TODAY THE House of Lords, the Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Reverend Rachel  Treweek, with support from peers across the political spectrum, will table vital amendments  to the Domestic Abuse Bill to protect migrant women. 

While the Bill has been welcomed as a ‘once-in-a-generation’ opportunity to address domestic abuse, some of the most marginalised women are excluded from the proposed measures.

These women are at high risk of domestic abuse. Their lack of immigration status and the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) rule makes them even more vulnerable.

This means important  measures in the Bill, for example placing a statutory duty on local authorities to accommodate domestic abuse survivors, will have no effect on migrant women.

These women will have no access to the welfare safety net.

They will remain trapped in abuse because they will be economically dependent on abusive partners who use their lack of immigration status as a weapon of coercive control, and as a means by which to maintain absolute power.

Those women who choose to leave will be forced into destitution and put at risk of other forms of  harm and exploitation in the UK or in their countries of origin.  

A long fight

In 2002, Southall Black Sisters (SBS) secured the Domestic Violence (DV) Rule which allows  women who arrive in the UK on spousal visas to apply for indefinite leave to remain in the UK  if they are victims of domestic abuse.

In 2012, the Destitution Domestic Violence Concession  (DDVC) was introduced to ensure that such women have access to public funds pending their  application for leave to remain under the DV Rule.

Taken together, the DV Rule and DDVC  now form a vital and much needed framework of protection, but it does not extend to migrant  women on non-spousal visas.

Despite growing calls for change, so far, the Government has  refused to allow migrant women access to the safety routes that are available to other abused  women in society.

It has instead proposed a pilot scheme (the Support for Migrant Victims Scheme) that is woefully inadequate.

The scheme will not provide effective protection to all women and children who need it.

It does not replace the need for long-term legislative  solutions to what is an urgent and mounting crisis of violence against migrant women and  girls. 

The Lord Bishop of Gloucester, supported by a cross-party coalition of Peers including Lord  Alton of Liverpool, Lord Rosser, Lord Woolley of Woodford and Baroness Hamwee, will set out why eligibility for the DV Rule and DDVC should be extended to all migrant survivors of  domestic abuse who have insecure immigration status.

The decision about whether to enshrine protection for these women in the Domestic Abuse Bill through this amendment will  be the litmus test of whether this Bill is the landmark legislation it is intended to be.