City Research Online

Abstract

Legal responses to domestic abuse have been a political priority of the UK Government since at least 2010, eventually leading to the passing of the seminal legislation in this area for England & Wales, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. However, the exclusion of protection for migrant victim-survivors with precarious immigration statuses under the Act demonstrates a failure in understanding that the experience and risk of domestic abuse differ for these individuals from that of the mainstream, due to their intersectional identities as (predominantly) migrant women. Many migrant victim-survivors still find themselves trapped in abusive situations, as the law fails to safeguard their rights to reside legally should they choose to present themselves to authorities by reporting their abuse. A distinct a lack of acknowledgment as to inequalities faced by those at the intersection of migrant status and gender (Crenshaw, 1989; 1991) has led to increased insecurity for some of the most vulnerable. This paper shines a light on this discrimination under the law in England & Wales. It adopts an intersectionality framework to examine such inequality, analysing Appendix Violence Domestic Abuse and the Migrant Victim Domestic Abuse Concession in UK immigration law, as well as the Support for Migrant Victims Pilot and its relevant Evaluation Report against the international standards of the Istanbul Convention. It argues that the UK Government is failing to tackle the problem of migrant victim-survivors’ protection concerning domestic abuse, and in some situations, has made it worse.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is a post-peer-review, pre-copy edited version of an article due to be published in Justice, Power and Resistance. The definitive publisher-authenticated version Yong, A. (2024). Between a rock and a hard place: domestic abuse and being a migrant woman in England and Wales. Justice, Power and Resistance will be available online at: https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/jpr/jpr-overview.xml
Publisher Keywords:	Intersectionality; domestic abuse; Domestic Abuse Act 2021; migrant women; hostile environment.
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) > JN101 Great Britain K Law > KD England and Wales
Departments:	The City Law School The City Law School > Academic Programmes
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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