11am Friday 23 June 06
Trinity United Reformed Church, Buck Street,
Camden Town, London NW1
All welcome
More information: Black Women's Rape Action Project
& Women Against Rape
0207 482 2496

Launch of:

* Misjudging rape – A Dossier of how adjudicators (now immigration judges) flout international law and even their own guidelines when they consider the asylum claims of women and girls seeking safety and protection from rape.

* Claiming asylum from rape – A Rights Sheet

* Asylum from Rape Petition – calling on the government to officially recognise rape as torture and persecution and therefore grounds for asylum, and to end the detention and deportation of rape survivors and their families.

Speakers:

Cristel Amiss, Black Women's Rape Action Project
Dr Frank Arnold, Medical Justice Network
Sian Evans, Women Against Rape
Louise Hooper, Garden Court Chambers
Paul Nettleship, Sutovic & Hartigan solicitors
Constance Kajumba, All African Women’s Group

Rape survivors, at least 50% of women seeking asylum, face unprecedented obstacles in pursuing their asylum claims.

Because the specific persecution women face is not recognized by the UN Refugee Convention, rape survivors face an uphill battle establishing why they should be granted protection under the Convention. Like women reporting rape generally (only 5.6% of reported rapes result in conviction), they face hostility and disbelief. The Home Office and courts have ignored case law and international precedents to deny women protection. Finding respectful and thorough legal representation is virtually impossible and legal aid cuts mean that expert medical and other reports, without which claims are more likely to be dismissed, are seldom commissioned as supporting evidence. Women and children are soft targets for politicians vying to show who is “toughest” on asylum. When their asylum claims are closed, often before they have had a chance to speak in detail about the rape and other torture they have suffered, they and their children face destitution, detention and deportation.

To help overcome these obstacles and ensure women's claims are comprehensively and sympathetically considered, Black Women's Rape Action Project and Women Against Rape, in collaboration with All African Women's Group and Legal Action for Women, are launching three tools for rape survivors, legal representatives and all those concerned with human rights.

Black Women’s Rape Action Project  bwrap@dircon.co.uk

Women Against Rape;  war@womenagainstrape.net

Tel: 0207 482 2496; Fax: 0207 209 4751