Our impact: Immigration and Asylum Law

Our priorities

We believe that no woman should ever have to choose between her safety and her immigration status. Many migrant women are still excluded from legal redress routes available to other victim-survivors and disparities remain even between different immigration pathways. The ‘hostile environment’ grows ever more hardline and negative public narratives around migration and race have created a precarious landscape that forces many women to endure abuse.

Working alongside women with lived experience, we utilise the insights on women’s justice journeys from our advice delivery, data and public legal education work to continually propose improvements to the law to ensure greater equality for women.

Read a summary of our top ten recommendations to Government for meaningful change, which we sent to the new elected government in August 2024.

Whilst we are pleased that some of these recommendations have now been enacted, there is still a long way to go to ensure migrant women survivors can live safely. You can read more about this progress in the Stories of Impact section below. In the meantime, we continue to carry out long term work to move towards greater access to justice for all women.

Our current recommendations to Government include:

→ Access to early legal advice for migrant victim-survivors not eligible for legal aid

→ The expansion of the scope of existing immigration law and policies protecting migrant      victim-survivors of domestic abuse so that more vulnerable women can benefit

→ Strengthen the Government’s VAWG strategy to address the harms faced by migrant victim-survivors

→ Reinstate the right of appeal against refusal of an immigration application for indefinite leave as a victim of domestic abuse

→ Withdraw harmful new earned settlement proposals and instead adopt fair, humane, gender‑sensitive policies that respond to the realities women face

→ To end data sharing between the police and other public services with immigration enforcement powers

→ Access to public funds for migrant victim-survivors

→ Listen to and learn from migrant victim-survivors and the specialist organisations supporting them

Advice

Every year our lawyers support around 400 migrant women through our Immigration and Asylum law services.

Women who call us are facing complex immigration and asylum issues, frequently impacting the immigration status of themselves and their children, their housing and welfare benefits access, as a result of family breakdown, domestic abuse and other forms of gender-based violence, such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) or trafficking.

Our specialist women lawyers provide free, trauma-informed legal advice and casework that assists women to:

• Understand their immigration options and legal rights for themselves and any children they have
• Make informed decisions about their safety
• Access specialist support and representation where available
• Navigate complex legal systems with confidence during periods of crisis
• Represent themselves in legal and tribunal processes when necessary
• Challenge flawed or unjust decision-making, particularly when the impacts of domestic abuse and VAWG have been minimised or overlooked

Our advice services are designed to reach women who may face additional barriers because of migration status, language, poverty or other forms of inequality. Through this work, women gain greater understanding of their rights and confidence to make decisions about their futures.

We also provide second tier advice to professionals over a dedicated advice line.

You can find out more about our immigration and asylum law advice lines and opening times here.

The need and demand for access to free, specialist legal advice far outweighs availability and this contributes to the scale and severity of VAWG.

We lead, contribute to and participate in coordinated advice delivery, evaluation and learning projects to help demonstrate the value of advice and to develop stronger networks and referral pathways in national advice delivery that supports women survivors at the earliest opportunity, quickly and effectively to safely exit abusive situations.

Read examples of advice service evaluations we have led or contributed to here:

Methods of increasing the capacity of immigration advice provision

Athena Project Evaluation on our Immigration & Asylum Advice Services

Stories of impact

Removing barriers for dependent children  

In August 2024, we wrote to the Government to ask them to scrap cruel policies harming children of migrant victim-survivors of domestic abuse.

In March 2026, the Government removed barriers for dependent children applying for settlement alongside their parent after domestic abuse.  

Our letter to new Government went beyond explaining the devastating impact of the policies. We also provided clear, detailed and practical guidance setting out how a simple change to the immigration rules could remedy the situation and benefits hundreds of survivors and their children.

The problem we were addressing was that the primary route of protection for migrant victims of domestic abuse to secure indefinite leave after fleeing abuse had been undermined by policies that required their children to be supported without access to public funds, and for children who reach 18 to pass English and Life in the UK tests without which they were being denied status under the domestic abuse route.

These requirements had never previously applied to the domestic abuse immigration policy because they fundamentally undermine the purpose of the policy to protect victims. This irrational policy change risked leaving child victims of domestic abuse undocumented and row back on years of effective protections for victims of domestic abuse under the Immigration Rules.

Read an example of a legal update sent to migrant advice and VAWG sector partners, explaining how frontline professionals can support women to access the new rights resulting from the changes here.

Strengthening protections under the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS)

In 2020, the Home Office accepted one of our priority policy demands to amend the law to address the gaps in protection for unmarried partners whose relationships had broken down due to domestic violence.

In 2026, we have seen the introduction of further policy changes we successfully advocated for to protect the rights women have under the EUSS when they obtain a different form of immigration leave.

The legal change came into force on 4th June 2020. The change related to domestic violence protections which were previously limited to former spouses where their marriage ended by divorce, but now any family member within the scope of the EUSS (a spouse, unmarried partner, child, dependent parent or dependent relative) whose family relationship with an EU citizen has broken down permanently as a result of domestic violence, has a continued right of residence and is able to rely on this and their own residence in the UK to apply for status under the EUSS as long as they meet the requirements of the immigration rules. This significant change will have benefitted hundreds of vulnerable women since 2020.

This development represents a significant and unprecedented change in Home Office policy, as migrants have historically been unable to hold more than one form of immigration status simultaneously.

See our detailed sector guidance for VAWG professionals on the changes around retaining pre-settled status here.

Protecting women abandoned overseas

From 2016, Rights of Women highlighted to Government the experiences of women calling our advice lines who had been subjected to transnational marriage abandonment, a form of abuse in which women are abandoned outside the UK and prevented from returning.

In January 2024, changes to the immigration rules (under Appendix VDA) were finally introduced enabling abandoned women and children to return to the UK and access their rights that abuse had previously deprived them of.

These reforms followed sustained campaigning and engagement by us and partner organisations culminating in a landmark High Court judgment in 2022. The existing immigration rules at the time of the judgment required victim-survivors of domestic abuse to be physically present in the UK to apply for settlement. We have welcomed these changes and have seen the benefits through cases of women abandoned overseas that we have supported since 2024.

Whilst this is significant victory, practical barriers to accessing this route remain, including difficulties accessing diplomatic assistance abroad. We continue to press for the promotion of protection including raising awareness of the phenomenon through UK diplomatic posts overseas, training of embassy officials and ensuring the implementation of the new rules.

Learn more through this video of a legal education event we held – attended by over 400 participants – where we are joined by a range of expert speakers to explain the significance of these changes for women.

Counter allegations: Improvements to domestic abuse immigration decision-making

In April 2025, Rights of Women worked in partnership with Project Resist to bring together 28 VAWG organisations to write to government asking them to change their approach to assessing domestic abuse in immigration cases involving counter-allegations that was impacting migrant women victim-survivors of domestic abuse applying for settlement.

In March 2026, the Home Office introduced important changes to its guidance on applications for settlement by victims of domestic abuse based on our representations and suggestions.

Counter-allegations in the context of domestic abuse including coercive control arise when both parties of the relationship allege the other has been abusive. Counter-allegations can be falsely made by perpetrators to deflect responsibility or further their abuse. They can also arise when victims engage in defensive or protective behaviours in response to their abuse.

Our concern is that the Home Office approach is falling behind the approach of other statutory agencies in developing a nuanced and victim-centred approach to coercive control. We produced a joint briefing addressing our concerns with recommendations for change and successfully secured the support of 28 other VAWG sector organisations that support migrant women, which was submitted to the Home Office at a point when they had committed to reviewing caseworker guidance.

Read our website newspiece here and an example of a legal update sent to sector partners to assist frontline professionals supporting women here.