On 30 January women seeking asylum from Eritrea, Ethiopia, the Congo, Kenya and Zimbabwe, and supporters created a “Shanty Town” outside the United Nations High Commission for Refugee’s (UNHCR) headquarters in London. Protesters demanded the UNHCR intervenes in the humanitarian crisis facing asylum seekers in the UK, as they are mandated to do in every other country where refugees have fled for protection.

Situated just down the road from the Houses of Parliament, on the banks of the river Thames, the Shanty Town was almost blown away by fierce biting winds but under the theme Asylum Seekers Paying the Price for Blair’s wars, over 200 people chanted, danced and played out street theatre illustrating the brutality of Fortress Europe. The event was part of actions across 11 European countries, in over 50 towns and cities. Collective demands included: an end to destitution, detention and deportations, regularisation for all without documents, the right to work, schooling and health care, and freedom of movement. “Shanty Town” occupants highlighted the similarities between Nazi laws and the “apartheid” of asylum policies across Europe which force asylum seekers to go without homes, food or money -- endangering everyone’s lives.

The Eritrean Women’s Group opened the speak out by describing how many women, including rape survivors, pregnant, older, women with young children and those who are ill and disabled as a result of the torture they endured, are made homeless by Section 55* or because their cases have been closed. Others spoke of the injustice and horror of being threatened with imminent deportation or being put in detention for no reason. Legal Action for Women reported how women and girls in Africa had spoken out about rape by aid workers in UNHCR refugee camps. Black Women’s Rape Action Project described how hundreds of women are turned away by asylum charities like the Refugee Council who are increasingly embedded with the government and have accepted lucrative contracts to run the privatised NASS regime they should have been opposing. Women of Colour, GWS spoke about the sexism which prevents the particular situation of women asylum seekers and immigrants, as those who have the care of children and others, from being acknowledged. Women are spearheading the movement for human, civil and economic rights but our contribution is often not recognised.

Other participants included the Crossroads Coalition for Justice for Asylum Seekers, the African Liberation Support Campaign Network, Rev. Paul Nicholson of Zacchaeus 2000, Greater London Pensioners Association, Iraqi Women’s League, Women Against Rape; WinVisible, Wages Due Lesbians, Close Down Campsfield Campaign, Campaign to Stop Arbitrary Detentions at Yarl's Wood , National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns, Payday. Food for All provided a very welcome hot lunch!

Playwright Kay Adshead gave a reading from “the Bogus Woman” and The Shanty Town featured the street theatre premiere of “Welcome to Fortress Europe” in which refugees seeking asylum are turned away at a border check-point, whilst George Bush and the arms industry were ushered in and out with craven obedience. Both plays highlighted the inhumanity of the asylum policies, and the racism and sexism of Home Office immigration decisions.

The Bondeko Congolese Association, who travelled from Derby to hold a demonstration at Parliament for a “Blunkett Amnesty”, joined the Shanty Town and a spokeswoman reported that many women and children are being made homeless around the country and are in desperate need of help and support. A demonstration across the road by over 200 men from Sudan demanding that the UNHCR intervene to end the genocide by government militias in Dafur, was greeted enthusiastically by the Shanty Town and a lively exchange of chants and speakers ensued. Many were shocked to see a policeman armed with a machine gun “escorting” the Sudanese demonstrators, and some pledged to protest about this racism.

A delegation of women asylum seekers, including a heavily pregnant woman who is homeless, asked to speak to a UNHCR representative. They refused even to speak on the phone, causing a number of protesters to ask whether this was the UN High Commission for Racism and Rape, not refugees!

The day culminated with a spirited attack on “Fortress Europe”: the barrier was lifted for all to enter and the walls torn down. Everyone who participated felt invigorated to be part of the first internationally co-ordinated action against the Nazi policies being introduced across Europe.

We are all asylum seekers

On Saturday 31 January a spectacular contingent of over 60 women, children and men holding identical placards “We are all asylum seekers” filed out of the Crossroads Women’s Centre and lined Kentish Town Road, North London. Based on the famous testimony of Pastor Niemoller “First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew . . . “ the visual protest aimed to highlight how immigration policies attack everyone’s rights -- immigrant or non immigrants. Women from the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Liberia, Uganda used a megaphone to tell shoppers and passers-by about the cost of war to their countries - where millions have died. Emigrating is rarely a choice, but a desperate last resort to escape wars and devastation, caused by western military and corporate interests. One woman said, “If they stop selling arms we would not even be here”.

Local people, including shop-keepers, responded by hooting their horns in support and asking for placards to join in, demonstrating that many people feel great sympathy for the situation of asylum seekers but rarely get an occasion to voice it. The event exposed the lie the government and the tabloid media have spun to justify their brutality that “the public” are opposed to asylum seekers. Speakers asked for asylum from governments which squander millions on wars and neglect our every human need.

As the first events of the Global Women’s Strike 2004 in the UK, these actions pave the way for a week of activities around 8 March (International Women’s Day) on the theme of “Invest in Caring Not Killing”. As one of the Strike demands says: capital travels freely. Why not people?

*Section 55 of the Nationality, Immigration & Asylum Act 2002 refuses support and housing to asylum seekers unless they claim immediately on arrival.

For the demands of the European Day of Action please see www.globalwomenstrike.net
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Women of Colour (Global Women’s Strike)
Crossroads Women’s Centre, 230A Kentish Town Road, London NW5 2AB
Tel: 0207 482 2496 Fax: 0207 209 4761
Mail:  womenstrike8m@server101.com or  womenofcolour@allwomencount.net
Payday PO Box 287 London NW6 5QU, Tel 0207 209 4751
 payday@paydaynet.org web: www.refusingtokill.net

For information about actions in Europe
contact Droits Devants at  tarowen@hotmail.com Tel +33 (0)1 42 58 82 18.