Appeal to Women's Project supporters

Dear friend,

2010 marks a double anniversary for Asylum Aid. Not only is it twenty years since the charity was founded, it’s also the 10th birthday of the Women’s Project at Asylum Aid.

As a reader of Women’s Asylum News I hope you value Asylum Aid’s passionate and determined advocacy of asylum rights and the Women’s Project’s tenacity and persistence in holding the Government to account for failing to provide a genuinely gender sensitive asylum system.

We plan to mark our double anniversary by further sharpening our legal cutting edge in defence of women’s asylum rights and therefore need to ask for your financial support.

Our Legal Team provides dedicated and specialist legal representation, of the highest professional standard, to individual refugees at all stages of the asylum application and appeal process. Last year we succeeded in over 90% of cases in which we provided representation, despite electing to work with clients whose claims were complex and who might have been refused help by other representatives.

This year we are intending to be more proactive in our litigation, with the objective of strengthening the links between our legal and our policy work. We intend to do this by developing our capacity to litigate strategically, running test cases and making interventions in cases already in the higher courts.

Women will be at the core of this litigation strategy and we have already identified the discriminatory use of relocation arguments in women’s asylum determinations; the incorrect early use of the National Referral Mechanism for trafficking survivors; the inadequacy of Home Office country information on gender issues - particularly in respect of Country Guidance cases at the Asylum Tribunal - and the duties arising out of the Equality Act; as issues on which we wish to be active. We have also identified the determination of unaccompanied girls’ protection claims as an area requiring greater legal scrutiny.

None of the developmental and preparatory work we need to undertake – the legal research, the expert reports, the opinions from counsel, convening an advisory panel, etc – is paid for by legal aid, so we have established a Strategic Legal Fund with the aim of raising £25,000 in 2010 to fund our efforts.

I hope that you will consider supporting our work by considering a one-off gift or a regular donation to Asylum Aid.

To donate to Asylum Aid, please click here.

With very best wishes and thanks,

Maurice Wren
Director