Lisa-Marie from FiLiA in conversation with Maggy Moyo from LISG and Jane Traies, writer and researcher. 

Lisa-Marie: Hi everybody welcome and welcome Maggy and welcome Jane. So I'm Lisa-Marie, and I'm a volunteer with FiLiA, which is a women's rights organisation, and I'm really, really delighted to welcome Maggy today, who is an activist and campaigner, a volunteer with LISG, the Lesbian Immigration Support Group who we are going to be talking a lot about during this discussion and also a volunteer with FiLiA. Welcome Maggy. 

Jane, who is a writer and researcher. Welcome Jane. 

Now, one of the aims of FiLiA, a really important one, is to amplify the voices of women, particularly those less often heard or purposefully silenced. I think this book fits very, very well within that context. So the book is called Free to be Me: Refugee Stories From the Lesbian Immigration Support.

And it's a book of experiences of women who have fled persecution and human rights violations because of their sexual orientation. It's a story of lesbians seeking sanctuary. 

Shall we start by looking at the origins of the book.  How did this collaboration come about?

Jane: This collaboration came about, considering that four or five years ago I had no idea that the Lesbian Immigration Support Group even existed and how it came about was actually because of my previous book, really, which was also a book of women's life stories and experiences. It's a book of life stories told by old women, women who were born before 1950, who identify as lesbians.

One day about 2017, I had an email, out of the blue, from a woman who I didn't know, from the north of England, I live in the far south, saying, is there anything in your research about old lesbians that could help us? And the help she wanted was in supporting a woman who was seeking asylum, a woman from Uganda, who'd had her claim turned down by the home office as so often happens. And they were a bit stumped at the support group because they'd never before had a woman to support in the group who was so old. It turns out that this woman was over 70. And I suppose basically the Home Office doesn't have a picture of an African great-grandmother in their head when they think of a lesbian.

So Sorrel was saying to me, is there anything in your research about being old and being a lesbian that might help? And I thought, yes, of course there is what a wonderful opportunity. So I wrote a letter and then I met Grace. And then I met Karen and then I met Sorrel. And so I got to know them slowly.

And the next person I think I met was probably Maggy because she and I both spoke at the working class history museums February history month event that following February. So gradually I got to know the whole group. And of course you don't have to know them very long to know they're very wonderful. Every single one of them.

I was looking for my new project and there it was in front of me. So that was how it all began. And I was invited along to one of the monthly meetings to speak to the women and say, was this something they wanted to do? And yes, they did. So we did it. 

Lisa-Marie: Thank you very much. I remember very well meeting LISG for the first time. Maybe we'll come back to that. 

So Maggy, maybe I can ask this one to you. So this context that women find themselves in. It's difficult and almost impossible to recognise and connect with your sexuality as a lesbian, when you're surrounded by hostility. There are no visible role models and Aphrodite Lunar talks about finding undercover lesbians.

How do you begin to find yourself and others when it's so underground if you like pushed underground? 

Maggy: Yeah, I think that is the very difficult problem for most of the women there, because I remember back home, you are not given the chance, you know, you can explore with many toys or things until you decide this is what the person likes.

As soon as something just gives them a hint, that something is not right, they just spring into action. But it must be stopped or it must be blocked. It can be a behaviour. It can be dressing up or just liking certain things. Like, for instance, I've seen that in our culture, coming from a Christian family, simple things as wearing trousers was not allowed in my family.

My dad never liked that. We were all supposed to put on long skirts and dresses. So as soon as you start to be like ‘oh, I love shorts or trousers’ then it hints at something and they have to do something to stop you. So how about something that is not deep? How do you go about it? You just don't know how to start and how to deal with it.

It takes you years and years to deal with it, to accept yourself and to say, this is who I am. 

Lisa-Marie: Thank you. So it's hard for many to comes to terms with sexuality, never mind when you're in such hostile surroundings. And I think the resistance to lesbian sexuality, it's sort of seen as this ultimate affront to patriarchy, isn't it?

That you would reject males as sexual partners or that you would exclude men at all. And reading this book, it's really powerful how this is enforced to a greater or lesser extent in a really wide variety of ways and reinforced via legal systems, religious teachings, and cultural and social norms, and the book really draws out this intense threatening environment that is imposed upon women who are attracted to other women and enforced through the family and reading similar stories in some ways, expulsion from the family and forced marriage, the state torture implemented by the state in denial of what's going on in the community, corrective rape as it's called that exclusion again and physical violence. 

Where do you begin to turn when you find yourself thinking that feeling that you're attracted to other women and you're in this sort of environment? 

Maggy: Like I said, you deal with this issue in a way that, one, you accept that what they’re saying, that you are possessed is true or two, what you are feeling is who you are and everyone else is just crazy.

So it's two things. It's either you accept that you are possessed and take all the help that they will give you, that they'll force you into, or you just believe that I'm okay, whatever it will come with, I'm now ready for it because it's feelings that we're talking about. You can’t bury them, you can’t hide them forever.

It's just like someone was saying, hide the smoke, there is fire somewhere, you can't hide that. At the end of the day at a certain time, it will forcefully go out there. So you just have to prepare yourself that I know the consequences and I know that I'm going to get through this, but this is how I'm going to deal with it.

And the unfortunate part is that the way you decide to deal with things sometimes it's even more horrible than living in that same situation. 

 Why I'm saying so is that coming to this country was a big decision for one to take, for a young woman to take, for a young black woman to take not knowing where you are going.

And that now as a volunteer, I used to have friends who would share their stories, they wouldn't go deep. But now as a volunteer people, they come to me and they go deep with their stories. It's now I understand what those volunteers are going through. It's heavy. When someone will even open and show you the scars that this is what I went through. And it angers me, you know, when I realised that, so with all this, still the Home Office will not believe to a certain extent. So you'll be like, when you look at a person who's telling you the story, you'll be like, I think maybe you were much better back there than here because not having gone through all that you have gone through and still you have to face this kind of challenges in this country where you have to reveal yourself, the trauma, to convince somebody, a stranger, so that you can be given a right to live. It's not a right to remain. It's a right to live. 

Jane: It’s not in any way in intensity or importance as great. But I think one of the reasons that I was perhaps drawn to tell these stories to help tell these stories is that there is a shadow of all that in the past of any lesbian who is as old or older than I am, because it isn't actually all that long ago, that it was a very dangerous and frightening thing to be a lesbian in this country also.

And the kinds of revenge that can be taken on women for being not what society wants, not what the patriarchy wants is always that same sort of violence. And I'm always very aware too, that the country I belong to probably put those attitudes in most of the countries in Africa, for instance, the homophobia that people like Maggy have faced in their own countries would probably actually put there by the British Empire originally.

So there's a lot of empathy in a weird way in listening to these stories. Of reaching out. It's not, it's not a complete understanding. I've never been through what Maggy’s been through, but there's something there that allows us to connect, I think is what I'm saying. 

Lisa-Marie: There's a beauty and a strength in that connection and understanding. I think that's very important for future activism.

 From the book there seems to be a moment of crisis often that proceeds women making that decision: I have to leave now -  and it can be the murder of a partner, the murder of a family member, assaults on family members. And that desperation, that point where a woman is willing to leave or needing to leave everything and everybody quite perilous journeys. Actually I think one woman talks about right, you've got to walk across this river walk quickly because there are crocodiles in it. These journeys that women have to undertake. To then come into, like you say, Maggy, the horrors of our immigration system and this culture of disbelief and hostile environment.

And I think Jane says at one point in the book, every step along the way, the refugee status depends on someone in authority believing your story. And you touched on this earlier, Maggy, about the home office having this set idea of what a lesbian must look and be and sound like. And I've heard you talk about this before.

Do you want to expand on that a bit and about what they actually said to you and to some of the other women?

Maggy: We've always had those kinds of comments. And one day I asked Sorrel, I was like, how has life been for lesbians in this country? It's when she told me stories about Section 28. We were not even supposed to be a teacher if they think that you're a lesbian or things like that. Then it was like, how come home office think it never happened here and it's been a smooth sailing for lesbians in this country? And yet you guys also had to go through some stuff? It's like for people who are coming from Africa, they are lying about what they have gone through compared to a lesbian in this country.

When it comes to how people dress up, how do lesbians look like? And it was before we went to Todmorden before we went to Wales for the festival. I had my own picture. I tried to dress up, you know, butchie and put on a shirt when going to court. I remember when I went to court, I put on a shirt. I was trying always to convince them because we didn't know exactly what they were looking for. Most of the refusals that were coming through was that the person didn't convince them enough that the person was a lesbian or dressed in a certain way, or for a gay man who was not feminine enough. He was just muscular and all that. 

And those were the ridiculous refusal statements that they used to do they are still using now. 

Jane: Yes, they are. The thing is that you can't win because if you look beautiful and feminine and you wear a bit of lipstick, they'll say you don't look like a lesbian, but I have to say among the members of this, there are also some extremely Butch dykes and when they finally have to confess that those people are lesbians, they say to them all, yes. All right. All right. You're a lesbian, but you'd be okay to go back to your own country. So like, if they don't get you one way, they get you the other. It’s appalling. 

Lisa-Marie: Absolutely. And Maggy, what did you have put on your t-shirt?

Maggy: That you're not muscular enough to be gay.

Lisa-Marie: That's what you were told? 

Maggy: Yes, And the plan was that we’re going to have 20 different statements printed on our T-shirts during the Pride match, all those statement that they always used to tell us, you know, so we wanted to do that. 

The laws that they have. They always think that all the countries, they follow the laws and in Zimbabwe you are not allowed, it's illegal to be a lesbian woman. 

According to the law, it's not illegal, but it's illegal for a gay man. So I've met many gay men from Zimbabwe, who came and passed in my life and they got a status straight away because that's what the law says.

And I've seen that before Zimbabwe is a patriarchal country whereby what kills a woman. That thing it's going to, what kills the men? That thing will turn a into issues like proper issues. So if they say it's illegal to be a gay man, but it's legal to be a lesbian or bisexual woman, it's not true.

That's not true, but they'll say, oh, that's what the law says. So according to law, it's not only in Zimbabwe, many countries, Namibia, South Africa, and most of our friends, they have been told to go and live in a different city. We have so many women who are bisexual ending up hiding the fact that they're bisexual.

Because if you say straight away that you're bisexual, then definitely you're not going to get a stay because we can easily go back to your country and decide to fall in love with a man. That's what the refusal will say straight away. So we had some women who just go straight away and say, I'm a lesbian woman because we're reading what the refusals were saying.

Jane: And that whole business about being able to go back to your own country and live safely or relocate to a different part of the country where nobody knows you. There is one story in the book, which so clearly disproves that as a possibility. And it's the story of a woman who, when she was discovered to be a lesbian, unusually, very unusually, her parents supported her and protected her and didn't throw her out and the whole family, therefore were persecuted, and during the course of the story, they moved from one end of the country to another, and then from another to another distant spot. And of course the networks, the social networks, the religious networks, the cultural networks pursued them and wherever they went, they were persecuted over a very large African country.

So if the Home Office was being honest with itself it would know perfectly well, this wasn't true or possible as Maggy says, 

Lisa-Marie: I think the story you're talking about, even when she and her mother, I think it is, get to the UK into England, the woman who has invited them over, then doesn't meet them because she's been threatened herself from people and she's frightened for herself. And she even sitting in England, she worked here. 

Jane:  It’s a very common story that you actually end up exhausted and frightened and completely without resources in the UK and the person who signed to say they were, your sponsor said, yes, there's somebody in the UK who will sponsor you just never turns up or disappears or switches their phone off. That's a story that I think Maggy, you will have heard over and over again. 

Lisa-Marie: And this idea that when you arrive here in a couple of stories, I think, not even knowing that this system exists, that is supposed to help you. Never mind supporting you to navigate it because it sounds like a nightmare. You know, women turning up in the middle. No, you have to go away or getting through that first bit, Jane, like you said. So finally we will acknowledge you're a lesbian, but we think that you'll be fine in your own country. Therefore, you know, you have to go back and you're not entitled to any more help. And, and off you go without even anywhere to stay. Vulnerable women being just thrown out in the streets by our system is extraordinarily complex and hostile environment is exactly the right phrase, actually. 

Coming back to this idea of, are you a lesbian? What a lesbian should look like and should act like, and the sort of proof that the home office is demanding. I remember meeting Liz at FiLiA, we went to Manchester. We met Liz in the same café mentioned in the book and sat and met all these incredible women.

And I'm still learning ever so much about this topic. I remember one of the women saying the Home Office has asked us for photographs or videos of us being intimate with our female partner to prove that we are lesbians. I leaned forward and I remember saying, I'm so sorry. I don't think I heard you correctly.

And she repeated herself and I looked around the room and there were about 15 women there from the Lesbian Immigration Support Group. And a number of them, a significant number were nodding their head. I don't even know what to say to that. You know we had a lawyer write to the Home Office and say, why are you demanding this? Where, where are these photographs and videos from women who said we were so desperate, we actually did send photographs in. What is going on here? That the Home Office thinks they can treat women, human beings, like this because it's disgusting and not in our name, not in our name. 

Maggy: Yeah. There's something I think with ZZ’s case, we had to ask Jane for support and Julian, because this is from South Africa, we just got close because we're speaking the same language south Africans and Zimbabweans, you know?

So she went through some stuff and she had to prove with all those photos that she had gone through that this is why, so the judge kept on saying that it's safe in South Africa. And just during this pandemic I remember one was brutally killed by the men who was part of the gang that were threatening ZZ before she left the country who happen to be the boyfriend. And this was among that group that we were trying so hard to convince home office, that this is what they're capable of doing. And the men did exactly that to ZZs young sister, but they still don't believe it's happening in countries where they say it's legal to be lesbians.

If you take South Africa it has the worst ever murders of lesbians and bisexual women in history, but they still don't believe it happens. They still don't believe it happens though.  

Jane:  The Home Office guidance, which I think they very often ignore sometimes does say, although it's not strictly illegal, it's culturally unacceptable.

The Home Office has guidance for each country, when I'm writing a support letter, I usually look at the Home Office guidance to that particular country, because sometimes you can use their own words against them. and they will say something like the police cannot always keep people safe and you know, in your heart, they don't try very hard actually.

But, yeah, there's a huge difference, as you say, Maggy, between something being technically illegal and what people think about it as you rightly say, women are in danger. And again, just to go back into history, it was never illegal to be a lesbian in this country either. Only gay male sex was actually illegal. It didn't stop people, punishing it in the most dreadful ways, any more than it does in your country or many other countries still now. 

Lisa-Marie: And I would say this country too, particularly recently, 

Maggy: When it comes to what Lisa mentioned about a showing of intimate photographs and stuff, then later you had to show photographs where you've been in a pride event or any LGBT event.

And right now I'm worried about the women because of lockdown who had just joined LISG. I'm only talking about LISG because that the few women that I know that they are all over this country, we had just been in this country when they lockdown happened, they don't have even one picture of Pride. They don't even know how Pride looks like.

 So those are the women who are not going to have any evidence to show it to home office, that the pattern of this community that they claimed to be. In some cities, there are no support groups like here in Manchester, where there are lots of LGBT support groups they don't even know about that

I lived in Bolton before I came here in Manchester. I was given that at the address of Manchester from Bolton that all the support groups are in Manchester. So I had to travel an hour from Bolton to Manchester so that I can attend those support groups. So these are the women that I'm talking about today.

We don't have even one evidence that they're going to show in court that they're part of this community and it's going to work against them because that's how they use it. 

Lisa-Marie: And I'm guessing there's no indication from the home office that they're going to take this into account. So you talked about finding support, Maggy, what did it feel like when you first met the woman from lesbian immigration?

Maggy: It was amazing for me. It was really amazing. I think I was in a really bad state, like I said, I was in Bolton. I was in a shared accommodation there. And then I was, I was going for my consultation in Bolton clinic, they are the ones who had to find out if I had friends, if I know anyone and I didn't know anyone, I didn't know anyone.

So my counsellor is the one who had to find these kind of groups, but unfortunately, most of them were in Manchester and my first submission had been refused. And I didn't know what next to do. I didn't know exactly how it works. I had no clue. I thought when you come here, see this many times to come here, you just tell a story and then there you go.

But I didn't know it has a long procedure, it was cruel like that. So I got refused. When I went to court, I went on my own because, like I said, at that time I did not know anyone. I went on my own, just they say, oh, you're going to court on such and such a day. I went there with all the information that I knew. I just shared that of which some of the things that I shared, they just worked against me because it is about culture, language. Also I think I was nervous because we were just explaining yourself in front there, the judge was a male person, my solicitor was male, the Home Office person was a male. The only the person who was a woman was the clerk who was letting people in and out. That was the only woman who was there.

 Coming from a country where you are reserved and you don't have to mind the language and how you say your things. So some of the things I think I found them difficult to explain to them, not only as a lesbian woman back just as a woman.

Some of the things were really, really difficult for me to just go deep into them. Not knowing that by holding back, it also comes against you. Having never been in court. I've never been in court in my whole life. It's just a shock. Everything. The system was just a shock. So I just did what I could do. And when it was done, I was refused.

Then I asked my solicitors what next? And he was like, oh, unfortunately I'm not helping you further. This is where I end. Why? Because they have to take new clients so they can get money. And they are done with you, it's like, they don't even put so much effort in your case. So I was like, where do I go?

I'm being threatened about eviction and stuff. So I went back to the clinic where I used to go, that's the only place that I knew that has a public place, where I could also meet people. I explain my situation. And then they say, okay, there's some organisations in Manchester. I was sent to WAST when they got to WAST then I explained my story. Then they said, okay, we know Lesbian Immigration Support Group that's how I came by. 

So when I got there, I found many other women who were like me, that's when it's on. I felt like I have won in some way, because I didn't think, you know, I'll, I'll find some. And they were just lovely and welcoming, you know? And they knew before I could tell them what I was going through, they were just telling me what I had gone through. You know, like, oh, this is how it works. Yeah. This is what happens for women. This is how they feel. This is how home office treats them. So, it was a happy moment.

Lisa-Marie: And that comes through in the book as well. A couple of sentences: Are they all lesbians? And then another woman says ‘I can see so many happy lesbians’ and it's just a beautiful moment of meeting and being welcomed into the Lesbian Immigration Support Group. 

WAST that you mentioned, there's another incredible organisation and it's been a joy to meet them and they've come and spoken at FiLiA as well and hope will do so again. 

Shall we just have a look at what is the system like? What does that system, what are the barriers that are put up and then what changes do we want to actually see?

Jane: I'm by no means an expert on the system. I know a lot more about it now than I did when I started out on this thing. And I think one of the things that Maggy has said so clearly is that you just don't understand the system. I mean, having seen the letters myself now that come from the Home Office to the individual women who are claiming asylum, they're horrible. The letters are horrible. 

They're in difficult language. They're very unvarnished and aggressive very often. They're frightening. They're not always intelligible, honestly. I have a long education in the English language. And I have to read them with extreme care and difficulty. And I don't suppose that most of the women who've actually received these letters have any idea what they say until somebody tells them. They're horrible letters.

If you claim asylum when you first come into the country, if you arrive at the airport and you say I'm here because I want to claim asylum, then you will be directed, you'll be kept and you'll be taken to Croydon which is where it all starts. But if, as so many of the women that Maggy and I know, you don't make that claim when you first arrive, there are lots of reasons why you might not.

One of them might be that you've come in on a visitor's visa and you think you're going home. And there are women in the book who were just visiting the UK, but while they were here, everything kicked off with their families and they started to get death threats, and come home we're going to do this, that and the other to you. And then you think, oh, what am I going to do? by that time your visa might've run out. And it's all very frightening and very confusing.

From Croydon you are sort of sifted there, it's a screening interview, or as somebody said to me the other day, a screaming interview, and they decide then and there, whether you are actually going to be allowed to claim asylum or not, that interview is in a public place, it's like queuing up at a post office window as far as I understand, it's not in a private room. Other people can hear you. And we've had several accounts in the stories of people who were given interpreters for their screening interview at Croydon and the interpreter was homophobic. So was abusing them in their own language while interpreting for the home office official.

And then from there you’re put somewhere, you've given temporary accommodation and hideously insufficient allowance and you wait for your big interview. Liverpool. 

There's one woman in the group currently who claimed asylum three years ago and has heard nothing, nothing since. So the other thing we want to talk about is the unending waiting during which time you're are not allowed to earn a living. You are not allowed to have a job and earn money if you're seeking asylum. So you're deprived of that way of having self-esteem. But on the other hand, you're not eligible for benefits either contrary to popular opinion who say things like, oh, they come over here and they take that benefit. No. No benefits and not allowed to work either.

And that can go on in some cases for years and years and years. And the whole thing is absolutely hideous. 

Lisa-Marie: Maggy, you said you used the word cruel and I think that's absolutely right. 

Somebody in the book, I think it was cheapo says that the journey of claiming asylum is even more traumatising. It certainly is re-traumatising in asking you and demanding you have those screaming interviews, which I think are absolutely a brilliant way of putting it.

And one of them in the book, one of the stories in the book and talks about a whole day, that interview can last a whole day and you're being asked the most intimate questions, Maggy, like you said earlier, and asked to relive your trauma. And there is a lot of trauma being experienced by the women in this book.

It’s a very cruel and inhumane system. What changes would you like to see Maggy? if you could have anything? 

Maggy: Yeah, I think that's where, my heart boils. Like I say to you, when I send to on WhatsApp about the work that I'm doing now with trying to remain. So during my process, I was confined with LGBT women, how they're treated and stuff. And now I'm now exposed with women in general, how they are being treated by the system in this country.

We talking about the days of Sarah Everard.  Megan spoke about how her mental health was affected and when you see men who say they don't believe that, and that is the term that home office is using to all those women that you are reading those stories. There are two out of 10 that might get a positive response from Home Office straight away.

No one believes them, they don't believe you've got mental health issues. They don't believe you've got post-traumatic stress disorder. They don't believe you've been sexually abused FGM. They just don't believe anything. That is the British sentence. That is the British line that they've always used to us.

It shocked everyone else, but not people who are seeking asylum. It never shocked us. We were not shocked at all. How the police, how the people who are meant to protect you are the ones that stand and abuse you in a country where you came in for sanctuary. I'm talking about women who have a lived experience of rape, abuse, violence from their respective countries on their journey coming to this country.

Before they get here from Nigeria, from coming through they go past three or four or five countries. And on the way they are forced to use their bodies so they can be taken to the next border or to the next flight. So it's not a smooth journey like everyone thinks, oh, they're coming here to spend our money. No, it's not. 

And everything that they have gone through, they always say to home office. They tell them there is medical evidence from qualified professionals who come in and say. Yes, we believe this happened. I'm now exposed to many traumatic events that are happening to women because of this asylum.

Not only LGBT people, it breaks my heart. It does. And personally, I don't know where I would have been now with lockdown, not having my stay, not knowing where to go, maybe kicked out of the nest accommodation without that 37 pound. There are women I'm talking to you right now who are in those conditions, this is how they are living.

And these women are expected to go and report it home office every month or two months. The government said people should stay indoors. They should only go out there if they're essential workers, but we have people who are seeking asylum who have been going to Dallas court to sign, to report. And when we challenged that we were told that it's a welfare check.

What kind of a welfare check is that when people are being exposed to COVID simply because they are delaying with their response. Like Jane say that some people they've been waiting for three years, it's not their fault. The pandemic happened. There is a lot of workload that behind time, it's not the women's fault, but they are asked to go and report. Why are they being tortured like that?

It has been said that black women, people of colour that are very vulnerable to COVID, but they are same women who are going to Dallas court. Only those with vulnerable diseases, sicknesses, but they have mental health issues. They’re living in a shared accommodation. If one of the members is coughing or suspect that is got COVID one is just locked up in a small, tiny room.

I have lived it, in a single bed. There is no TV because no one is going to pay the license for you. We are not allowed to have Telly. You are not allowed to have Wi-Fi because you don't have leave to remain. No one has to pay those bills for you. Those who are lucky have a smartphone. For those who don’t, they don't have it at all.

It's just a small phone that smartphone, you need to top it up and have data. So, you know what's going on out there about the COVID about home office cases, about important issues. They don't have, they don't have it. 

I have one of the members that I'm still working with I don't want to mention names. Her kidney was removed. They have got the evidence that this happened to her. They've got the medical evidence, but she's going every week for check-up with that 37 seven pounds. She's living in a shared accommodation and she'll be like: what can I do that? No food banks, food banks are closed. 

What LISG can do, organisations like LISG that can give you top up maybe 20 pounds, but it's not enough.

They don't see people. They don't talk to anyone. One of our members, she's a post-graduate undergraduate. She was victimised during the time when we were applying for asylum, someone just said, oh, have you got a bank card. I want to deposit money. My parents are sending money. When they send money, they send about 20 or something thousand and she did not know. And the person was like, I didn't know that they were sending so much. I will take so much. And then I'll give you a hundred pounds and it has affected her career. She's got her stay now. She can't work. 

Some people are being exploited as we speak now by people who are offering them accommodation because they don't have housing. Home-office has taken the housing. People are childminders. They have to do laundry and cleaning. This is the Manchester people that I have spoken to face-to-face and some of them I've even said, I've, I've told them about this meeting today. That anonymously, if they're willing, we'll talk to them. If we think it's something that will bring awareness, I'm talking about living human beings, women.

This is what is happening. Some with children, children, you have to go with your child to reporting centres, to go and report ‘oh, I'm here.’ Who is going to go anyway? No one is allowed to travel. Where are they going to run to? They have got children. 16 years going to Dallas court to sign every two weeks, every other three weeks, every other month.

So it's really, really, really horrible. It's really, really horrible. I don't know what we can do, but as a campaigning organisation, what we can do is to campaign. But what I'm telling you is that what you read, all those stories in Free to be Me. Women are still going through worse than that in these shared accommodation, under the asylum system with COVID-19 they're facing racial attacks, you know, like you're being noticed, you are not being noticed because of colour, you know, things like that.

And some of them, they just staying in that painful time abuse because they've got nowhere to go. The shelters are closed. They cannot come to LISG and ask for accommodation from friends. You're not supposed to let anyone in. 

Lisa-Marie: Thank you Maggy, please send our love and solidarity and we'll maybe talk afterwards particularly about what FiLiA might be able to try and do.

And, and I think you sort of talked about raising awareness and, and that's one of the aims of the book. 

Jane: Well, when we set out to write the book, we had several aims in mind. One was the thing that I'm always doing and talking about, which is to get people's voices heard that are not usually listened to, but also we hope that some action would come out of the book, action, in terms of education just that people would understand more, these things that are going on in this country that nobody seems to know about and to understand the experiences of the women. And I think the volunteers at LISG particularly hope that one of the results of the book would be that other people would get involved in supporting asylum seekers and refugees.

There is another LISG, actually it was set up on the same model in Nottingham and, and what would be lovely would be people in other parts of the country wanted to do similar work in places such as Maggy says where there is no support for refugees and people seeking asylum. Oh, and the third thing we wanted out of it was that we should raise some money, obviously.

So the message I want to leave people with is please buy this book because any profit that we make out of it is going straight to LISG. Now that we're doing all that I'm beginning to think there is more to do and campaigning really, really hard campaigning, such as Maggy is doing is what the rest of us should be doing as well. Because there are specific issues that need to be picked off one at a time like this thing about reporting in the pandemic, you know, various issues that are particularly difficult for women and awareness needs to be raised, but also something actually needs to be done. 

Maggy:  Because we have with a right to remain. We have the campaign that was launched when I say that was really busy, to abolish reporting because what we did, we all had to go out there and talk to people and see what they're going through. Those who are seeking asylum and the first issue that was worrying them was reporting because it's a set up.

Once you go in there, if they feel like your case is weak, that's when they can get you to be detained. So that's how they use it. It's not for welfare check. So this is where we are. And the second issue that is coming in is the cases have taken too long for, for home office. They need to respond. So what we do, we campaign with a certain issue at a time, but if there is crisis, if something raised up, we can also work on the first campaign.

But the campaign that we're currently working on is to stop the reporting, to abolish reporting because all of the policies that are happening there have been revisited because of the COVID, but not on the asylum site, not on the asylum side, that one has been just neglected like that. So that's what we really working hard because we know when we stop it, then they won’t be able to grab people, detain and deport.

Because that is what that is their intention and why people are still going to sign and it's going to ease mental health. Most people, they felt like if they can stop campaigning, COVID has affected everyone. Everyone, even British people, even people have got to stay. It has affected everyone. So can’t we let people deal with that?

And then, because this reporting, they can do it over the phone and check if people are still there, they're not going to go anyway. And at least it's going to release a little bit of mental health issues on them. 

Jane: Yeah, as you say, it's not just mental health, it's actual physical health, because if you're being forced to get on a bus with your children and go into the centre of Manchester once a week, that's not exactly COVID secure. The whole thing's ridiculous. 

Maggy: And the important thing on that one is that we need more people like British people, you know, because you have the voice. Most of our friends are scared to talk. And now I'm speaking out now because I've got my stay. I feel like I'm safe. There's nothing they can do.

That's why I feel I'm able to talk for other people, because during that launch, we had about 200 people and they were sharing painful stories, but they didn't know who to tell and what could happen if they tell the stories and what change can be done. So with all the campaigns we need British people, we need people who've got the stay so that we can fight.

And especially women. For men it's the same. Yeah. We had men also who were going through some issues, but for women it's really bad. It's really not because I'm a woman, they have children they face domestic violence in this country. People like, we have been raped on the way or abused in some way, coming to this country and that being manipulated even now.

Jane: Oh yes, absolutely. And there's, you know, there's modern slavery and trafficking and there's all sorts of things going on. Yeah, you're right. The people with privilege and particularly white privilege just need to pick it up and use it for something. 

Lisa-Marie: We'll make sure that the campaigns you're talking about Maggy, we'll make sure we leave all the details on the website so that women, your audience listeners can participate.

So if you had a couple of minutes in the lift with Priti Patel or the Home Office, what would you say?

Maggy: Everything has to change. Everything has to change. And I mean it seriously, I'm working with Right to Remain.  Jen is away some of our members who have got their stay have been on training with NHS. I'll be doing some about four or five days with NHS as a care support worker. We have our members who are social workers who are doing nursing.

We are important. We are not just numbers, where people are just being treated like, you know, those refugees who are here for money, we are contributing to the society and people would have contributed a lot with their lives, risking their lives during this pandemic. Many of our friends that we know from Zimbabwe. In fact, if you, I can send videos and pictures, we have been contributing one pound, two pounds for people who've been dying working on the front. So we are not just numbers. We are human beings and those people that are delaying with their status and stuff they are people who can come in and work. We have people with degrees who are sitting on them for 16 years, they have just lost. What are they going to do after 16 years? 

I've got a lady that contacted me. She's about 58 now. And she's been on the system for 16 years. She's married to a white man, literally married, married they’re allowed her to get married to this country. And then after that, they said, no, she's not allowed to have a right to remain. 

So we have so many people that busy looking for people to come and work here outside by that people in this country. And mental health is the serious issue. They should not ignore it. Women are killed every day.

That's the other thing that they should take it because the way Home Office refuses people, it's like it never happens in this country. Like I'm saying that I'm talking about Sarah just now two weeks ago, you know, this is a situation, our cameras, where these everything CCTV, we talking about mental health illness. What about a young black woman who doesn't even understand the language? What is she going through right now in her corner? Those who don't have accommodation, who are squatting in people's houses, what is going on there? If the world is worried about women, they should be worried about all women.

If the policies that are being visited and adjust that because of COVID. Why not about asylum seekers? Why are those not changed? Why can they visit them as well? Why should women with children, even if they don't have children, why should they have to be calling them? They cannot go back to their homes because they run away from them. So they're not going to run away anyway, they're not going anyway. 

Lisa-Marie: You're a formidable campaigner and advocate Maggy.

Jane: And if I had to be shut in the lift with Priti Patel, I'm not sure that I could get on top of my anger inside two minutes. But if I managed to, I would say to her, come with me to a LISG meeting. Don't talk, just listen. 

Maggy: I think we should send her a book. Can we just send her book? 

Jane: Yes, let's send her a book.

Lisa-Marie: That's on my list as well.

Jane: What will happen is I'll get a letter back on House of Commons notepaper from her secretary saying the Home Secretary instructs me to thank you very much for your sending her a book. 

Lisa-Marie: Send us a photograph of the book being put in the envelope, Jane, and we'll put that picture on our page. 

Jane: Okay. I really must go I’m ever so sorry.

Lisa-Marie: So can I ask you a couple more questions Maggy? Is that okay? So you're talking about the voices of women being amplified. Who do you hope the audience is for this book? Who do you want to read it? 

Maggy: I would just relate a few events that we have done with Jane, you know, sharing these stories. When we were talking about this, we still have people were saying, they didn't even know that it's happening. Just like it happened when we had our FiLiA conference. Do you remember? So I thought by now people know what is going on. Even if I was talking about it, I was so much reluctant to talk about how hostile the Home Office is towards women and children and LGBT women, you know, but then the audience, the way they were responding, like they really didn't know. They didn't know at all. 

So I think we really need to educate people. People really need to know what is going on because we can talk about it here. At one thing that I've learned about campaigning is that we don't have to talk about things indoors and then we hope that we're going to tell a neighbour. We need to bring everything out.

We need to approach, like Jane said, people with white privilege. Those are the right people that we need to talk in front of us that needs to spread the word. 

Lisa-Marie: And we need to shift the media perception because the media perception of what's going on is entirely different. False and alarmist. And we need you speaking on woman's hour. We need you speaking where millions and millions can hear your advocacy. Maggy. 

Maggy: Just that, that we really need to find a way of getting this information out there. Uh, writing a book is one step, and I think people have been re- tweeting and been sending nice reviews.

A few people are learning, you know, so as time goes on, it'll spread and campaigning, I would also urge people to campaign. Anything. Any issues about people who are seeking asylum is an issue. Most of the times, it's deeper than what is written on Twitter or on Facebook. If you work underground, you really feel the pain it's deeper than that.

You know, it's easy to say, oh, we are complaining against reporting. But if we hear the stories from people that has been affected with this, it's really deeper than that. It's inhuman. 

Lisa-Marie: It is absolutely inhuman. I agree. And there's also a sense that I hadn't thought enough about it. I hadn't thought deeply enough about when I read the book but once you do get your Right to Remain or your right to live, as I think you called it earlier on, it's not as though, then everything is absolutely fine and wonderful. I mean, there is that relief, but also the sense having to face up to the fact that you really, really are likely not to go back to your family, your friends, your home again, I think that when you get Leave to Remain, that's not the end of the story is it, there is still a long way to go. 

Maggy: Exactly. I'm glad LISG has taken that step that they've managed to stretch their hand as well, to support women who have got their status to a certain extent because you always think ‘I’ve got it now that is it.’ When I was granted, I stayed in a temporary accommodation for a year, it's a worse year.

Because I didn't have my own place. I couldn't study. I couldn't work. I was still trying to put things together. Once they gave me the house, there was no floor on it. Only the kitchen and bathroom that was tiled the rest of the room was stripped off. You don't even have a teaspoon. So you are starting from scratch.

At that time, you are looking at five years is going to end just now where you need to renew your status, there is family reunion that you still need to do. Like, you know, with me, COVID happened. I couldn't meet up with my daughter. I could have died. By the Grace of God, I'm still here to tell the story, but there's some people who had been granted their status, but they could not meet up with their families.

So it's the system. It starts up there with the system. Because I always feel like if I've been granted, it should be automatic, but I'm still going through that process again, for them to approve, it's stressful. And I've told you about people being exploited only to discover that the DBS is not working.

It's not going to work for you. And we've got some degrees because we're exploited during the time when you were seeking asylum. So it's happening to most women right now as I'm talking to you. Something that they don't know is going to affect them once they get their status. So the only thing now that is left for the person to do, maybe it's a cleaning job that is if she can be lucky to be hired, you know?

So there are loads of issues, loads of issues. There's so many.

Okay, I'm good. I think that I've always said it in the book, maybe I've quoted that, that most of the times I'm healed by the pain of others, because it gives me something to do. And I feel like, okay, I thought I was drowning in sorrow and stress, but that some people won't meet me as much as they think I'm useless, I'm stressed and all that, but some people still see good in me.

And then I focus. I shift my mind from other things and focus on them, hoping that as soon as possible, my daughter will join me.

Lisa-Marie: Well, you're certainly not useless. You’re, as I said earlier on, formidable, and it's an absolute honour to have you as one of the volunteers in the FiLiA team. Thank you for everything that you do.

So shall we finish on some positive, should we think about LISG for a while? The Lesbian Immigration Support Group have some of the most wonderful parties and celebrations and that sense of sisterhood. And when somebody goes to court there, she doesn't go on her own. And when somebody does get the right to remain or the right to live, as you call it, there is a huge outpouring of celebration from women.

And to be in the room at that moment, when women are hugging and, and supporting and showing solidarity is quite an incredible sensation. It really is. LISG does so much. Do you want to talk a bit about what they do and how amazing they are? 

Maggy: Oh good. I think that's one thing that we miss the most. That was one thing that this pandemic is taken away from us as a family, because that is the only time where we get to get together laugh and be jolly, you know, and celebrate small accomplishments and big accomplishments together.

You know, I think that's one big thing that we miss the most, also one thing that has kept LISG going to, to celebrate women to always being positive. Because if you are with women, sometimes the fact that you have to think about home office, it comes when you are about to go to court, or when you're about to go for signing. When they're looking for someone who can go with you for signing to make sure you're coming back, it's when it clicks. But when you are with them, it's always positive vibes. I think, you know, better. 

Someone is saying hi, this is one of the good things that LISG brought to me to my life and her life too, because we met there, she was from South Africa I am from Zimbabwe and we were speaking the same language. So, and things happened! 

Lisa-Marie: Things happened. What a wonderful way to put it. Is there anything that you would like to contribute to this discussion while you're here?

Maggy: She was not even listening.

Maggy’s friend: I was homeless, first of all, and this like brought me everything. AI didn't have anybody here, but here now I have everything. And now I have my papers because of LISG who were there from day one until I get 

Maggy: Yeah. So it's some of the good things with LISG with some relationships and things like that.

Lisa-Marie: It's absolutely gorgeous to see you both together. And I'm just going to finish off by reminding everyone who's listening.

 The book is called Free To Be Me: Refugee Stories From The Lesbian Immigration Support Group. 

We're going to put a link up. I would urge everyone to buy it because profits do go to the Lesbian Immigration Support Group.

And it's really important as Maggy and Jane said earlier that these stories, these voices are heard. And, and I just want to literally finish by saying thank you to the women, Grace, Sorrel, Sophie, Shippo, Asanat, Mary, Sam and Jerry Aphrodite Lunar, Faith, Karen M and Karen S and just say, thank you to all of you so very much.

I look forward to us all being able to connect again, spend time together again, we'll see you at FiLiA and I will see you at the dance floor on the dance floor at the disco when it is next on, which I think is July. I hear a rumour it's starting again in July, so I will see you on the dance floor. 

Lots of love to you both.