Women for Refugee Women’s statement on the Home Office’s “Understanding behaviours and expectations in the UK” guide
20 August 2026
Women for Refugee Women condemns all forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG). Every survivor deserves safety, justice and support, and everyone living in the UK should understand their rights and responsibilities.
However, we are deeply concerned by the Home Office’s decision to publish a guide – Understanding behaviours and expectations in the UK: a guide for asylum seekers – which has been widely presented in media coverage as a warning to people seeking asylum not to “rape”, “sexually assault” or make “kissing noises” at women. This inflammatory framing weaponises VAWG and reinforces the dangerous narrative that scapegoats men seeking asylum for it.
The Government says the guide covers issues including gender equality, domestic abuse, consent and respect in public. While information about rights, support services and UK laws should be available to everyone, the framing of this intervention is profoundly troubling. By singling out people seeking asylum as a group requiring instruction not to commit abuse or sexual violence, the Government risks reinforcing the false and dangerous narrative that men who are seeking asylum in the UK are uniquely responsible for violence against women and girls.
This does not reflect the reality.
Our open letter last year, signed by over 200 organisations, made clear: VAWG is a society-wide problem. It occurs across every community, ethnicity, nationality and social group. The overwhelming majority of violence against women is perpetrated by men known to women, often within homes and relationships, rather than by strangers.
Presenting men who are seeking asylum as a particular threat does not make women safer. Instead, it scapegoats men seeking asylum, the vast majority of whom have come to the UK in search of safety and protection. Many have themselves survived war, persecution, torture and violence. At a time when public debate around migration has become increasingly hostile, this kind of messaging risks fuelling suspicion, prejudice and division rather than promoting understanding and safety.
We are also concerned that this approach undermines efforts to secure justice for survivors of violence against women and girls. Research and survivor testimony consistently show that scapegoats and stereotypes about perpetrators create barriers to reporting, prosecution and accountability. When political debate suggests that violence is primarily associated with particular racialised or migrant groups, it obscures the reality that abuse is widespread throughout society and overwhelmingly committed by people known to survivors. As our open letter warned, this inaccurate picture of VAWG allows perpetrators to hide behind racial stereotypes, while survivors are denied a truthful public conversation about the violence they experience.
The Government has pledged to tackle violence against women and girls. That goal will not be achieved through measures that conflate migration with violence or through communications that inadvertently reinforce harmful myths. It will be achieved through sustained investment in specialist support services, prevention work, education on healthy relationships and consent, and the removal of barriers that prevent survivors from accessing justice and protection.
We are particularly concerned about the impact this framing will have on refugee and asylum-seeking women. For years, refugee women have faced significant obstacles to accessing safety, support and justice. Public narratives that portray people seeking asylum primarily through a lens of criminality and danger create a more hostile environment for the very women who may themselves be survivors of abuse, exploitation and gender-based violence.
Violence against women and girls must never be weaponised to advance anti-migrant narratives. When the Government and media outlets focus on people seeking asylum as a distinct threat, they distort the reality of VAWG, distract from its root causes and risk making it harder, not easier, for survivors to be heard and supported.
Women for Refugee Women urges the Government to reject the scapegoating of people seeking asylum, to promote an evidence-based understanding of VAWG, and to focus on the policies that are proven to keep women safe. All women and girls deserve better than divisive narratives that trade on fear while doing little to address the realities of violence in our society.
Carenza Muggleton-Arnold, Head of Campaigns at Women for Refugee Women, said:
“The majority of women seeking asylum in the UK are survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. This kind of harmful messages risks creating a more hostile environment for women seeking safety and protection here. Violence against women and girls is a crisis that cuts across all communities, and tackling it requires honesty about where and how abuse happens – most often by men known to women and in their homes.
This kind of approach by the Government dangerously fuels stigma and division that can lead to real life consequences and violence against communities. Efforts to tackle VAWG should be based on evidence and investment in specialist support services, not narratives and policies that scapegoat people seeking asylum and allow perpetrators to hide behind scapegoats that distort the reality of VAWG and, ultimately, impede justice for survivors.”
For press enquiries, please contact press@refugeewomen.co.uk / +44 (0) 7518 397761.