The government’s announcements yesterday mark a significant escalation in state-sanctioned violence against Black, minoritised and migrant victim-survivors of violence against women and girls (VAWG) who face the dual perpetration of abuse and insecure immigration status. As ending VAWG and by-and-for specialist organisations supporting migrant women, we strongly oppose the government’s proposed reforms to settlement and support rights outlined in the “Fairer Pathway to Settlement” consultation paper and raise alarm at the impact these changes will have on some of the most vulnerable victim-survivors. The implementation of these changes will lead to a state of emergency for victim-survivors of VAWG and exploitation.
Increasing the qualifying period for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) from the existing 5 years will force victim-survivors already living in precarious situations to endure years of more uncertainty with severe and life-threatening consequences for their safety, access to justice, and support. These changes will be a gift to perpetrators who weaponise an already hostile immigration system to perpetrate their abuse and will prolong dependence on them.
Penalising the use of public funds, debt and criminalisation as part of an “earned settlement” model is both harmful and cruel. For many victim-survivors, debt, benefit use and minor offences are a direct or indirect consequence of violence and abuse. Turning these experiences into barriers to settlement punishes victim-survivors for circumstances which are beyond their control. Many Black, minoritised and migrant women who are victim-survivors of VAWG, trafficking, harmful practices and other forms of violence face unavoidable circumstances as a direct result of the abuse, which affects their ability to meet the criteria outlined yesterday – pushing women and children into further harm and destitution. The requirements to qualify for settlement necessitating “spotless” criminal records put victim-survivors who have been criminalised because of trafficking or exploitation in serious jeopardy, blocking them from security, safety and support.
We know that these reforms will not act in isolation. Extended settlement routes, harsher suitability rules, benefit and debt penalties and deeper immigration dependency create a perfect storm for those who are already vulnerable. These are deeply unrealistic standards for anyone, let alone those facing extreme risks to their lives.
The proposed policy entrenches a discriminatory two-tiered system in which most migrant people, especially women, are penalised. By allowing wealth and specific nationality routes to bypass the harshest criteria, the Government makes clear that safety, stability and the right to build a life here are privileges for a select few. Meanwhile, migrants fulfilling essential roles who are at the lower income spectrum, including healthcare workers, care workers, domestic workers and others on the lowest incomes, face the harshest, most punitive barriers and the very real threat of being denied permanent status altogether.
The proposed system’s demand for ‘contributions to the economy and community’ before settlement is deeply flawed. The arbitrary definition of ‘contribution’ ignores the structural inequalities and the weaponisation of the system by perpetrators to the detriment of Black, minoritised and migrant victim-survivors who are unable to ‘contribute’ in the traditional sense, as well as gender and racial pay gaps. This model also fails to account for migrant women who tend to be overrepresented in care, cleaning and domestic work and other foundational sectors that are repeatedly categorised as “low-skilled”. Such hierarchies entrench racist and gendered assumptions about whose work matters and reinforce exploitation and exclusion, and pose a threat to women who have been criminalised because of trafficking or exploitation, blocking them from security, safety and support.
These harmful reforms arrive at a time of extreme precarity and instability when frontline services and safety nets are already stretched to breaking point. Instead of expanding protections for victim-survivors of VAWG, the government is actively dismantling the existing rights-based framework. The impact will be life-threatening to those already in dire need of safety. Those with precarious status are far more vulnerable to coercion, exploitation and repeated cycles of violence and abuse. Cutting off routes to support will embolden abusers who know victims are less able to leave, seek protection or have access to resources.
The state must ensure the ability to secure status without penalising the receipt of support, debt or prior offences which are the direct legacy of abuse. Victim-survivors of VAWG and trafficking rely on state support designed to ensure they can leave violent and abusive situations, recover and bring their perpetrators to account. To delay settlement for relying on these same protections, such as access to public funds, creates a fundamentally unfair system that penalises these victims-survivors twice for the abuse they have endured. There must be explicit protections to ensure that criminalisation or economic disadvantages arising from abuse do not become a barrier to settlement.
These policies are catastrophic for victim-survivors of VAWG. This is an urgent crisis, and we call on the Government to treat it as such. We urge reversal of these punitive measures and the creation of a truly safe, accessible immigration system grounded in feminist values and a human-rights framework.
