Charter

Missed Out Around 7,000 women seek asylum in the UK each year. They are seeking protection from persecution, often fleeing violence and abuse.  Yet the government's strategy for helping victims of violence says nearly nothing about them.  Women seeking asylum have been missed out. It's time to put this right.

Campaign latest - success! 

The government has announced its revised plan for ending violence against women and girls - & everyone behind Missed Out has the right to celebrate a major success!

After years of hesitating over including women seeking asylum in their planning, the Home Office has now committed to a series of new actions that will help safeguard women from violence as they seek international protection in the UK. 

The government is promising:

• Women who have been victims of sexual violence will be referred for the specialist support that they need. 
• Women will have access to a more transparent asylum process, in which clearer information will be available to them. 
• Decision-making in women’s cases will be enhanced because of improved training and monitoring of decisions and performance in gender-related cases. 
• In addition, decision-making will be improved by enhanced quality of Country of Origin information.

The government's full action plan can be found at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/crime/call-end-violence-women-girls/vawg-action-plan-2013?view=Binary  The section on asylum is action points 46,47 and 48.

After months of campaigning by Charter endorsers, and more than 800 letters sent to MPs and Ministers across the country, this is a major victory.

More resources will be allocated to helping women seeking asylum. The issue has been given crucial political capital between now and the 2015 General Election. And the UK Border Agency will be answerable directly to the Home Secretary on its performance.

They will also be answerable to us - the new strategy may bring good news, but the work to make these changes into a reality is just beginning...

Missed Out is the latest campaign launched under the Charter of Rights of Women Seeking Asylum.  The highly-successful previous campaign, Every Single Woman, was launched in 2009.

Read more on Missed Out, much more...

	2/4/14 - Debora Singer celebrates the success of Missed Out, and plans our next steps
	6/12/12 - the Refugee Council, writing in Open Democracy, highlight the plight of women seeking asylum when nowhere is safe
	3/12/12 - Debora Singer writes for the Women's Resource Centre, and asks how the UN CEDAW process might help women missed out from government help
	26/11/12 - At the start of a week of government announcements on policy to protect women in the UK and overseas, Asylum Aid's Debora Singer asks what's next for women who have fled one country to seek safety in another.
	30/10/12 - Refugee Action: now is the perfect time to put pressure on the Home Secretary to act
	19/10/12 - The Refugee Council write about Missed Out for the Guardian, as part of the One Billion Rising Series
	18/10/12 - Caroline Albuerne of the Poppy Project discusses the relevance of Missed Out in the Independent
	4/10/12 - Debora Singer writes for the charity Tender, on the challenge of reviving policy progress for women and asylum
	28/09/12 - Russell Hargrave in the F-word blog, on why the government stuggles with asylum policy - and why Charter endorsers are so well placed to point the way
	17/09/12 - Asylum Aid's Russell Hargrave outlines for the TUC urgent lessons that the Home Office needs to learn
	10/09/12 - Debora Singer writes for Charter endorsers Migrants' Rights Network, and tells us more about her conversation with the Prime Minister back in March
	03/09/12 - Debora Singer tells the Huffington Post about "dangerous gaps" in the coalition government's policy, and the steps needed to help women seeking asylum in the UK
	31/09/12 - The new Charter campaign launches with influential commentator Bidisha asking why women seeking asylum are #missedout of government plans