No Recourse

I currently work in student support at a local university and for the past month my role has included checking the visas and passports of international students who are about to embark on a course with us. This task is fairly tedious and involves a lot of monotonous data entry but it has forced me to take stock of a certain UKBA policy and encouraged me to carry on campaigning against it.

Firstly I'd like to add that I'm not an expert on these things so please excuse my ignorance, but the policy I'm referring to is the 'No Recourse to Public Funds' policy and in particular how this infringes on the human rights of immigrants who are experiencing domestic violence.

The following example illustrates my understanding of how this policy infringes their rights:

Student A came to the UK to study on a Masters course and she was granted a temporary student visa. She moved in with her fiancée who was already studying at a UK university but she didn't have any other friends or relatives in the UK. Student A also didn't have a lot of money to live off because international students have to pay extortionate tuition fees and are limited in the amount of hours they're allowed to work. Whilst living and studying in this country her fiancé repeatedly subjected her to vicious beatings and threatened her with worse if she spoke out about it. She wanted to leave but she didn't have anywhere to go and couldn't afford to find other accommodation. Then one day after suffering a particularly brutal beating she mustered up the courage to go to a local police station to seek help in finding a refuge. Sadly they weren't able to help her because in order to be able seek a place in a women's refuge you have to be entitled to benefits such as housing benefit and income support and No Recourse to Public Funds means no benefits. Student A's only options were to return to her abusive fiancé or become destitute.

I think it is truly abhorrent to think that a supposedly progressive and safe country such as the UK deems it acceptable to deny support services to any victim of domestic violence. Sufferer's visa status should not even come into it – they're human and they have human rights.

Luckily there are powerful institutions out there who are putting pressure on our government to change this policy and make it include amendments that help sufferers of domestic violence seek recourse. Amnesty International for one have been fighting for this in their 'No Recourse No Safety Campaign' and this collaborative pressure led to the government agreeing to a pilot scheme which included the recourse amendment for sufferers of domestic violence. This pilot project has now been extended until March 2011 but as great as that is it still has flaws and exemptions that need to be worked out. So now is the time to step up the pressure on our government to make sure they get it right. For those of you who want to get involved I think Amnesty International is the best place to get information from or like me you could write to your MP and make sure they keep pressuring Teresa May and co.

We'll have to see what the outcome is come March 2011 but lets hope this pilot scheme leads to a permanent reality where all sufferers of domestic violence are able to seek recourse regardless of their visa status.