Women who have fled rape, forced marriage and sexual exploitation are being subjected to coercion and control by Home Office contractors in hotels, according to new research.
The charity Women for Refugee Women has carried out the first research specifically focusing on the experiences of women in Home Office asylum seeker hotels. The researchers include seven women who have previously lived in such accommodation.
A total of 63 women from 26 different countries took part in the research. According to freedom of information data obtained for the report, there were 8,029 female asylum seekers living in hotels as of June 2024, with the largest three nationality groups being Iranians (1,236), Eritreans (618) and Afghans (586).
The charity said that in the last decade 65-85% of its clients have been survivors of gender-based violence.
The research found that almost half of the women surveyed said that living in a Home Office hotel made them feel suicidal, with complaints of voyeurism from male hotel staff entering their rooms without permission when they were naked or partly dressed, sexual harassment from male staff and oppressive daily roll calls and evening curfews, which were described as “school dormitory rules” that “infantilised” the women.
Even women who left hotels to go to church or a local shop were sometimes questioned about what they were doing and where they were going. Women who live in dispersal accommodation, such as shared housing, are not subjected to the same levels of scrutiny. One woman missed her curfew by 10 minutes and was locked out of the hotel. She had to knock on the window to be allowed back inside.
The report’s authors acknowledged that women who experienced sexual harassment from hotel staff were not experiencing Home Office-sanctioned policies, but said that it was the Home Office that had designed the hotel environments to be “controlling, threatening and surveilling”.
One woman said she was sexually harassed on a daily basis by a hotel manager who was continually knocking on her door and asking her to go out with him. He said to her: “You are looking for men outside but we are here.”
She was given permission to stay with a friend for a while when she became ill, but after she returned she found she had been evicted from the hotel, with some of her belongings given to a charity shop and her Home Office paperwork thrown in the bin. She has been homeless and sofa-surfing for the last year. The hotel manager who had been sexually harassing her has been dismissed.
While some women were permitted visitors, many were not. One woman, who had returned to her hotel after having surgery, felt so unwell she asked if a friend could stay overnight to look after her, but her request was refused by hotel staff.
Women struggled to survive on the current Home Office allowance of £8.86 a week, which was reduced from £9.58 in January. One woman said she spent half of her weekly allowance on bus fares to report to the Home Office while another said she had too little money to be able to leave the hotel and a third said that although sanitary products were supposed to be provided by the hotel they often were not and she didn’t have enough money to buy them out of her allowance.
The report calls for an end to hotel use and the provision of safe and supportive accommodation for women to recover and rebuild their lives.
Andrea Vukovic, deputy director of Women for Refugee Women, said: “The government needs to urgently get a grip on what’s happening in asylum seeker hotels to prevent further harm.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “These are very serious allegations and we will investigate them urgently. The Home Office takes any allegation of wrongdoing or criminality by staff in asylum accommodation very seriously.
“The health and safety of those we support and accommodate is our priority. All incidents of inappropriate staff behaviour at our accommodation sites are thoroughly investigated and we expect suppliers to take rapid action when they fall below our standards.”
