WALES WOMEN'S EURO NETWORK
RHWYDWAITH EWROPEAIDD MEEERCHED CYMRU

Annual Conference
'PERSECUTION IS NOT GENDER BLIND'
30 March 2001

The Conference on Women Refuges and Asylum Seekers held at the Welsh Centre for International Affairs (Temple of Peace) Cardiff was attended by delegates of Welsh and local women's organisations and interest groups.

The speakers were Mrs Edwina Hart, MBE, Minister for Finance, Local Government and Communities and Chair of the Equal Opportunities Committee of the National Assembly for Wales. Ms Lyndall Sachs, Staff Worker at the UN High Commission for Refugees, London Mr Eid Ali Ahmed, Development Manager of the Welsh Refugee Council, Cardiff Ms Mary Collins, Policy Officer, European Women's Lobby, Brussels

The purpose of the conference was to make an informed contribution to the debate on refugees and asylum seekers and raise awareness of the specific problems women face and make them visible as a distinct group and to contribute to the development of a common European Asylum Policy. After discussion of the issues a number of recommendations directed to the decision makers at European, UK and Wales level were formulated:

• We strongly support the European Women's Lobby in their European campaign urging the governments of the European Union that gender persecution on political grounds should be accepted as a legitimate cause for granting asylum.
  

• Rape as a weapon of war: It can be said that wherever there is armed conflict the systematic rape of women and girls is happening.
  
• Forced marriage, Honour Crimes, Stoning to death for presumed adultery. Women are denied the protection of the State because they have no status as human beings in their own right.
  
• Female Genital Mutilation: an estimated 6,000 new cases a day are reportedly still happening in the world.
  
• Guilty by association: women and children are not considered as claimants for asylum because their relationship is associated to the guilty partner and/or family member who may be detained, tortured or in hiding.

• We strongly support the European Women's Lobby in its move to ensure that gender is included in the Agenda of the Preparatory Committee in Geneva in May leading to the World Conference on racism in South Africa in September 2001.
  
  
• At present refugees are not classified in terms of gender. We urge H.M. Government to make gender disaggregated statistics available so that women asylum seekers and refugees become visible and their problems receive gender-sensitive treatment.
  
  
• We urge that European Refugee Fund money should be made available and used fairly by H.M. Government in assisting Local Authorities and other agencies to provide the necessary services; to develop a simplified nationwide system of access to information and simplified standard application forms.
  
  
• We urge that asylum seekers should be dispersed fairly into appropriate areas with a full range of services: medical, social, education and legal. Availability of accommodation should not be the sole criterion for dispersal.
  
  
• We urge that the dispersal policies should acknowledge the crucial role played by women in keeping families together and caring for them under the extraordinary circumstances of the asylum system.
  
  
• We consider it essential that refugees and asylum seekers are given the opportunity of budgeting for their own expenditure. Dependence on the voucher system does not contribute to rebuilding their confidence after the experiences that caused them to seek asylum in the first place.
  
  
• We recommend that the National Assembly for Wales and Local Authorities establish comprehensive strategies to cope with asylum seekers and refugees especially women and adopt the following measures:

• to interview women on their own and in their own right
• to make the necessary resources available in order to encourage and expand support networks with female interviewers, translators, medical and psychological staff including female local authority staff.
  
• To allow refugee women themselves to identify their specific problems and to train already settled refugee women to act as link workers assisting with integration and obtaining access to services.
  
• To develop pro-actively a programme of education and training for resident ethnic minority women mediators.
  
• To design a special curriculum for refugee children in addition to mainstream schooling with the aim to raise language competence, cultural awareness of the customs of the area and provide information on the services available to them.
  
• To include awareness of the problems of refugees and asylum seekers and their cultural background in the mainstream curriculum for local pupils.
  
• To establish support networks which will encourage already settled refugee women to integrate better and get involved in the life of the community in toddler groups, play groups and parent/teacher associations and school governors.

• We urge that members of H.M. Government, MPs members of the National Assembly of Wales and local government are at all times mindful of the language they use in relation to refugees and asylum seekers as to set an example to the public and to subvert the negative stereotypical images conveyed by the media.
  
• In order to highlight the human side of being an asylum seekers or refugee and to encourage humanitarian attitudes UNHCR posters and other materials that display positive images should be made widely available.

Gabrielle Suff, Chair, 31 March 2001