Asylum Aid - “I feel like as a woman I’m not welcome”: A gender analysis of UK asylum law, policy and practice (2012)

This study by Asylum Aid examines whether UK asylum law, policy and practice include a specific gender perspective. Through interviews, focus groups and surveys with relevant stakeholders among the asylum sector, asylum seekers and refugees, the author analyses the conditions in refugee status determination, asylum procedure, reception and detention. The report concludes that, in spite of certain protocols, gender-specific issues are being overlooked at every stage of the asylum process:

• At reception stage, factors like the failure to provide gender-disaggregated statistics prior to 2011, the refusals to sign up to binding European legal standards, or to grant protection on grounds of women as a particular social group hinder asylum women’s asylum claims
• During the asylum procedure, not providing asylum seekers with information on how gender affects their claim, lack of privacy at the Asylum Screening Unit, and routing asylum seekers into the detained fast-track
• The analysis of detention conditions found the lack of gender-sensitive Detention Service Operating Standards and lack of standardised procedures because management is sub-contracted