Women seeking asylum in UK allege sexual abuse in mixed-sex hotels

Read More

Women and girls seeking asylum in Britain have alleged that they were raped, sexually assaulted and harassed after being placed in mixed Home Office accommodation.

An Observer investigation has uncovered claims of sexual violence at multiple Home Office hotels including allegations against fellow asylum seekers as well as hotel staff.

In one case, a 14-year-old girl was allegedly groomed and raped after being separated from her mother at a hotel housing mostly single men in south-west England. The girl’s mother, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Observer that her daughter had previously experienced abuse and was “extremely vulnerable”.

Despite this, she and her sibling were placed in a different room to her, across the corridor, next door to a group of men. The mother said she repeatedly raised concerns with hotel staff and asked for her children to be moved into her room, but was told this was not possible. When she tried to keep her door propped open at night so she could keep watch on them, she says she was told by staff that it must be closed.

The girl is said to have been targeted by a man from the neighbouring room who gave her food and invited her into his room. The alleged rape was only discovered months later, in October 2023, after the girl began suffering gynaecological problems.

Her mother claimed failings by the Home Office had allowed the man to “prey on her” daughter. “The security was lax in the hotel where they put us. There were fights, constant smoking in the rooms, screaming, fighting, arguing. It was horrible. I said, ‘I’m not comfortable because my children are not with me’.”

She said her daughter had been “suicidal” after the incident and had refused to go to school. “[My daughter] said, ‘I don’t feel like being here.’”

The hotel was later closed. The Home Office said it was “extremely concerned” about the case and was investigating. The mother said it seemed as though the Home Office “knew what they did was wrong” because when the original hotel closed down, the family was moved to a women-only hotel.

“That’s what they should have done originally but it seemed they wanted to cut costs,” she said. The family are pursuing a human rights claim.

In another case, a pregnant woman supported by the charity Rape Crisis was housed in a mixed-sex hostel and remained living there after her baby was born. She described single men, living in the neighbouring rooms, who would “drink together and smoke different things”, and said she was often followed.

Another woman, also supported by Rape Crisis, was placed in mixed accommodation, even after she disclosed being trafficked for sexual exploitation. After she arrived in the UK, the woman, from Sierra Leone, found herself subjected to further abuse from an individual whom she had previously trusted, so was taken to a “safe house” while she waited for her asylum claim to be processed.

In reality, this was a hostel housing both men and women, including people using drugs. She told the charity it was “the most scary seven months” of her life.

The cases have prompted calls for urgent action by the Home Office to tackle “systemic failures to protect women and children from sexual violence in asylum accommodation”. Ciara Bergman, chief executive of Rape Crisis, said the failings amounted to a “scandal”.

Sarah Collier, a human rights solicitor at Irwin Mitchell, said the firm was seeing “a lot of issues with women in asylum accommodation”, including that people were being housed in mixed hotels even when they had disclosed being victims of sexual abuse in their home countries or on the journey to Britain.

She said that in cases where a resident had a criminal background, they were often contained and the Home Office tried to deport them. But in cases where complaints were raised by fellow hotel residents, very little was done.

In the case involving the girl who was allegedly groomed and raped, she said her mother had “raised concerns more than once that were not heeded”. “There was a man in the room next door to the daughter’s room, a single man. He was an adult, and he effectively started to groom the daughter. The mother would see it; she would make them leave their door open during the day.”

She said it was “very morally wrong” for the child to have been placed “unsupervised” in mixed accommodation, in a room neighbouring single men.

“You wouldn’t put someone who has been fleeing domestic violence from a male perpetrator into a mixed hostel. The Home Office is very well aware of the risk.”

Charities and support groups have long raised concerns about the safety of women in asylum accommodation. These include that women and girls are being forced to share spaces – including bathrooms – with strangers, and that women who have fled sexual violence and abuse in their home countries have been forced to live in mixed accommodation where they have faced further sexual violence and threats of sexual violence – including from staff.

The full scale of the abuse remains unclear because the Home Office has failed in its duty to comply with freedom of information laws, refusing a request to supply basic data about the number of reports of sexual violence in asylum accommodation without providing any reason for the refusal.

It also refused to provide data on the number of staff accused of sexual misconduct, and the number dismissed as a result, because it said it did not hold easily accessible information on staff complaints about sexual misconduct and that to get the figures would require a “manual trawl”. It subsequently failed to share the outcome of an internal review without providing any explanation, despite this being due two months ago.

Research by charities indicates the problems are widespread. A recent survey by Women for Refugee Women found almost a quarter of women had been subjected to sexual harassment or abuse from another hotel resident, while 12% had experienced this from hotel staff.

Of the 59 women who were surveyed, 81% said they were in a mixed hotel. Two-thirds of those said they would have preferred to be in a women-only hotel or a hotel with women-only spaces and floors.

The Observer was also told about multiple claims of sexual abuse that were allegedly perpetrated by staff. In one case, a woman who fled Iran due to threats against her life from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards was placed in hostel-style initial accommodation, where she stayed for two years. According to Rape Crisis, the charity supporting her, she was groomed and sexually exploited by two staff members, including one who invited her to his home.

She reported his behaviour and this was reported to the Home Office and accommodation provider, leading to the man being suspended temporarily. But there was “no effective route to follow up after the complaint had been submitted” and the woman “was not directly contacted about the progress of the investigation or the outcome of her complaint”, the charity said. The perpetrator stayed working at the hostel and faced no further action.

Another worker at a Home Office hotel accused of sexually exploiting a female asylum seeker went on to groom another victim after the initial allegations were not investigated.

Gemma Lousley, policy and research manager at Women for Refugee Women, said that as well as the most serious cases, the charity also often heard about “very insidious but really distressing … lower level behaviours” that “seem to happen really routinely”. These included “knock and walks”, where “male staff members knock on the door and just walk in, before the woman has given a response to say it’s OK to come in”.

She called for a “more preventative approach”, including more robust reporting processes. “Hopefully, any government interested in tackling violence against women and girls, and particularly this government who have made it really clear that it’s a priority, would include asylum-seeking women within that. Clearly, one thing that would really help that is women being offered the choice of women-only accommodation,” she said.

In 2023, the Women and Equalities Committee raised the same issues: “The Home Office should conduct an urgent review of safeguarding policies and practices across all asylum support contracts, to ensure the asylum support contracts safeguarding framework is being consistently and effectively implemented in all settings. It should publish its review and an action plan within three months.”

A recent investigation by the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration found that of 245 contingency asylum accommodation sites identified in June 2024, 116 housed single adult males, single adult females, and families, all at the same site. Only 12 sites were designated for families only, while only four sites were for single adult females, housing a total of 82 women.

The report raised safeguarding concerns, citing examples where “single adult men” and “single adult women” with “significant mental health problems” were required to share bathroom facilities; and another case where “single men were sharing communal bathroom facilities with families with children”. When inspectors raised the issue with a Home Office senior manager they said they saw no issues arising from this situation but undertook to look into it. When inspectors later requested an update, none was provided, the ICIBI said.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Protecting the health and safety of women and girls in the asylum system is of paramount importance, and we are very clear that our mission to halve violence against women and girls applies to all women in the UK, no matter their circumstances or their background.

“We are therefore extremely concerned at the incident reported to have taken place in 2022, and we will thoroughly investigate any other reports that are passed to us, together with our contracted accommodation providers.

“The Home Office remains determined to end the use of asylum hotels over time, as part of our wider effort to restore order to the asylum system.”