This webinar will equip you with practical knowledge about how to successfully claim asylum (including at appeal stage) for clients on the grounds of a risk of re-trafficking if they were removed from the UK. You will develop more detailed understanding of migrant domestic workers’ experiences of trafficking, and of claiming asylum, and of the role of expert witnesses. You will learn from new evidence about the risks of re-trafficking faced by survivors who return to the Philippines as their country of origin.

The webinar is hosted by the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA) and King’s College London, in partnership with the Voice of Domestic Workers, Kalayaan and After Exploitation.

Find out more about the Survivor Futures project here.

This event is open to all, you do not need to enter a membership ID to sign up. Please email training@ilpa.org.uk if you have any questions ahead of the webinar.

Tutors: Beya Rivers, Hackney Law Centre, Professor John Sidel, London School of Economics and Mimi Jalmasco, Voice of Domestic Workers.

Beya Rivers has worked extensively with victims of trafficking and modern slavery, with a large cohort of Filipina clients who have been trafficked (predominantly) to the Middle East and then to the UK with domestic worker visas. While these cases are usually unsuccessful at the initial asylum stage, Hackney Law Centre have had consistent success at appeal stage. Beya will discuss, using case studies, how to run a successful protection appeal for this cohort of clients, including:

• Risk of re-trafficking as a ground for asylum

• Articles 3 and 4 and Humanitarian Protection

Prof. John Sidel is a specialist on Philippine and Indonesian history, politics, and society. He has written many expert reports in asylum cases involving Filipina and Indonesian victims of human trafficking in the UK and will discuss:

• Recurring patterns among the victims of trafficking

• Recurring patterns in Home Office reasons for refusal

• Recurring challenges in writing the expert reports

Mimi Jalmasco is a migrant domestic worker, a Trustee of the Voice of Domestic Workers, and Branch Secretary of Unite the union’s domestic workers’ branch, the first domestic workers’ branch in a trade union globally. Mimi will discuss:

• Her experience as a migrant domestic worker claiming asylum in the UK as a survivor of trafficking
• New evidence regarding the outcomes for domestic worker survivors who return to the Philippines after exploitation, and her experience as a co-researcher
• The limitations of “victimhood” and the broader struggle for domestic workers’ rights in the UK