Scottish and Welsh Ministers have repeated calls for the UK
Government to extend safeguards against gender-based violence to
migrant women, after the Home Office announced partial
ratification of the Istanbul Convention.
The Convention obliges signatories to take steps to tackle
violence against women and girls but the UK Government has
declined to include Article 59, which protects migrant women.
In a joint letter, Equalities Minister and Welsh Minister for
Social Justice urged UK Safeguarding Minister
to “do the right thing by
migrant women” by ratifying Article 59, pointing out that the
Convention specifically prohibits discrimination of any kind.
The full letter reads:
Dear Ms Solloway,
We are writing in response to your predecessor’s letter of 5 July
2022, reiterating the Home Office’s position in relation to the
reservation you are applying to Article 59.
We’d like to take this opportunity to re-state the Scottish and
Welsh Governments’ disappointment with this decision and to urge
you again to do the right thing by migrant women and ensure that
they are offered the same protection as other women in this
country. A key element of the Istanbul Convention is the
obligation it places on States to implement its provisions
without discrimination on any grounds and we urge you to take
this obligation seriously.
We understand your position in regard to Article 59 is under
“review pending the results and evaluation of the Support for
Migrant Victims (SMV) scheme, which will conclude by this summer…
at which point we would be able either to maintain the
reservation or to withdraw it under Article 78(4).” As the pilot
is testing the question of how, not whether, migrant victims and
survivors are supported, we are not clear why this would lead you
to submit a reservation to Article 59. The Pilot would appear to
be more about operational practice which, while clearly
important, does appear secondary to the principle behind Article
59. It is on these grounds that we ask you to withdraw the
exemption immediately.
We wish to reiterate the points we made separately in Ms
McKelvie’s letter of 8 June 2022, and Minister Hutt’s letter of 5
May 2022, that the scheme is too restrictive and that funding is
insufficient. Additionally, Scotland’s Ending Destitution
Together strategy highlights the risks faced by migrant women
experiencing domestic abuse and calls for the UK Government to
enable funding of refuge spaces for people subject to No Recourse
to Public Funds (NRPF) and for the extension of the Destitution
Domestic Violence (DDV) Concession.
If you are not willing to reverse your decision at this time, we
would suggest we have a window of opportunity to come to a policy
agreement that works for all nations once the pilot is complete.
We recognise that ratification itself is a prerogative power
exercised by UK Ministers, nonetheless this Treaty gives rise to
obligations in devolved areas and we would wish to discuss with
you how this can be reconciled. We understand that your officials
have agreed to meet with counterparts in Scotland and Wales to
discuss this in the autumn. It is important that officials are
not just updated on the findings of the review at that meeting
but discuss a resolution to our concerns.
For your awareness, Ms McKelvie raised these concerns when she
met the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights,
Dunja Mijatović, earlier this month.
Yours Sincerely,
Minister for Equalities and Older People
Scottish Government
Minister for Social Justice
Welsh Government
