Engender blog

General Election 2024?– What’s in it for women??

We’re calling on candidates to commit to taking action on four key areas for women if elected – and we need your help. 

Political decision-making affects women’s daily lives, yet there is a significant void in women’s representation and distribution of power in Scotland. We advocate for a Scotland where women are part of every political and economic decision, both as decision-makers and as citizens who are affected by the consequences of these decisions.  

A decade of austerity policies, the pandemic, and the ongoing cost of living crisis have all impacted women disproportionately. Issues like fuel costs, unpaid care, housing, women’s safety, mental health and social security continue to impact the most marginalised women. 

The General Election on 4th July is an opportunity for the next UK Government to prioritise women’s rights and equality.
We need change to make women’s voices heard. 

Guest Post: Gender matters in refugee policy

Dr Sophie Cartwright is a former volunteer at the Unity Centre in Glasgow and a regular contributor to BrightGreen. Here she writes on why 'safe return review' and deportation is cruel and dangerous - and will disproportionately impact women and girls who have fled gender-based violence.

Refugee Women's Strategy Group, Umoja Inc, and Engender launch reports on gender and asylum

In June 2014 Engender, Umoja Inc and the Refugee Women’s Strategy Group (RWSG) held an event as part of Refugee Week in Glasgow. The aim of this event was to come together to celebrate refugee women in Scotland and launch two pieces of work that seek to capture the experience of asylum seeking women: the RWSG’s Speak for Yourself report and Engender’s briefing paper on gender and the asylum system.

Speak for Yourself is the product of 100 interviews with asylum seeking women. It identifies some of the critical issues that asylum seeking women face, including access to work, education, housing, and health. Women also spoke about the challenge of the asylum process itself.

Guest post: ‘Women and Children First?’ The reality of maternity care for Scotland’s refused asylum seekers

By Vicky Glen

For mothers in Scotland (and the world over), experiences of maternity care are key in influencing the overall experience of motherhood. Health policy has been a devolved matter since the creation of the NHS. As such, asylum seekers (including refused asylum seekers) are entitled to free primary and secondary health care in Scotland (in contrast with England and Northern Ireland, where refused asylum seekers may be required to pay for secondary health care, which can include maternity care). But do asylum seeking women experience a level of maternity care equal to that of other women living in Scotland?

It was this question that Sylvie Da Lomba of University of Strathclyde Law School and Nina Murray, Women’s Policy Development Officer at Scottish Refugee Council, sought to answer. While work had previously been conducted into the quality of maternity care for asylum seeking women in England and Wales, there was no primary focus upon the experiences of refused asylum seeking women. Previous work had already identified the severity of the health needs of asylum seeking women, with these needs exacerbated during pregnancy.

In light of the then proposed changes to access to healthcare under the Immigration Act 2014 (now a sad reality), and the challenging of asylum support levels by various third sector organisations (now perfectly exemplified in the case of Refugee Action v Secretary of State for the Home Department), the project aimed to assess: whether female asylum seekers were accessing free maternity care in Glasgow as ordinarily resident UK citizens (in line with Scottish government guidance); the extent and nature of any barriers to this access; and whether the access and quality of this care was in line with statutory, governmental and international human rights obligations.