Today is the first day of Lesbian Visibility Week! ❤️🧡🤍🩷
This week, and every week, we are celebrating Rainbow Sisters - our solidarity group for LGBTQ+ women seeking safety in the UK. 🏳️🌈
Some of our Rainbow Sisters have shared what the space means to them 👇💜
#LesbianVisibilityWeek #LVW26
We urge the Government to:
👉 Reinstate refugee family reunion as an urgent priority
Families belong together.
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Blessing's experience highlights the importance of family reunion and how vital it is for people to heal, rebuild their lives, and integrate.
The suspension of family reunion is forcing families apart, trapping people in limbo, and causing huge harm.
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Blessing is now focused on healing and creating a joy-filled future for her family:
🗣️“I just want to make my children happy.”
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Blessing has a message for the Government:
🗣️“If it was safe, women like me wouldn’t be running away. Walk a day in our shoes. Feel our pain. Your actions hurt people. They keep children away from their mothers. You break our hearts.”
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Now, Blessing and her children are slowly rebuilding their lives, but the harm caused by long, preventable separation will take years to undo.
🗣️“Being apart affected them emotionally. They are settled in school now, but it’s a long process, we aren’t there yet.”
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After three years apart, Blessing was finally reunited with her children:
🗣️“I still remember the night they arrived at the airport.
I’ve never felt that way before.
When I saw them walk through, my joy overflowed and flowed and flowed.”
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Blessing was finally granted refugee status after 3 years and applied for family reunion immediately.
The process took more than a year.
🗣️ “The delays crushed me. You can’t move on, you can’t integrate, you can’t do anything. I fell into depression... I am still on medication now.”
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Blessing’s children were moved to live with other family members. During this time, she was increasingly worried about their wellbeing:
🗣️“They experienced maltreatment and beatings. I needed them to be with me more than ever. I couldn’t do anything with my life because I was so unhappy.”
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Her children were left in the care of her mum and she took comfort in knowing they would be well-looked after.
But while Blessing was waiting for a decision on her asylum claim, her mother passed away.
🗣️ “I still think about not being able to see my mum, to give her a hug, say goodbye...”
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Blessing came to the UK seeking safety because of the violence she experienced for being an LGBTQ+ woman.
But seeking safety meant making an incredibly painful decision: to leave behind her two young children, who were just three and nine years old.
🗣️ “It broke me, but I had no choice.”
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Families belong together! 🫂
Yet, in September last year, the Government suddenly suspended refugee family reunion.
Blessing – who was able to reunite with her children before this cruel suspension – shares her experience to demonstrate why family reunion is so important. 👇
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📣 ICYMI
If you find it difficult to have conversations with the people in your life about topics like immigration or violence against women and girls, check out our practical guide!
www.refugeewomen.co.uk/not-in-our-n...
Instead of further restrictions, the government must ensure the asylum system remains a compassionate lifeline for those whose lives are at risk.
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Singling out LGBTQ+ or domestic abuse based asylum claims as suspicious fuels dangerous narratives and risks weakening protection for all women fleeing violence.
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🗣️ “Recent news about asylum and immigration has increased my anxiety. It makes me worry that people like me will be seen as less deserving or not believed. I did not come here for opportunity or convenience. I came here because I was afraid, and I needed safety.”
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Too often, women are met with scepticism by the Home Office: doubted, asked intrusive questions, and required to ‘prove’ identities they were forced to conceal
As Fatema shared, “It has been very hard to talk about my sexuality openly. I have spent my whole life hiding it to survive.”
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Women fleeing domestic abuse and other gender based violence face similar barriers - asked to provide impossible evidence, and expected to recount trauma in systems that too often respond with disbelief instead of care.
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🗣️ “I spent my whole life hiding it to survive.”
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Our research shows LGBTQ+ women face profound barriers in the asylum process. After a lifetime of concealing their identities to survive, they’re expected to disclose deeply personal aspects of their identity to strangers in a hostile, high pressure system.
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As Fatima, who fled Pakistan, shared:
🗣️ “Growing up, I always knew that who I was could never be spoken out loud. In Pakistan, being someone like me is not just judged it is dangerous.”
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Rainbow Sisters, a solidarity group for LGBTQ+ asylum seeking women, brings together women escaping violence, imprisonment and even death because of who they are.
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For over a decade, Women for Refugee Women has supported women fleeing gender based persecution, including domestic violence, sexual violence and persecution on the basis of their sexuality.
Seeking asylum has never been an easy choice for the women we support; it is an act of survival.
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We are aware of the BBC investigation into a small number of rogue advisers encouraging fraudulent claims. Such misconduct should always be challenged.
But amplifying isolated cases risks distorting public debate and harming women who rely on asylum for safety. ⚠️
buff.ly/sHeiXz0
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All sessions are delivered in person at our space near Old Street Station, London.
If you enjoy helping others and want to use your skills to make a real difference in refugee women’s lives, we’d love to hear from you. 💜
Deadline: Sunday 26th April at midnight.
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🗓️ Wednesdays
👉 Beginners Class: 10:30–12:30
👉 Intermediate Class: 12:30–1:30
A minimum commitment of 6 months.
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🌟Volunteering Opportunities 🌟
We’re looking for three digital skills volunteers to co facilitate our weekly Digital Skills classes: either the Beginners class or the Intermediate class. 💻📱🖥️
www.refugeewomen.co.uk/volunteering/
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With huge thanks and respect to the organisations we collaborated with to create this guide: @evawuk.bsky.social, Hibiscus, @sbsisters.bsky.social, @lawrsuk.bsky.social, @imkaanuk.bsky.social and @asylummatters.bsky.social.
Your expertise and partnership is invaluable.
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We hope you find the guide useful!
If you can, please share it with your networks. 🔁
At a time when fear is being deliberately stirred, speaking out and standing in solidarity with people seeking asylum is more important than ever. Thank you! 💜
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✅ Offer solutions. Name the villains and the heroes responsible for causing and solving the issue.
📚 Tell stories. Use personal stories, but also include the structures and systems that cause the issue.
⚠️ Be careful of metaphors that could cause harm.
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