The UK migrant context: a manufactured crisis
While front page headlines warn of “an invasion” of migrants who are draining social systems, the UK is only home to 1% of the world’s refugees (Asylum in the UK, no date), which represents less than 0.74% of the UK population (Refugee facts and statistics | The IRC, 2025). The vast majority of refugees (83%) are housed by low- and middle-income countries (Refugee Council, 2025) and the UK has a low ratio of asylum seeking applications to population – ranking 20th in Europe (Refugee Council, 2025). There is no evidence that asylum seekers commit more crimes than settled populations, yet the rhetoric of the dangerous migrant criminal is a common political narrative. Nearly 1 in 5 (19%) asylum seekers said they felt unsafe in the UK due to discrimination against their ethnicity, religion, nationality or language (Fernández-Reino and Cuibus, 2024).
Stoking anti-immigrant fear and blame is a strategy to deflect attention from the over decade long erosion of the UK’s health care system, including the economic and healthcare staffing levels fallout of Brexit, systematic underfunding of the NHS, and structural racism – all of which have contributed to unacceptable levels of maternal morbidity and mortality (Marmot, 2020; Birthrights, 2022; Hamed et al., 2022). In April 2025, when the Government made shocking budget cuts to ringfenced maternity services, the head of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) said, “they will rip the heart out of any moves to improve maternity safety.” (Murphy, 2025).
Structural neglect is especially evident for racialised as Black and Brown parents, who are between three to four times more likely to die in the perinatal period compared to White pregnant people (Atty, 2024; Vousden et al., 2024). Pregnant people seeking asylum in the UK are profoundly more vulnerable than the general population; caught in the crosshairs of a hostile immigration environment, the health weathering effects of racism and xenophobia (Geronimus, 2023), and frequent poverty and destitution magnified by no right to work, they have very little control over many aspects of their lives and care. In the perinatal period, asylum seeking pregnant people in the UK are three times more likely to die, seven times more likely to develop complications and four times more likely to develop postpartum depression than UK residents (Asif, Baugh and Jones, 2015).
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) has called the UK’s hostile immigration environment a “reproductive injustice” and “an affront to the human rights of vulnerable pregnant women and their families” – calling for an immediate end to National Health Service (NHS) charging for maternity care and urgent change to immigration policies to eliminate alarming health inequalities for undocumented migrants, asylum seekers and refugees (Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, 2022).
How the current asylum system fuels reproductive injustices – listening to mothers
My research in London with pregnant and postpartum mothers seeking asylum revealed the many threats to asylum seekers’ full realisation of their SRHR. Positive experiences do exist – some mothers shared interactions with kind individual medical staff and access to care and medication not available in their home countries. Yet, compared to the general population, asylum seekers face significant barriers to accessing adequate care including the structurally racist lack of appropriate translation services, transportation barriers, unclear and inconsistent requirements around proof of address and ID, misinformation about fees for care, and a complicated antenatal care system (Asif and Kienzler, 2022). The numerous reproductive injustices recounted by dozens of parents during my research triangulate existing evidence and cannot go ignored.
"Addressing the rise of xenophobic, white supremacist and patriarchal political rhetoric and policies would improve health systems for all in the UK."
Anna Caffrey
Dire living conditions
UK asylum policy locks people into poverty by banning them from working. They receive an inadequate £49.18 per person per week on a payment card for food, clothing and toiletries, or only £9.95 per person if their assigned accommodation provides meals.
Asylum seekers in the UK are not allowed to choose where to live. They are frequently housed in crowded, low-quality hotels, with little privacy and no access to cooking facilities or space for children to play. A woman from Namibia said, “It's like you're in a box.” They report pests, cold, and damp conditions. Women told me the food is inedible, greasy and led to vomiting throughout pregnancy and malnutrition in children. A woman from Iraq said she lost 10kg during pregnancy due to the extremely poor asylum hotel food. Surveillance levels are high - women shared stories of getting in trouble if they don’t appear at mealtimes, even if they’re recovering from a caesarean section and having difficulty walking. They are not allowed to keep food in their rooms.
Structural barriers to care
Administrative shortfalls and lack of translation services are common barriers to dignified maternal care. Some women miss appointments as they are frequently moved to other parts of the UK without warning and their appointment letters are sent to old addresses. A woman from Belarus told me she received no prenatal care because she didn’t have an NHS number; her first contact with maternity care was in labour. Some mothers avoid all maternity services, not realising they are legally entitled to free care as people seeking asylum; asylum seekers are occasionally mistakenly billed thousands of pounds for care, causing significant distress (Osuh, 2025). An Eritrean mother shared that her violent ex-husband was used as her translator in labour and aftercare instructions for her caesarean section were not explained, so her wound became infected.
Experiences of racism and poorer care
Many mothers reported neglect or abuse while in labour or labouring alone, resulting in traumatic experiences and avoidable morbidity. A Nigerian mother reported she was left waiting while others were admitted to the labour ward ahead of her. When she was finally admitted, one nurse called to another, “We have another asylum seeker.” She felt humiliated, and that they gave her poorer care because of her status. Many mothers told me they felt neglected by healthcare staff while in labour only to be told they needed an emergency caesarean section. Women reported that despite being relatively young, healthy and having had previous vaginal births it was rare for pregnant people in asylum hotels to deliver vaginally. In my ongoing study of a few dozen women, over 70% of their UK births were by caesarean section, which come with increased health risks for mothers and infants.
Recovering from traumatic births alone in asylum hotels is especially difficult. Many mothers described struggling with their mental health, feeling alone, and experiencing chronic pain. One mother summarised her experience: “I thank God that I'm released from a nightmare of my past [in my home country], but then I dealt with another nightmare [in the UK], which I don't know where it will end.”
All these factors constrain parents’ human right to have children and raise them safely. Several women told me that despite wishing for more children, they would never have another child in the UK due to their maltreatment as asylum seekers. A Nigerian mother said, “I'm not giving birth again here. [...] I'm scared.”
Interrelated threats to SRHR and safety in the UK
The inequitable health outcomes and other human rights violations of migrants in the UK are inextricably linked to the worsening political climate for women, LGBTQI+ people and other minoritised people across the UK, regardless of migration status. Political leaders who make xenophobic and Islamophobic claims that asylum seekers are criminals, drains on the system, and threats to British women and national values, are the same leaders who openly express misogynistic views and pursue policies that would violate the SRHR of all UK residents. Nigel Farage, the anti-migration leader Reform UK, suggests privatising healthcare and rolling back abortion rights in the UK (Culbertson, 2025). Reform UK also proposes ending current legal protections for women and LGBTQI+ people against direct discrimination, and scrapping Diversity, Equality and Inclusion rules. Political rhetoric that ‘others’ certain populations is especially dangerous to women and other minoritised people. In September, while thousands of far-right supporters marched in London, chanting anti-immigrant, and racist slogans, a British-born Sikh woman in her 20s was raped in a racially aggravated attack. The perpetrators told her, "You don't belong in this country, get out" (The Week, 2025).
In November 2025, the ruling UK Labour Party leadership proposed sweeping immigration reforms, a crackdown modelled after Denmark (Watson and Cowling, 2025), which could further undermine human rights. One reform proposes refugees are returned to their country of origin when it is deemed ‘safe’. Even if a war ends, will women be returned if there is no access to quality maternal health care including safe abortion? Will LGBTQI+ asylum seekers be returned to countries where they have no right to exist? Will children be ripped away from the only home, language and culture they’ve ever known?
An underfunded and structurally unequal maternal health system, evidenced by the poorer outcomes of Black and Asian mothers and abuse of migrants, are part of the same misogynistic and far right ideology that would see the UK lose the right to abortion, gender and racial equality, and body autonomy. To resist these injustices, actions are needed at the highest structural levels, as well as from grassroots community efforts.
Acts of resistance – dialogue and solidarity.
During my time alongside parents seeking safety in the UK, I observed incredible solidarity among them. The peer support groups I facilitate – a simple format of sitting in a circle, sharing experiences, listening, providing each other with encouragement and tips for navigating UK systems – is a low cost, easily reproducible, empowering act of resistance. On a micro level, these parents are finding a way out of grief and despair towards belonging and healing. Researchers who use an accompaniment model working alongside community members in solidarity (Rosales, Johnson and Rödlach, 2024), avoiding oppressive power imbalances of top-down initiatives, can connect communities with change makers for structural improvements. These parents, who fear speaking out publicly until they achieve settled status, have asked me to share their stories with nurses, doctors, midwives and policy makers to avoid these harms being repeated in the future.
Moving forward
Addressing the rise of xenophobic, white supremacist and patriarchal political rhetoric and policies would improve health systems for all in the UK. The late Labour politician Tony Benn observed, “The way a Government treats refugees is very instructive because it shows you how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it.”(Devine, 2018, p. 120). By reaffirming its commitment to human rights for all, humanely reforming the asylum system, and tackling the root causes of a strained health system, the UK government would usher in positive changes benefitting all women and pregnant people, whether from settled communities or new arrivals escaping global crises. Research and community activism that promotes dialogue and understanding can help shift narratives away from scapegoating marginalised people.
References
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