New Research Exposes the Hidden Harms of Britain’s Asylum System

Photo: Flickr/EYE DJ, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

On 22nd September 2026, the University of Oxford’s Border Criminologies network published “Motherhood and Intersectionality: Social Harms under the UK Asylum System”, co-authored by Dr Amy Cortvriend of Loughborough University and Dr Vardan Petrosian of the University of Westminster. The feature brings our British Journal of Criminology article, “Intersectional Harm and Motherhood in the UK Asylum System”, to a wider public audience. The article was published online on 2nd December 2025 and appears in the journal’s July 2026 issue.

Drawing on interviews with ten mothers who had sought asylum in the UK, our research shows how poverty, insecure housing, prolonged uncertainty, employment restrictions and racialised stigma combine with gender and caring responsibilities. These conditions restrict women’s ability to parent with dignity and autonomy. Yet motherhood also provided strength, hope and a means of resisting the harms imposed upon them.

These harms are not inevitable: they are consequences of political choices. The right to work, adequate financial and housing support, safe and legal routes and a humane, needs-led asylum system would materially improve the lives of mothers and their children.