WAST Publications

safeyet.gif"Am I safe yet ?"

In October 2007, WAST Manchester received a lottery grant of £10,000 to run the WAST Book Project. 11 members dictated their life histories to a local writer.


We will be publishing the book ion Friday 11th July 2008. The book is called “Am I Safe Yet ?”


“The narratives are horrific and can be difficult reading but there is no gentle way to describe the terrible reality that forces these women to flee from their home countries to seek international protection, and the often inhumane way in which they are treated while passing through the asylum system in the UK. Some of these stories have been told over and over again as the story teller bares her very soul."

  • Gives the reader an insight into the personal nightmare world from which women escaped from and the subsequent treatment they received in this country when they come to in hope of protection and security.
  • Gains support from readers for the women in their fight to stay in the UK.
  • Educates the reader, giving them a wider awareness about the persecution faced by women in countries the British government declares are safe for women asylum seekers to be returned to.
  • Serves as part of Womens Healing and Peace Process … to hope that in telling their stories they will begin the long and difficult process of healing the deep wounds each one of them carries on her soul.

For further info, please contact WAST Manchester or to order the book, use the link:

http://www.racearchive.org.uk/publications/Howtoorderourpublications.htm

 

WAST Manchester Booklet

A 10-page booklet all about WAST Manchester.

Please print your own copies and circulate as far and wide as possible !

Download the WAST Manchester booklet

For further info, please contact WAST Manchester

WAST Recommendations for Good Practice for Agencies working with Women Asylum Seekers

 

This report has been put together over a two-year period when women asylum seekers met together for support in the WAST weekly self help group. They talked together and shared their experiences and problems that had, and that they were facing in the asylum system.


The asylum system was never really set up for women escaping ‘gender based persecution‘ (domestic violence, FGM - female genital mutilation -, rape, forced marriage, trafficking, honor crimes, and sexual violence etc) and many of the accounts women gave of their struggles illustrated this most starkly.

Women in the group meetings made suggestions for improving the way in which they had been treated by, not only the courts and legal services in the processes of claiming asylum, but also by those agencies set up to provide support services for asylum seekers. Some of these ideas for improvements were big, and some small, but all significant to women asylum seekers lives. Together these make up the following recommendations in this report.

Recommendations
The report reveals the need for agencies, who are providing services to support, advise and advocate for women asylum seekers, to acknowledge and understand the extent to which the practices used in the asylum system have been damaging and discriminatory for women.

These recommendations need to be considered seriously in order to develop more effective services in the future and to campaign for a more just and gender specific asylum system.

This report also, and equally importantly, illustrates the need for support services to develop ways of working together with women asylum seekers which are empowering and are responsive to women’s own identified needs and priorities, in order than women can begin to rebuild and take control of theirs and their families lives.


Download the report

For further info, please contact WAST Manchester