Sheila Hayman on how the scenes shown in The Claim are sadly all too true, and Danielle Spencer on the unfair questioning of women who have experienced sexual violence

Michael Billington’s review of The Claim (19 January) asks: “Is the asylum-sifting process really this bad?” As a partner organisation that has been involved in the play’s development from the outset, I can attest that, sadly, it is. As the play demonstrates, the asylum interview is an experience nobody would want to endure.

Indeed, it was hard persuading our group members, all torture survivors, to revisit it for the audio recordings that audiences can listen to before or after the play, which recall their personal experiences. A male interviewer, for example, repeatedly asking a female survivor how often she was raped, and by how many men, or a translator repeatedly translating “I was not drunk” as “I was drunk”, are not things that should happen in a civilised society.

One torture survivor who saw the play said afterwards: “That’s the first time I’ve seen an immigration officer befriending an asylum seeker.”

Home Office asylum decision-making is poor. Research by Freedom from Torture shows that medical evidence is routinely mishandled in torture survivors’ asylum claims, and in over three-quarters of the cases we examined, the decision was overturned at appeal and the right to stay in the UK was granted. It’s a scandal that so much public money is wasted, and so much human misery caused, by this broken and brutal introduction to a supposedly welcoming haven.

Sheila Hayman

Coordinator, Write to Life, Freedom from Torture

• The invasive and unfair questioning of a woman who has experienced sexual violence, as outlined in your report of the UK justice system (Calls for reform over use of women’s sex history in rape trials, 29 January), is a worldwide phenomenon and a huge factor in survivors not wishing to take cases forward.

Universally, there are numerous barriers in place that prevent women from reporting the sexual violence they have faced. Often, they must relive their trauma time and time again even before they get to the court. They then face evidence being brought on their sexual history – the use of which is a form of victim blaming and judgment on what it means to be a “good woman”.

The more difficult it is for women to come forward and seek legal support, the more impunity is promoted. ActionAid works globally to alleviate these universal barriers to justice but there is a need for a more unified approach that includes a universal push for a solution.

Danielle Spencer

Senior technical adviser, Violence Against Women & Girls, ActionAid UK

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