International Women’s Day is not a celebration. Instead, the 8th of March should be marked as a day rooted in collective struggle. It is a moment to recognise the ongoing fight for women’s rights and to challenge the systems that continue to deny women safety, dignity and justice.
This year’s theme and sentiment, “Rights, Justice. Action for ALL Women and Girls,” serves as a reminder that we continue to struggle in progressing towards gender equality. In the UK, this comes at a crucial time where our human rights are being challenged and denigrated amidst a growing hostility towards migration. Punitive proposals and changes to immigration, modern slavery and criminal justice policies have been influenced by a moral panic around migration and criminality that is being amplified by the government and other politicians. The ability for all women and girls to advocate for their rights and justice is inextricably linked to these policies, which ignore the lived realities of victim-survivors in contact with the criminal justice and immigration systems.
Earlier this month, the government announced that refugee status would be made temporary and would be reviewed, with the right to remain in the UK reassessed. For women who have fled violence and persecution, safety is not achieved simply by reaching a place of refuge. Recovery and rebuilding require stability. Secure, independent and permanent immigration status is often essential for victim-survivors to access housing and other types of support. Introducing time-limited refugee protection risks placing many women in prolonged uncertainty about their future. Living under the threat that their status could be withdrawn undermines the ability of victim-survivors to rebuild their lives and move forward after abuse.
Many migrant, asylum-seeking, and refugee women already face severe barriers when seeking protection. Women with insecure immigration status are frequently unable to access refuge accommodation or financial support because of being subject to the No Recourse to Public Funds condition. Without access to housing or welfare support, leaving an abusive situation can mean facing homelessness or destitution.
These changes in policies also ignore the complexities that unjustly criminalised migrant women will face. Measures that prioritise deportation following criminal sentencing fail to recognise how coercion, exploitation and abuse often shape migrant women’s contact with the criminal justice system. Together, these policies create a system where access to safety becomes conditional on immigration status.
Violence against women and girls is a human rights issue. Efforts to address it, such as the recently published VAWG strategy, cannot succeed while migrant women remain excluded from protection and support. Their exclusion signals that fundamental protections can be selectively applied and that women’s rights are conditional. In a political climate where proposals to dismantle our human rights are under threat, it is urgent that we fight against this notion.
This International Women’s Day is a reminder that the fight for women’s rights must include Black and minoritised migrant, asylum-seeking and refugee women. Ending violence means ensuring that all women, regardless of immigration status, can access safety, justice and the support they need to rebuild their lives.