Reproductive injustice in Britain: punishing illegalized migrant women from the Global South and separating families

ABSTRACT

This article aims to show how race, gender, class, and other identity markers intersect to oppress, control and discipline poor and illegalized single migrant mothers and pregnant women from the Global South. The article draws on evidence from three ethnographic studies conducted between 2008 and 2017 to shed light on the predicaments of mothers and pregnant women excluded from the welfare safety-net, who were flying under the radar due to the fear of deportation. It shows how (cr)immigration controls render women vulnerable to victimization and harm. The second part of the article addresses imprisonment and punishment, treatment by the criminal justice system, and separation from children placed in foster care. The evidence strongly suggests that controls in Britain disrupt the core principles of reproductive justice, including reproductive autonomy and health, and to parent children in a safe and healthy environment without fear of retaliation from the government. This is being termed as racist-gendered state violence.

KEYWORDS:

• Crimmigration
• intersectionality
• migrant women
• imprisonment
• reproductive justice

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and advice. I would also like to express my gratitude to the audience at the Birkbeck Criminology Seminar, University of Warwick Criminal Justice Seminar, and John Jay College (City University of New York) Sociology Seminar where various versions of this paper were presented.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Important note: migrant gender diverse people may also be pregnant and experience criminalization and harm, in some cases intensified by their gender expression and/or sexuality.

2. According to RJ, institutional forces such as racism, sexism, colonialism, and poverty influence people’s individual freedoms in societies. There are also other factors – such as ability, gender identity, carceral status, sexual orientation, and age – all of which can result in reproductive oppression (Ross 2017).

3. An overwhelming number of women who approached the organization were from Africa. The exact reason behind this is not known to the author; however, it could in part be the result of official dispersal policy involving the re-location of asylum seekers to parts of the country linked with their ethnic/language clusters. The organizations also received a large number of single men from Africa and the Middle-East. All of these countries have established diaspora communities and strong historical, linguistic and colonial ties to Britain.

4. For example, see https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmhaff/637/637.pdf.

5. Hostile environment is a set of administrative and legislative measures that created a sprawling web of immigration controls embedded within public services and communities (including schools, hospitals and police). The measures criminalize and exclude undocumented and statusless migrants and make their lives difficult, in order to force them out of the country.

6. Dr McDonald was the only GP in the region who attended to precarious status migrants.

7. In 2018, two leading organizations, Southall Black Sisters and Liberty, initiated a “super-complaint” against police forces for sharing victim’s immigration details with the Home Office.

8. Ken also mentioned about nursing mothers approaching the organization once the Home Office support discontinues.

9. The ‘hostile environment’ and NHS data sharing practices also deter women from accessing abortion services, see: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/immigration-nhs-patient-record-data-migrant-women-health-care-abortion-a8180906.html.