to prevent long-term economic and social marginalisation. In contrast to this aim, the Earned Settlement model will be detrimental to the wellbeing of hundreds of thousands of young people, including those born in the UK or who have spent most of their lives here. Young people may miss out on university or face restricted access to essential services, undermining their integration and sense of belonging in the UK. For these young people, it will be much more difficult to escape poverty.

• Cross-government responsibility to reduce child poverty:
  

  The Strategy affirms that all government departments, including the Home Office, have an obligation to promote children’s wellbeing by reducing and preventing severe destitution. There is a glaring conflict between the Home Office’s responsibilities and its policy proposals. Already, the Home Office’s immigration policies are the direct cause of long-term child poverty⁷, and research suggests that the Earned Settlement model will leave roughly 130,000 children in poverty by 2029⁸. The Family Returns proposals will also deliberately remove safeguards against destitution and homelessness for thousands of families without immigration status. Despite recommendations from the Home Affairs Select Committee⁹, the Home Office has failed to publish a child poverty impact assessment for its immigration and asylum policy changes. The Home Office is neglecting its own obligations to destitute migrant children and will directly undermine the aims of the Child Poverty Strategy.

References:

1. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/child-poverty-strategy
2. Praxis (November 2025). ‘Why this Government must address the unique challenges facing migrant children.
3. APPGs on Poverty & Migration (April 2024). Report Summary: The Effects of UK Immigration, Asylum and Refugee Policy on Poverty. 
4. Praxis. (September 2023). A Joint Briefing on Capping routes to permanent settlement at 5 years. 
5. https://www.workrightscentre.org/publications/2025/parliamentary-report-acknowledges-scale-of-exploitation-on-the-skilled-worker-visa/
6. Johnson-Hunter, M. (8th August 2025). “Families with no recourse to public funds are trapped in hardship.” Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
7. Pinter, I., (August 2025). ‘The Government’s immigration policies are increasing child poverty.’
8. Praxis (March 2026). ‘Home Office settlement proposals threaten to keep 90,000 children in poverty.’ 
9. https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/52138/documents/290281/default/

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By Isabella Rooney, Research and Engagement Policy Officer, and Monserrat Escudero, Policy and Communications Manager on VAWG.

A change in leadership, a new opportunity

A change in national leadership gives the government an opportunity to back its ambitious pledges with real action. Tackling homelessness, child poverty, violence against women and girls (VAWG) and modern slavery requires a shift from scapegoating rhetoric and counterproductive policies, to evidence-based safeguards for the most vulnerable.

In his first speech as Prime Minister, Andy Burnham promised “to end rough sleeping in our country.” ¹ We welcome this commitment: many of the women we support are forced to sleep rough by systemic barriers, rising living costs and experiences of abuse and exploitation. However, the Prime Minister has also backed the Home Secretary’s immigration and asylum policies, which will undoubtedly drive up rough sleeping and homelessness. 

Using our frontline experience, in this 3-piece series LAWRS has analysed three of the government’s key policy strategies – on homelessness, child poverty and VAWG – to see if they hold water when it comes to migrant women and girls. These strategies aim to make homelessness rare, lift half a million children out of poverty, and halve VAWG within a decade. 

Our analysis reveals a glaring hole: migrant women and girls are systematically excluded through lack of provisions and a failure to address their needs. More importantly, the strategies’ ambitious objectives will also be directly undermined by the government’s immigration and asylum policies. 

Following the Makerfield election, Andy Burnham promised “a country that works fairly for everywhere and for everybody”.² During the Labour Party Conference, he committed to drawing “a line on a decade of division.”³ We are holding the Prime Minister accountable to these promises. His government has an opportunity to create lasting change for our communities. But our analysis shows that none of these commitments will be realised if migrant women and girls are left behind. 

Homelessness Strategy 

The Prime Minister’s pledge on rough sleeping mirrors the aims set out by the Homelessness Strategy. However, our analysis demonstrates that these aims will be impossible without specific measures to support at-risk migrants. Here are a few key objectives outlined in the Homelessness Strategy and the ways they fall short:

• Reduce barriers to accessing support:
  The Homelessness Strategy states that discrimination and communication barriers block support for those at risk of homelessness. However, it completely ignores the largest barrier for migrant women – the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) condition. Before becoming Labour Party leader, Andy Burnham advocated for NRPF to be abolished because of its impact on homelessness; as Prime Minister, he has back-tracked on this. His support for the ‘Earned Settlement’ policies also risks increasing barriers to support for those at risk of homelessness, and will see people subjected to NRPF for longer, with access to public funds penalised.

• Improve statutory and local authority responses:
  The government’s proposals undermine the Strategy’s efforts to establish preventative, joined-up statutory responses and avoid a costly ‘cycle of crisis response’. People with NRPF are routinely refused assistance when they present at statutory services. We often support women who are forced to sleep rough by these refusals, escalating risk and increasing the cost of providing crisis support. By extending NRPF, implementing barriers to regularising immigration or refugee status and prohibiting local authorities from providing Section 17 support to undocumented destitute children, statutory services will not be able to adequately respond to the risk of homelessness, inevitably increasing the cost of later intervention. 

• Support low-income families to increase earnings:
  The strategy acknowledges that it’s harder to meet rising housing costs without stable employment or childcare, but offers no measures to help migrant families in this position. Migrants are disproportionately in low-income work, forced to pay repeated visa costs and excluded from benefits-funded childcare. Extending settlement routes and adding an income requirement to Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) eligibility will trap migrant women in a vicious cycle – they cannot access childcare, so cannot increase their earnings, and therefore never qualify for settlement, locking them in long-term housing insecurity.

• End homelessness for people leaving public institutions:
  The Strategy acknowledges the high vulnerability to homelessness for people exiting the asylum system, who make up the ‘second biggest group’ of people rough sleeping after leaving public institutions. But in contrast to all other institutions explored (e.g. prison, care homes, hospitals), there are no measures to reduce this number. This is a glaring omission. Policies that could reduce homelessness for people leaving the asylum system, such as extending the ‘move-on’ period, ending camp/barrack use and improving access to legal advice are ignored. At the same time, reforms including temporary refugee status, a 20-year settlement route and a ‘refugee tax’ will significantly increase the risk of homelessness for newly recognised refugees.

• Tackle re-exploitation of modern slavery victims by preventing homelessness:
  Many people owed a homelessness duty are victims of exploitation. The strategy highlights their high risk of re-exploitation, but commits only to improving identification of potential victims through updated guidance. Increasing identification of victims will not prevent homelessness or re-exploitation if the systemic issues with the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) are not addressed. Potential and recognised victims must have access to housing, appropriate financial assistance, quality legal advice and a path to regularise immigration status. Without this, victims will remain vulnerable to homelessness. The government’s current plans to penalise late disclosure of modern slavery will also increase refusals of support, undermining the aim of preventing re-exploitation.

References:

1. Andy Burnham’s first speech as Prime Minister: 20 July 2026 – https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/andy-burnhams-first-speech-as-prime-minister-20-july-2026
2. “Final chance to change”: the Makerfield count speech: 16 July 2026 – https://theburnhamprogramme.co.uk/makerfield-count-speech
3. Andy Burnham’s speech to Labour Party Conference: 29 September 2026 – https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/andy-burnhams-speech-to-labour-party-conference-2026/

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As organisations supporting victim-survivors of multiple forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG), as well as organisations supporting people seeking asylum, we are aware of the importance of the government providing comprehensive information about rights, entitlements and services to ensure victim-survivors can access support and justice. As stated by several led by and for  Black, minoritised and migrant organisations, it is a reality that many women with insecure immigration status (including women seeking asylum) lack adequate information about support services in the UK, which can impede them from seeking help when experiencing abuse and exploitation.

However, we are alarmed that the framing of this resource distorts the realities of abuse and utilises punitive, racialised language that contributes to a dangerous agenda that weaponises VAWG whilst fuelling hostility against some communities, to the detriment of victim-survivors. The decision to single out people seeking asylum to be instructed on these subjects reinforces the harmful narrative that migrant communities pose a particular threat to women and girls that requires correction and surveillance. It furthermore marginalises victim-survivors, de-centring them from responses and omitting life-saving specialist resources.

As well-evidenced, VAWG is a pervasive, systemic issue that affects almost one in three women living in the UK, with the majority of abuse committed by men known to their victims. This form of gender-based violence is not unique to specific communities but a pervasive global issue rooted in gender inequality. Holding particular groups as primarily responsible for violence and abuse misrepresents the reality of VAWG and marginalises Black and minoritised migrant women, who are absent from the conversation and left unsupported.

A year ago, as part of our #NotInOurName campaign, we called out politicians and the government for hijacking the fight to end VAWG to justify misinformation that generated unfounded claims about Black and minoritised communities being more likely to perpetrate violence against women and girls. It is concerning that the development and distribution of this guide by the government continues to dangerously weaponise VAWG, despite well-evidenced consequences of anti-migrant rhetoric, including targeted violence at accommodation for asylum seekers and hate crimes against racialised communities. Notably, many of those responsible for committing these attacks have themselves been identified as perpetrators of domestic abuse. This underscores the extent to which VAWG is cross-cutting across society, rather than being attributable to particular groups, and how these anti-migrant narratives decentre victim-survivors from the conversation and fail to address the root causes of VAWG.

We know that this guide will have a detrimental effect on some of the most vulnerable victim-survivors, including people seeking asylum who have experienced VAWG, trafficking and exploitation themselves, impeding them from accessing urgent support whilst reproducing a troubling message that overlooks the root causes of abuse and harm.

We call on the Home Office and the government to urgently review this guide and produce a new resource in consultation with specialist services that genuinely focuses on providing victim-survivors with the means to be free from violence and abuse and to receive the support they need. If the commitment to halving VAWG in the current decade is honest, we urgently need to see a change in rhetoric and practice.

Latin American Women’s Rights Service | End Violence Against Women Coalition | Hibiscus | Women for Refugee Women | Southall Black Sisters | Imkaan | Asylum Matters

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What’s it about?

The Migrant Women’s Voices Group is a new participation programme being launched by LAWRS in 2026 as part of our commitment to ensuring migrant women are at the heart of our policy, campaigning and advocacy work. The group will create a safe and supportive space for migrant women with lived experience of the migration system to share their expertise, shape our policy work, and influence change.

The group will work closely with LAWRS’ Step Up Migrant Women Campaign, particularly its work to promote safe reporting mechanisms for migrant women survivors of violence against women and girls (VAWG) and modern slavery, so that women can report abuse and access support without fear of immigration enforcement. 

The group is based on the principle that migrant women are experts in their own lives and the issues that affect them. It aims to move beyond consultation and create meaningful opportunities for co-production, where women with lived experience help design, deliver and evaluate our campaigning and policy work.

Who’s it for?

Participants should be women who:

• Are aged 18 or over.
• Are migrant (this includes women with any experience of the UK immigration or asylum system).
• Can commit to attending 3-4 in-person meetings per year in London.
• Are available to take part in optional projects between meetings (*meetings and project work is paid).
• Have an interest in contributing to policy and campaigning work affecting migrant women, including the creation of safe reporting mechanisms for migrant victims of crime.

We highly encourage survivors of domestic abuse, violence against women and girls, trafficking and exploitation to apply (must no longer be in a high-risk situation).

What matters is your voice, your perspective, and your willingness to create change.

The group will include 10–15 members, ensuring a balance between diversity of perspectives and meaningful participation. The aim is to build a group that reflects the diversity of migrant women’s experiences and backgrounds, including differences in: immigration status, age, country of origin, language, family circumstances, experiences of accessing services, among others.

We know there is no single migrant experience, and we want the group to reflect that diversity.

How will it work?

Activities are expected to include:

• In-person group meetings (3-4 per year)
• Online group catch-up meetings (3-4 per year) 
• Optional advocacy activities (2-12 hours per year)
  • Policy events/discussions
  • Policy consultations (sessions/surveys)
  • Reviewing campaign/policy documents
  • Campaign activities
  • Storytelling activities.
  • Public speaking opportunities

These activities are entirely optional and will always be delivered with appropriate safeguarding and wellbeing support.

All activities will be compensated, transport cost will be reimbursed, and interpreters and crèche will be provided depending on participants’ needs.

How long does the programme last? 

We ask participants to commit to the programme for at least one programme cycle (the first cycle will run from September 2026 to March 2027), as building relationships, confidence and collective influence takes time.

At the same time, the programme is designed to support longer-term engagement, and participants are warmly encouraged to remain involved in future cycles and in the years ahead, if they wish to do so.

Benefits

• Develop new skills and confidence.
• Advocacy and campaigning training.
• Create new networks and community.
• Gain experience for future education and employment.
• Create positive change for migrant women in the UK.

All participation will be compensated:

• London Living Wage stipend (As of July 2026, the London Living Wage rate is calculated £14.80 per hour).
• Travel reimbursement
• Interpreters, if needed
• Crèche available (For in-person meetings)

This is YOUR chance to work towards a more equal world where all women have the right to a life free from violence and exploitation, regardless of their immigration status.

Apply Now!

Apply online using our Application Form: APPLY HERE

Applications open until Sunday the 13th of September.

Contact and more information

Melissa, the project coordinator, would be happy to talk to you if you have any questions or need support with your application. You can contact her at: melissa@lawrs.org.uk

If you need more information, you can check out our Information Sheet which provides all the details for the programme.

We would be grateful if you could also share this information with your network as we want to ensure many migrant women know about this opportunity.

Thank you for taking an interest, we can’t wait to hear from you! 

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We welcome the Committee’s clear rejection of proposals to extend the standard qualifying period for settlement to 10, 15 or 20 years, and its recommendation that the Government retain the existing five-year route. The Committee rightly recognises that prolonged insecurity does not promote integration or deter migration; instead, it entrenches precarity. We also welcome its conclusion that applying any new rules retrospectively would be “manifestly unfair and may be unlawful”.

Despite the rejection of the extension of the qualifying period for settlement and the retrospective application proposal, we are concerned about two recommendations that would have serious consequences for migrant victim-survivors.

First, while retaining the five-year route to settlement, the Committee recommends maintaining the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) condition until migrant people have lived in the UK for ten years or obtained citizenship. For at least 32,000 victim-survivors of domestic abuse, NRPF is one of the most powerful tools of coercive control, trapping women in abusive relationships by denying them access to safety and support. Extending NRPF beyond settlement would hollow out the security and stability that settlement is meant to provide.

Second, the report’s calls for greater cross-government data sharing run directly counter to the firewall victim-survivors need between immigration enforcement and the police, health services and other statutory services they must be able to trust in times of crisis. Without that protection, many women will continue to fear reporting abuse, leaving perpetrators free to act with impunity.

More broadly, we are concerned that the disproportionate impact of these reforms on Black minoristised and migrant women and victim-survivors of VAWG is not sufficiently reflected in the report. Nor does the report adopt our central recommendation: a clear statutory exemption from immigration restrictions for victim-survivors, recognising that no woman should be forced to choose between abuse and destitution.

As the Government prepares its response, we urge it to remove NRPF as a barrier to safety, establish a full, unconditional firewall between public services and immigration enforcement, and introduce a statutory exemption protecting all victim-survivors of VAWG. 

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In the UK, this anniversary has been met with a significant rollback of the rights and protections for asylum seekers and refugees. After this year’s announcement of the changes to the asylum system, where refugee protection is to be reviewed every 30 months and with proposals where children from families who are denied asylum claims face losing support and being handcuffed and physically forced out of the UK, honouring the right to seek safety becomes essential. 

Migrants and asylum seekers are increasingly being scapegoated for the failed policies of successive governments and the effects of global crises, whilst the compounding impact of decades of austerity measures, of underfunded support services for victims and survivors of violence against women and girls and exploitation, and a cost of living crisis are ignored. In this hostile environment, the realities faced by the individuals seeking asylum become invisible, and the failings of a broken immigration and asylum system are not addressed, which is particularly insidious for migrant women.

The reality is asylum seeking and refugee women face compounded risks: displacement does not pause gender-based violence or exploitation, and often intensifies it. As survivors of violence, of trafficking and persecution, concerns over their safety, support and healing should be at the forefront of conversation when discussing proposals to improve the asylum and immigration system. However, the fragmented support and often revictimising experiences women face when fleeing violence is not being centred. Rather, what support exists right now is being brought into question and gradually dismantled. 

Those who have experienced both displacement and abuse need support that understands both. They need a system that will provide safety and protection, not one that will subject them to  the risk of removal after years of building a life in the UK. The principles enshrined in the 1951 Convention were put in place to appropriately protect and support extremely vulnerable people whose lives and integrity are at risk, and today it is more important than ever to uphold them. 

The asylum and immigration systems can be changed and improved for the better. As we have said before, everyone deserves to live in dignity. A fair immigration and asylum system that offers equal and real protections is the only way to guarantee Human Rights.

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