Motherhood and intersectionality: Social harms under the UK asylum system

Guest post by Amy Cortvriend and Vardan Petrosian. Vardan is a lecturer in criminology at the University of Westminster. He is a visual criminologist whose research focuses on anti-racism, migration and genocide prevention. Amy is a lecturer in criminology at Loughborough University. She is an activist-scholar whose work examines intersectional harm and resistance among people seeking sanctuary.

Drawing on narrative interviews with ten mothers who had sought asylum in the UK, we found that motherhood shapes experiences of border-related harm in multiple ways. We argue that the role of a mother can both exacerbate impacts and facilitate resistance to oppressions. This blog summarises our recent article in the British Journal of Criminology, published as part of a special issue focusing on social harm. 

Our research applies a social harm perspective, which expands attention beyond criminalisation and legal frameworks to the structural conditions that shape everyday life of people seeking safety. Applying this lens reveals how harms experienced by women were not confined to the asylum process itself but extended into housing, economic status, social and family life. These harms accumulated over time and intersected with gendered, racialised and classed inequalities. Motherhood was central to how these harms were experienced, understood and resisted.

Stigma enforced by the asylum system

Women who participated in the research consistently described poverty, uncertainty, restricted autonomy and stigma as defining features of life within the asylum system, echoing Victoria Canning’s argument that the asylum system inflicts gendered structural violence. Further to this, our research found that motherhood specifically shaped women’s experiences of structural violence. In particular, their children were central to their narratives: 

…you’re ashamed because you’re not paying anything. You feel like people don’t like you. Some people think you’re living for free in a nice house… How can you teach your kids to have good work, to be good in society when you stay at home? How can I ask my kids to study and get a job when [I’m] not doing it? (Kalima)

Kalima’s narrative echoes that of other mothers, for whom enforced reliance on asylum support resulted in feelings of shame. She was aware of the stigma surrounding asylum seekers but was most concerned about the ways in which prohibition of employment impacted how she performed motherhood, and how this might shape her children’s futures. In this way, as Laura Shobiye and Samuel Parker argue, mothers seeking asylum are expected to conform to the neoliberal values of their host country, as well as ensuring their children do too – yet they are legally prohibited from doing so.

Although participants understood these conditions as structural, some mothers experienced feelings of failure in relation to their parental roles. Feelings of guilt and shame often reflected an inability to fulfil socially constructed expectations of motherhood rather than any failure in parenting itself:

I’m safe – at least I think so, I’m safe here. But sometimes I feel really bad. I do not feel really that I’m a good mother and he is a good father because these children don’t deserve this life from the beginning. (Keje)

In a context of increasing temporal uncertainty even for those recognised as refugees, Keje was particularly concerned about insecurity. She felt ashamed that she could not provide her children with a life ‘they deserve’. She desperately wanted to create a home, which for her meant both a material space and a place of permanence in which the family could cultivate a sense of security and belonging. 

A source of strength

Despite the immense hardships experienced by the women we interviewed, motherhood also became a source of strength, purpose and resistance: 

I think for me, even [if] you feel down, you know you [have] love everywhere in your home – this makes you stronger. (Kalima)

When I think about my sons – yes, we lost everything, but maybe we get [a] good future for [our] children… We are here for our children. Just think about the positives and it gives me power. (Aram)

Kalima and Aram both draw strength from their roles as mothers to help them endure the impacts of being an asylum seeker. This strength enabled mothers to endure prolonged uncertainty and can be understood as a form of slow resistance to the structural conditions that sought to constrain their lives. Investing hope in their children's futures became one way in which women challenged the exclusionary logic of the asylum system, despite continuing to experience its harms.

Motherhood within the complexities of intersectional harm

Our research reveals the intersectional nature of harms experienced by women seeking asylum. Mothers' experiences cannot be understood solely through immigration status or gender in isolation. Caring responsibilities, poverty, legal precarity and stigma intersect in ways that produce distinct harms arising from structural inequalities that restricted their freedom to parent with dignity and autonomy. Women also presented contrasting narratives which showed how motherhood simultaneously enabled resistance. 

Our work has relevance beyond motherhood, as it exemplifies how the systemic infliction of harm enables the analysis of lived experiences within the context of state power and structural inequalities. The findings emphasise that individual experiences are the predictable outcomes of political choices rather than personal shortcomings. Recognising these dynamics reveals the complexities of intersectional harm, showing how one identity – in this case motherhood – can shape experiences of social harm in contradictory ways.

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