As part of Strathclyde Women's Week 2024, we are focusing on the work of Humanities & Social Sciences academics whose research relates particularly to the experiences of women and girls.
Dr Emmaleena Käkelä is a Lecturer in Social Work & Social Policy whose research focuses on gender-based violence from a migration perspective. Prof. Daniela Sime is a Professor of Youth & Migration studies whose research interests are in social justice and inequalities with a focus on young people's experiences and the challenges facing traditionally-marginalised groups.
Dr Käkelä and Prof. Sime collaborate on GEN-MIGRA, a research project funded by the ESRC in the UK. The project examined the impact of the pandemic on migrant women and families in six countries, with Dr Käkelä and Prof. Sime looking at the UK. We asked them about their project, what causes migrant women to face disproportionate harm and what can be done to mitigate similar harm in the future.
What led you to focus your research on the pandemic experiences of migrant women in the UK in particular?
The pandemic has led to rising intersectional inequalities as a result of labour market precarities, border closures, more caring responsibilities, gender-based violence and exploitation.
These issues have only been amplified for migrant women, who are overrepresented in low-paid and precarious employment. Many also experience insecure legal status and restricted access to statutory services.
Gen-Migra is an international project which examines the impact of the pandemic on migrant women and families in six countries: Germany, Brazil, Poland, Spain, Portugal and the UK. For us, the UK presented a particularly interesting case study; the UK has witnessed an unprecedented overhaul of its immigration system during the pandemic, which has had a considerable impact on migrant women and their families.
We have been able to examine how the pandemic restrictions have interacted with migrants’ changing rights and entitlements because of Brexit, and the introduction of two key immigration acts: the Nationality and Borders Act (2022) and the Illegal Migration Act (2023). This has provided us with an opportunity to examine how migrant women and their families have been impacted by the “polycrisis” of the pandemic, immigration reform and the cost-of-living crisis.
What were your findings about the impacts of COVID-19 on migrant women?
Through engaging with migrant women and third sector organisations, we found that the pandemic and state responses to it had a significant impact in amplifying already existing inequalities.
Many migrant women faced heightened barriers to help-seeking, access to services and informal support networks as a result of the lockdown restrictions on movement, border closures and digital poverty. For example, in addition to limited digital literacy, many asylum-seeking women are placed in accommodation without internet.
Additionally, migrant women often heavily rely on the third sector providing trauma-informed, culturally competent services. The closure of these brick-and-mortar offices during lockdowns meant that many women faced further barriers accessing support, legal aid and advice. This is significant, as not only did the application deadline for the EU Settlement Scheme coincide with the pandemic, but also pandemic restrictions made it harder for many EU nationals to secure their right to remain in the UK. Many migrant women struggled to evidence their length of residency in the UK due to financial dependency on partners or care responsibilities keeping women out of work.
Border closures were particularly challenging for women with multiple care burdens both locally and transnationally, who have been unable to travel to support family members back in their countries of origin, and vice versa. Some women were put in very difficult positions where they had to choose whether to travel to care for family, but in doing so, risk their financial security or right to live in the UK.
We also found that migrant women already experiencing financial precarity faced further insecurities and risk of destitution. Asylum-seeking women are not entitled to social security and had to rely on an allowance that was just over £5 a day. Additionally, precariously employed migrant women did not have the same access to furlough and other government schemes during the pandemic.
For many of these women, home was also a place of harm as a result of being accommodated in overcrowded or inadequate temporary accommodation; for example, hotels where they had to use shared spaces with complete strangers.
Your research also focused on domestic violence during the pandemic. In what ways did you find migrant women were disproportionately affected?
The lockdowns and stay-at-home orders and increased financial precarity during the pandemic heightened tensions within families. Our interviews with experts and women have shown that these factors contributed to the increase of domestic abuse.
Our participants also include women who have experienced financial and emotional abuse during the pandemic, leading them to experience poverty and considerable mental health struggles. During the pandemic, the closure of essential services and the fear of reporting domestic abuse due to insecure immigration status heightened women’s vulnerabilities.
Crucially though, migrant women’s heightened vulnerabilities to domestic abuse pre-date the pandemic. In the UK, women’s shelters are funded from the Housing Benefit. This means that migrant women with precarious status cannot access most shelters when fleeing domestic abuse.
The impact of the pandemic restrictions and complex overhaul of the immigration system has been significant in making these barriers worse; for example, we have evidence that fleeing women have been denied support because they did not have access to the email that is needed to access the digital platform for EUSS applications.
It is also important to recognise that the pandemic restrictions and a hostile immigration system have compounded experiences of trauma for asylum seeking survivors who have come to the UK to flee abuse and gender-based persecution.
How do you think the findings to which your research points could help mitigate similar harm in the future?
Our research shows that the pandemic has led to long-term consequences of women’s mental health and wellbeing, and in some cases, also their immigration status. Many migrant women’s differentiated, restricted rights to access social security and welfare mean that they continue to face heightened vulnerabilities in the event of another pandemic.
Fundamentally, the UK immigration system is extremely complex and places restrictions on people’s rights to work and access essential social security and wider welfare services, which is making many migrant women more vulnerable to domestic abuse, poverty and destitution.
Additionally, migrant women and families from different backgrounds face significant challenges in navigating a hostile immigration system which places considerably high expectations for evidencing risk of persecution (for asylum seekers), residency (for EU migrants) and which has an increasingly high bar to secure a visa in the UK.
These challenges could be mitigated by an immigration system built on compassion, responsive to intersectional inequalities experienced by this group. It is vital that migrant women and their families have access to well-funded legal aid and third sector advice and support services.
- Read the report on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on migrant women
- Read more of Daniela's research on PURE Portal
- Read more of Emmaleena's research on PURE Portal
- Read more about the GEN-MIGRA project