Dear ColleagueEarly Day Motion (EDM) 406: RAPE AND FEMALE ASYLUM SEEKERS tabled by John McDonnell MP, has gathered 72 signatures since it was issued on 5 December. We are now anxious to make this over 100. Please contact your MP and urge him or her to sign it. Getting MPs to sign this EDM raises these issues in Parliament and will be of great help to our campaign to get rape officially recognised as torture and persecution. The easiest way to get in touch with your MP is via http://www.writetothem.com
EDM 406 RAPE AND FEMALE ASYLUM SEEKERS 05.12.2006
That this House welcomes research by Black Women’s Rape Action Project and Women Against Rape into the experiences of rape survivors at asylum appeal hearings; calls on the Home Office to ensure that women seeking asylum or refuge in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights after fleeing sexual violence perpetrated by agents of the state are enabled to speak about all the violence they have suffered, and to have access to adequate legal representation and appropriate medical and other expert advice; and calls on the Home Office to ensure that women seeking asylum are treated according to international precedents and to the 2000 Asylum Gender Guidelines, which must be assigned statutory status, and that they are granted refugee status or human rights protection in the same ways as men who are found to have suffered from torture or inhuman and degrading treatment.