Impact of the Nationality and Borders Bill on Women and Girls

The legal opinion of Stephanie Harrison QC and barristers Ubah Dirie, Emma Fitzsimons and Hannah Lynes of Garden Court Chambers is that the Nationality and Borders Bill will “disproportionately adversely disadvantage women and girls”

In advice prepared for the charity Women for Refugee Women and published last year, the barristers state that several measures within the Bill are incompatible with Home Office policy, UK case law and international standards on refugee protection and human rights, and therefore open to legal challenge.

Their legal opinion concludes: “The Bill will have multiple adverse impacts and create additional obstacles to women and girls seeking international protection in the UK. These measures individually and cumulatively increase the risk of claims being wrongly rejected and the UK acting in breach of the Refugee and/or Human Rights Convention.”

Clause 11 enables the Home Office to offer different levels of protection to refugees based on how they traveled to the UK and when they claimed asylum. This Clause flies in the face of long-standing evidence about how difficult it is for women to disclose histories of violence and trauma, as recognised in existing Home Office policy. 

Stephanie Harrison QC states that this Clause is “highly legally controversial” and “raises stark issues in terms of the freedom from discrimination”

Clause 32 changes how ‘particular social group’ is interpreted within the Refugee Convention. As gender is not listed as a reason for persecution in the definition, many survivors of gender-based violence rely on the ‘particular social group’ ground in their asylum claims. The change will mean that more women are wrongly refused asylum and forced into further danger.

Stephanie Harrison QC states that this Clause is “an unexplained regressive step which will disproportionately impact women and girls seeking asylum on the basis of specific forms of gender persecution.”

Clause 31 introduces a heightened and confusing test for establishing whether a person seeking asylum has a  well-founded fear of persecution, and therefore requires protection in the UK. 

Stephanie Harrison QC states that, together with Clause 32, “[T]hese changes reverse longstanding principles and are a clear attempt to reinstate approaches which have been repeatedly and roundly rejected by the courts. This change will, in our view, significantly worsen asylum decision-making, and will have a disproportionate impact on asylum-seeking women and girls.”

Clause 26 will reintroduce a ‘fast-track’ asylum appeals process for people in detention, meaning that the complexities of appeals are not adequately considered. The previous process like this, ‘Detained Fast Track’, was ruled unlawful and abolished by the government. It will increase the number of women seeking asylum who are wrongly refused asylum and returned to countries where they face persecution.