the last Labour government (to their shame) didn’t say much on this issue.

It’s not what government’s say that counts, it’s what they do: that is what they should be judged on.

Some women come to the UK to marry. The ‘no recourse to public funds’ rule says that a woman in this position is not entitled to certain state benefits, including housing benefit and income support.

If she wants to escape her violent husband, then her purpose for coming to the UK no longer applies and she can go back to her own country.

@2

Yes. Its that easy! Stupid abused women…

Phil: and probably many women in that position will do so. That doesn’t change the fact that they may well need help to get to a position where they can safely leave the country (their partner may have stolen their passport or not be allowing them access to enough money to buy plane tickets, or they may need somewhere safe to stay for a short time while they arrange travel back, or the police might want them to stay in the country for a little longer to act as a witness in the trial of someone accused of violent crimes, etc.)

Alternatively we could refuse to help them and so allow their abusive partner to trap them in this country when they’d rather leave.

“If she wants to escape her violent husband, then her purpose for coming to the UK no longer applies and she can go back to her own country.”

Some countries won’t give women passports without permission from their husbands or fathers, Poland is one of them. Not to mention the difficulties of returning to a country where your former partner may have family or friends on the hunt for you.

Usual ill informed mysogonistic comment from the anti-immigration crowd.

#2 – This is why I despise right wingers; no concern or compassion for others at all.

I’m not a supporter of nu-lab but it just isn’t the case that they did nothing to help the victims of domestic violence, one important change was, the police are now empowered to prosecute abusers in the absence of women victims making a complaint or be willing to testify against the abuser.
Another massive problem was the Homicide Act, nu-lab introduced the concept of ‘self-preservation’ which, prior to this, many abused women had only the defence of ‘diminished responsibility, if they ended-up killing their abuser.
No-one in the UK can be refused assistance from refuges to escape domestic violence, whatever their immigration status.
But I do agree that there are other barriers, suffered by ethnic women, that do make it difficult to leave their abusers.

Though I applaud this,

I am an ex-beaten husband.

I repeat that:

I am an ex-beaten husband.

Yet again the emphasis of this campaign (like many others before it), is on the woman being the victim and the man being the abuser.

Yet again no recourse, or thought is put towards the men who are trapped in similar positions.

I sympathise (particularly sympathise, and not empathise, because I can) with the victims,

But please, please, please,

Can we get it into the general public’s heads

The woman is not always the victim.

I continue to abhor violence in the domestic situation.

But please remember that there are men trapped just as badly, who will not come forward when campaigns like this paint the all the men as aggressors and all the women as victims.

“Some countries won’t give women passports without permission from their husbands or fathers, Poland is one of them.”

If I’m wrong I’ll find a hat to eat but I delcare the above to be utter nonsense.

@9 i don’t know about poland but i am fairly sure it is true for some countries. in some countries you can’t even go to hospital without a male family member escorting you.

well its annecdotal evidence from when I worked for a housing charity – the red cross referred one of their clients to us; a polish women fleeing an abusive husband who wanted to go home with her child, but didn’t have a passport. They were having great difficulty in getting her one because her husband was not signing the papers.

@8 – are mail-order husbands a growth area we should be keeping an eye on?

Yes, domestic violence affects men too, but I don’t think this particular scheme could have a catchment area larger than a couple of them, even if it were de-gender-specificised. So it’s probably not worth the effort – although I’m open to being convinced by numbers?

8
There are organizations who can help and, I can’t pretend that I can empathise with you, only to say that more is being learnt about domestic abuse of males, I think ‘Respect’, if you google it, might be of some assistance.
It may seem unfair that the majority of publicity and efforts go towards attempting to help/protect women but they are the gender who suffer the most domestic violence, I think that over half of female homicide victims, each year, are killed by an abusive partner/ex-partner.
Also, the plea of ‘self-preservation’, covers males as well as females (not that I’m suggesting you kill your ex-partner).

@11 – I’ve had a look at the Polish passport office site and there is no mention of this sort of requirement and it would in any case fail under Poland’s EU and ECHR obligations.
I can see that there may be issues with taking a child out of a country while the parents are in custody dispute, perhaps that’s where the problem arose?

@10 – Yes I know there are crazy places where women are treated terribly, usually the fearfully primitive and / or run by the less cheerful sects of Islam, Poland is not one of these.

@3: Yes. Its that easy! Stupid abused women…

I don’t think abused women are stupid (though some of them evidently have bad taste in men). I do think that in all practicality Britain cannot let everyone who might want to come to Britain do so, because there are billions of people in poor countries who would be better off if they lived here.

@6: This is why I despise right wingers; no concern or compassion for others at all.

I quite often get accused of being right wing when I comment of left-wing fora; I also get accused of being left-wing when I post on right-wing fora. I think it’s unlikely that both accusations are right.

It’s not that I have no concern for others, it’s that I do not think we can have large-scale immigration of unskilled people into this country.

@16

You still in favour of eugenics?

@5: Some countries won’t give women passports without permission from their husbands or fathers,

Then these countries are barbaric and need to move into the 21st century. And maybe we should issue marriage visas to their citizens — this would, among other things, signal to their governments that we think they are barbaric.

Poland is one of them.

Then Poland is backward. In any case, Poles have the right to live in Britain.

Not to mention the difficulties of returning to a country where your former partner may have family or friends on the hunt for you.

Should Britain be responsible for the welfare of all foreigners who have people out to get them? If not, where should our responsibilities end, in your opinion?

Usual ill informed mysogonistic

I’m not mysogenistic. For one thing, I think foreign men coming here should have the same legal rights and responsibilities as foreign women. I’m not fond of marriage visas in general, if someone doesn’t have the attributes to be allowed in Britain for other reasons, then I’m not sure they are the sort of person who we’d want to marry and settle down here.

comment from the anti-immigration crowd.

Actually I’m probably more pro-immigration than a lot of people, including the present and previous governments. I just think we should be selective who we allow in.

@4 cim: That doesn’t change the fact that they may well need help to get to a position where they can safely leave the country (their partner may have stolen their passport

Which is presumbly a crime they can be charged with (as well as the violence)

or not be allowing them access to enough money to buy plane tickets,

If it is their money they are not being allowed access to, that’s also a crime. If not, the UK authoities should fund their return.

or they may need somewhere safe to stay for a short time while they arrange travel back, or the police might want them to stay in the country for a little longer to act as a witness in the trial of someone accused of violent crimes

If they are wanted as a witness (which is quite likely if their spouse has been violent to them), the UK authorities should either request they stay here long enough to do so, or arrange for them to give video evidence.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/article.asp?ID=2423&Pos=&ColRank=1&Rank=224

^ That makes fascinating reading – puts some numbers on where migrants tend to work. Not sure what conclusions to draw from it just yet, though.

That banking & construction accounts for such a large proportion of the foreign workforce makes me ‘eh’.

19: …and where do they stay in the meantime? While the government and justice system is arranging all this (assuming that it’s no more efficient than usual – it’s not like any of this will be instant, and the police have a rather poor record at taking effective and quick action in cases of domestic abuse – this could take months).

Often the most convenient place for them to get out of immediate danger so that they can report all of this and so that action can be taken (including, where appropriate, making arrangements for them to return safely to their own countries) is a refuge – but the No Recourse rule makes that impossible.

For someone on a student visa, or a temporary work visa, of course, they would be generally expected to stay in the country for the duration of their course of study or employment contract, and it’s even clearer that we should help them do that rather than help their abuser.

You can argue that we should be letting fewer immigrants into the country, but I don’t think that’s an argument for not treating those we do let in well (whether than be ten or ten million people)

Falco 14

Wonder if you were thinking of Saudi?

May 2010:

A female activist in Saudi Arabia’s eastern province, Wajeha al-Huwaider, had been to the border with Bahrain, demanding to cross using only her passport, without a male chaperon or a male guardian’s written permission.

Ms. Huwaider was not allowed to leave the country unaccompanied and, like other Saudi women campaigning for new rights, has failed — so far — to change any existing laws or customs.

http://www.stop-stoning.org/node/1144

@21: You can argue that we should be letting fewer immigrants into the country, but I don’t think that’s an argument for not treating those we do let in well (whether than be ten or ten million people)

That’s a very good point.

“I’m probably more pro-immigration than a lot of people, including the present and previous governments. I just think we should be selective who we allow in.”

Not quite – your reaction to an article praising the fact that victims of domestic violence will now be able to stay in refuges was to throw out a “send them home” comment. Doesn’t really suggest you have any understanding of the issue really. Sort of implies you think we should have an immigration policy that denies access to refuges for foreigners fleeing abusive relationships.

21: I agree that people fleeing abusive relationships may need to find somewhere to stay. However, I fail to see why a ‘no recourse’ rule should prevent them from finding such places. Why is it necessary for a victim of abuse to be able to bring state funded benefits to a refuge? I should have thought that this type of thing was what charities were set up to provide.

The problem seems to be that so-called ‘charities’ have stopped raising money from the public, and now rely on government hand-outs. This has lead to the system under which destitute foreign women are turned away because they can’t provide an income source for the ‘charity’.

“I fail to see why a ‘no recourse’ rule should prevent them from finding such places”

Because most are funded through housing benefit.

@25 that so-called ‘charities’ have stopped raising money from the public

it isn’t as simple as that im afraid. charities that deal with domestic violence and refugee rights find it very hard to get the public to reach in to their pockets and give. for example, a donkey sanctuary in 2008 received £20 million – more than womensaid, and eaves and refuge put together. sadly a lot of people don’t know about the work they do, or, in the case of womensaid, when they get an ad on the tv to raise awareness, it gets banned for being too violent!

so if DV and refugee charities are reliant on public funds, it is because the general public don’t give them enough money.

26: …so why can’t Refuge et al put aside a bit of the housing benefit that they claim legitimately for (say) 80% of their ‘clients’ to fund free housing for the (say) 20% of ‘no recourse’ cases?

Presumably the rent charged is close to the going rate for accommodation, which would mean that Refuge et al are turning a profit, just like every other private landlord. I guess that the profit that they make is used up on admin, advertising and such like, and a part of it could be put towards the ‘no recourse’ cases.

27: …it seems to me that the very essence of charity is to help those who have no other recourse. I find it very odd that a charity that (as above) has a guaranteed income stream can’t find money to help these people, and is reduced to begging the government to provide yet more funds.