Transnational Marriage Abandonment

  • Transnational Marriage Abandonment (TMA) refers to the plight of migrant women who are taken abroad and left without resources by their British national partners, who they depend on entirely for their social and financial survival. The processes of marriage and migration creates transnational spaces that are not only conducive to new forms of violence and harms against women but also creates impunity for perpetrators and immunity for states that use legal loopholes to evade responsibility for safeguarding and protecting women subject to abandonment. TMA is therefore a form of abuse that is both transnational and gendered since it is located within a continuum of violence coercive and control experienced by migrant women.

    Link to Centre for Women’s Justice Blog where this was originally published.

  • For many years the plight of migrant women brought to the UK for the purposes of marriage and then abused and abandoned in their countries of origin, was ignored, resulting in great hardships and injustice. Women are often abandoned with their children or separated from them and forced to live in conditions of destitution, isolation, discrimination and exploitation. They are trapped in faltering marriages and in circumstances that involve the deliberate infraction of their legal rights to protection, financial support, children and rehabilitation. Until recently, this problem was little understood in law, policy and practice in the UK and many women were denied re-entry to the UK to engage, in particular, in family law proceedings where issues of custody of children and financial support are decided.

    It has taken seven years of painstaking legal work, lobbying and campaigning to raise awareness of TMA and to bring about change that provides a level of justice and protection for abandoned women. The turning point came with the case of ‘AM’ (pseudonym).

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  • The case of AM, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWHC 2591 (Admin) (14 October 2022) (bailii.org) established that the failure of the Home Office to put women abandoned abroad in the same position as victims of domestic abuse who have arrived under spousal visas and are in the UK amounted to unlawful discrimination. In a landmark ruling, the High Court held that, by not making provisions for abandoned women within immigration law and policy, the Home Office unlawfully discriminated against them in respect of their right to family life (Article 8). The Ruling drew upon the witness statement of Pragna Patel, who has led this work for many years.

    For more information about the case and the campaign that behind it, see A Victory for Victims of Transnational Marriage Abandonment — Centre for Women's Justice (centreforwomensjustice.org.uk (This blog was first published on the Centre for Women’s Justice Website.)

  • Following the High Court ruling, a working group on TMA that had been established to influence immigration policy worked with the Home Office for several months to implement changes in immigration rules and policy to give effect to the High Court ruling.

    Eventually, in January 2024, the Home Office issued new guidance for immigration caseworkers on how to process applications for transnational marriage abandonment. See here: Appendix victim of domestic abuse (accessible) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

    This guidance is helpful to those working with abandoned women. It sets out clearly the criteria and requirements needed for abandoned women to apply for a visa to re-enter the UK.

  • Home Office caseworkers

    In January 2024, in collaboration with Rights of Women, Immigration Lawyers Practitioners Association and others, Project Resist provided the first training of its kind to immigration caseworkers tasked with processing TMA applications.

    Feedback

    "I just wanted to send an email to say thank you for arranging today’s session on TMA. Would you please also pass on our thanks to all of your colleagues on the call who assisted with the presentation. This was really helpful in enabling us, as a casework team, to gain a better understanding of TMA and how this impacts victims. It will also help with our preparation for this new route and our understanding of the customers who we can expect to apply in this route. We really appreciate the time and effort everyone gave to deliver this for us.”

    Legal and non-legal professionals

    On 8 February 2024, the working group held a training session for legal and non-legal professionals working with migrant women. It was attended by almost 400 people.

    The launch session was recorded and can be found here:

    https://www.rightsofwomen.org.uk/resources-and-recordings/

    Feedback:

    “It was so wonderful listening to such phenomenal female speakers educate other professionals on a topic that is widely ignored. Thank you to all involved.”

    “Excellent presentation! Clear, precise and to the point. Case examples were an excellent addition. Understanding what VAWG orgs can do was also critical - very accessible. Very important that this training was delivered by experts in the field who are so rooted in the work.”

    “This is very important training that is needed within the DA (domestic abuse) section as TMA is becoming prevalent.”

    Forthcoming training:

    Over the coming months, Project Resist will be delivering training to grass roots organisations across the UK on how to support victims of TMA. It will cover immigration law and policy pertaining to abused and abandoned women as well as provide practical advice and back up support to caseworkers.

  • ·  Anitha, S., Roy, A. and Yalamarty, H. (2016) Disposable women: Abuse, violence and abandonment in transnational marriages. Lincoln: University of Lincoln.

    ·      Anitha, S., Patel, P., Handa, R. and Jahangir, S. (2016) Emerging issues for international family law Part 1: Transnational marriage abandonment as a form of domestic violence. Family Law Journal, 46 (10). p. 1247

    ·      Jahangir, S., Anitha, S., Patel, P., and Handa, R. (2016) Emerging issues for international family law Part 2: Possibilities and challenges to providing effective legal remedies in cases of transnational marriage abandonment. Family Law Journal, 46 (11), p. 1352

    ·      Patel, P., Handa, R., Anitha, S., Jahangir S. (2016) Emerging issues for international family law: Part 3: Transnational marriage abandonment and the dowry question. Family Law Journal, 46 (12), p. 1443 

    ·      Outcast Brides’ – BBC Inside Out - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04vzq85

    ·      The wives abandoned by British Asian men’ – BBC News - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6OmhfOgjdescription