'Rishi Sunak's Rwanda plan is a disaster for all women - this is just the start'
Rishi Sunak is licking his wounds after the government's flagship Rwanda deportation policy was deemed unlawful by the Supreme Court this week. The historic ruling was right to call out Rwanda's dire human rights record, and the Tories must reconsider sending vulnerable asylum seekers into further danger. But now women in the UK are set to be at even higher risk of gender-based violence if our bruised prime minister's chilling next-steps materialise.
The Supreme Court's unanimous ruling exposed the callousness of Sunak's plot, to turn our backs on vulnerable refugees and whisk them away to a country with a recent history of atrocities towards its own natives. Extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and torture all lay bare on Rwanda's rap sheet, resulting in the highest court in the land deeming it a unfit state to house migrants from the UK.
But this heinous track record has yet to deter our PM - he's now willing to put more lives at risk by scrapping the human rights laws that vulnerable women in the UK rely on every day. In a stone-cold retaliation that should worry us all, Sunak has vowed to "do what is necessary" to fulfil his 'stop the boats' promise - and that includes winding back the clock on decades of British human rights laws.
Falling for Braveman's poison after her blistering letter accused him of betrayal, Sunak brazenly told MPs after the court ruling: "If it becomes clear that our domestic legal frameworks or international conventions are still frustrating the plans… I am prepared to change our laws and revisit those international relationships."
He plans to bring in emergency legislation to 'confirm' Rwanda is a safe country for asylum seekers, and defy the courts in the process. This is a disastrous move for vulnerable migrants, but it's also dangerous for the entire nation - and the very people the Prime Minister is claiming to serve.
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This is because the Human Rights Act doesn't just protect those seeking safe asylum, but vulnerable British citizens too. The Act, which incorporates the rights set out by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into British domestic law, is a vital tool to protect women and girls facing all forms of gender-based violence.
The charity End Violence Against Women explains that "it is used to ensure that action is taken to keep us safe in schools, by local councils, by health services, social services and by the police". Given the Tories' woeful track record on tackling domestic abuse in the throes of an epidemic of violence against women, the last thing we need is for survivors to be stripped of their rightful legal protections.
When police services fail to protect women from deadly abusers - as they often do - the Human Rights Act is often the only lifeline left to rely on in order to seek safety and justice. A linchpin of our legal framework, it gives women agency to live a life free from terror and violence. Without it, domestic abuse survivors may be unable to access legal aid and protections. They also face being silenced when holding institutions to account that have failed to keep them safe.
These laws are used when a police force neglects to act on reports of violence before a woman is murdered by her partner, for example, or if the government fails to offer safe housing for women and children desperately fleeing the perils of abuse.
Women like Bekhal Mahmod relied on the Human Rights Act to seek justice for her sister Banaz Mahmod, who was brutally murdered by her two cousins under the instruction of her brother and father who plotted the horrific 'honour' killing. Banaz did everything she could to warn the police that her family planned to kill her before her life was stripped away in unthinkable circumstances. Her sister Bekhal went on to highlight the police failures and changed British law to protect women from the same fate.
These rights were also exercised to legally challenge the Met's shocking response to Sarah Everard's vigil. And brave victims of the "black cap rapist" John Worboys also used the Human Rights Act to challenge police failures to properly investigate his crimes.
Now bereaved families may never get justice for their murdered sisters, mothers and daughters if these plans come to fruition. And survivors of abuse will undoubtedly be silenced if these rights are removed. This is yet another sinister Tory plot to evade scrutiny and responsibility, under the warped guise of nationalism.
This isn't the first time the government has moved to scrap our human rights laws either. The Tories have been on a mission to strip vulnerable women of their freedoms since it drew up draconian plans to replace European law with a so-called 'Bill of Rights' after Brexit. Since then, leading women's charities have strongly condemned the government's intentions, warning how disastrous it could be for women and girls across the UK. It's clear the government still isn't listening, as they are blinded by their own merciless agenda.
The government's ghastly ambitions to water down human rights laws in order to wash their hands of vulnerable asylum seekers is a cowardly act that should cause public outrage. Rishi Sunak should stop listening to figures like Braverman, who are obsessed with fanning the flames of anti-immigration rhetoric at any cost, and instead consider the vulnerable lives he will be putting at risk if he tears up the UK's ties to European human rights.
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