“Morally and ethically bankrupt” – Women for Refugee Women’s statement in response to the Government’s announcement to overhaul refugee protection in the UK.

Today, 17 November 2025, the Government has announced sweeping plans to overhaul refugee protection in the UK –  some of the most hostile we have seen in recent years. We are outraged, saddened, and extremely concerned about the proposed changes and the harmful impact it will have on refugee and asylum-seeking women.

The proposed changes include:

• Reducing refugee status to temporary protection of just 30 months, subjecting women to constant reviews, trapping women in limbo and uncertainty, and extending the wait for permanent settlement from five to twenty years – thereby ballooning bureaucracy, backlog and cost.
• Making family reunion more difficult – if not almost impossible for most people. This will force families apart for years on end, hindering people’s ability to heal and to rebuild their lives.
• Revoking the statutory duty to provide support for people seeking asylum, including accommodation. Our research, Safety and Survival, found that 8% of women were forced into sex work to meet their basic needs as a consequence of meagre asylum support. And Will I Ever Be Safe? found that 25% of women were raped or experienced sexual violence while homeless and sleeping outside. This change will undoubtedly force people into further poverty, homelessness, exploitation and danger.
• Changing the way the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is interpreted, to enable the forcible deportation of more people who have made a life here.
• Creating routes for people to gain permanent settlement in the UK based on talent and skilled employment. A person’s need for safety should not be dependent on their education or employment status. War, persecution, and violence do not discriminate based on educational or employment attainment, risking leaving the most marginalised behind and without protection.
• Removing ‘high value’ items from people seeking safety to contribute to costs of accommodation. We know from our work supporting women seeking safety that many arrive with very little. For those who do have ‘high value’ items such as jewellery, many are sentimental and one of the only things that have from home and their loved ones.

The plans will undoubtedly cause huge harm to women seeking safety in the UK, impeding their ability to heal and to rebuild their lives:

• Increased insecurity: Women fleeing war, persecution and gender-based violence need stability to recover from their experiences. Temporary status – reviewed every 30 months – traps women in limbo, living under the constant threat of revoked status and forcible deportation.
• Barriers to healing: survivors of sexual and gender-based violence require long-term safety to recover. These reforms obstruct survivors’ ability to heal and directly undermines the Government’s stated commitments to support survivors of violence against women and girls (VAWG), treating refugee survivors as second-class and less-deserving.
• Forcible family separation: By making settlement precarious and family reunion almost impossible, the reforms risks keeping families apart indefinitely. This will have a disproportionate impact on women and children who made up 92% of family reunion visas last year. As Beatrice shared, “Being reunited with my children felt like my heart had been put back together. My chest pain disappeared.”
• Economic vulnerability and risk of harm: Without secure status, women face barriers to stable employment, education and housing. Already, the asylum system exposes women to exploitation, abuse and violence. Trapping more women in precarity will force people into harm as a mean to survive. As Hassana shared, “I became like a commercial sex worker, to have money. One time I was forced to have unwanted sex so that I would have a place to sleep.”
• So-called ‘safe’ countries: Declaring countries as ‘safe’ ignores the reality of women’s experiences and the particular types of persecution women experience. This risks forcibly deporting women back to harm, persecution and violence – or even death.

Women seeking safety in the UK deserve more than temporary protection and endless uncertainty. These reforms betray the Government’s promise to survivors of VAWG. They send the message that only some survivors deserve protection. They tell people who have made the UK their home that they will never be welcome. This is abhorrent.

We reject this politics of hostility and division. We urge the Government to show moral courage, rather than chasing headlines and clout.

People seeking safety in the UK are fleeing unimaginable horrors such as war, persecution, violence and torture. It is the UK’s moral and ethical duty to uphold the right to seek protection and to offer a warm welcome to those in need. After all, it is what any one of us would want if faced with the impossible decision to flee to save our lives.

It is time for people everywhere to say: Not in my name.

Andrea Vukovic, Co-Director of Women for Refugee Women, says:

“The Home Secretary stated that ‘illegal migration is tearing the UK apart’. The only thing tearing the UK apart is a politics devoid of humanity, compassion and dignity. These plans – borrowed from hostile systems around the world – represent more cruelty, more uncertainty and more hostility for people seeking safety here. It tells those with refugee status in the UK – who have fled war, persecution, and violence – that their protection is temporary and that they will never be welcome here. This is a dangerous step in the wrong direction. Human rights are not conditional. When we allow them to be dismantled for some, we endanger them for all.”