Women bear brunt of racist laws Nasreen Akhtar fights Home Office deportation order

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Women fighting deportation (from left): Nasreen Akhtar, Jaswinder Kaur and Cynthia Gordon. Jaswinder and Nasira have now won their appeals.

BILL THIS BILL. INHICH NASREEN Akhtar has lived in England about four years. She has three daughters, one of them born in England.

Her marriage was not happy-her husband battered her and eventually turned her out of the house. As a direct result of her living separately from her husband, the Home Office issued her a deportation order.

Her case illustrates the trap for women who immigrate to the country as dependents. Immigration law effectively states that-once a dependent, always a dependent-or out.

If a marriage breaks down, either a woman has to live silently in an unhappy, even violent home, or she may risk losing her right to stay in the UK.

Living in fear

some women may want to return to tneir own families or relatives abroad.

But for others return means humiliation and sometimes real fear for personal safety because of the dishonour which some consider that separated woman brings on the family.

Then the only hope for a dignified future lies in trying to build an independent life here. At present this choice, hard as it is for any woman to make, does not even exist for many black women because of the threat of deportation.

Nasreen's first husband died in 1971 in Pakistan leaving her with two daughters, Naila and Azmat. Her eldër sister in Rochdale, arranged for her to marry a man who was living in Rochdale, and the ceremony was performed in 1974 over the telephone, a valid and not uncommon form of marriage in Pakistan.

To verify that the requirements of the law were met, she has a Pakistani marriage certificate, the authenticity of which is not in dispute.

"Legitimised'

Nasreen applied for entry clearance to join her husband and was finally granted a visa in 1977. She was given six months leave to remain during which time the marriage had to be "legitimised" by registering it under English law.

Nasreen lived in Rochdale with her husband and his family. Two days after coming to England the couple went to the Registry Office, but the Registrar said that he would first have to check the documents relating to the previous marriages of both parties.

Permission to register the marriage was not given until eleven months later and by this time the relationship had broken down.

Nasreen felt that she was treated as a servant of the household, made to do far more than her share of domestic work in spite of having a weak back, and was physically ill-treated by her husband.

Finally, just a year after her arrival, while she was about eight months pregnant, her husband made her leave the house with Naila and Azmat.

She went to live with her sister and soon afterwards had another little girl, Sabah.

When the Home Office discovered that she was living apart from her husband and that the marriage wasn't registered, they refused her permission to stay, and sent Nasreen, Nalla and Azmat deportation orders in October 1980.

In doing so the Home Office is also in etfect preparing to deport a British citizen, Sabah, who is British by birth.

Immeasurably distressed by the problems with her husband Nasreen now faces the possibility of severance from her only source of comfort and support, her elder sister. She has no family in Pakistan , who could help her.

Under immigration law, Nasreen then had a right of appeal to an "independent" adjudicator. These adjudicators are in fact appointed by the Home Secretary.

Once appointed they are not answerable to the Home Office, or to anyone, and can only be removed with the approval of the Lord Chancellor.

They are supposed to make decisions "on the balance of probabilities" which is a highly subjective criterion, and in contrast to normal legal procedure, the burden of proof is placed on the appellant-i.e. she or he is guilty unțil proven innocent.

Outrageous

The appeals are public (there are courts in Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Glasgow and London) but rarely does anyone go to hear them.

Consequently adjudicators, and Home Office representatives, can get away with the most outrageous remarks to appellants and decisions on the cases.

In Anwar Ditta's case her appeal to bring her three children to England was turned down by the adjudicațor Mr. Rushton, because he considered her so competent and forceful that he said she must be lying.

He accepted lock, stock and barrel the Home Office case which was largely a collection of smears relating to other members of the family (information which should have been inadmissible in a normal court of law), which contained almost no legal argument, and which was in effect simply an out and out attempt to discredit Anwar.

Mr Rushton's decision led to another year of misery and struggle before finally Timothy Raison bowed under the weight of evidence and public pressure:

In Nasreen's case the appeal was heard in Manchester before Mr. P.P. Simpson in March 1981.

He was rude to Nasreen and made gratuitous remarks that were racist and sexist.

He agreed openly with the comment of the Home Office representative that ". ... she could not possibly have considered herself married as she allowed herself to be beaten and thrown out of the house while pregnant."

He observed that it was not uncommon for Muslim women to live with men outside marriage-which, apart from being totally unsubstantiated, was an appallingly insensitive comment in Nasreen's presence.

He accused Nasreen of lying when she said she could not understand English.

He stated that in his opinion the only reason that Nasreen wanted to stay here was to live off Social Security for the rest of her life. He was extremely rude to an expert in Islamic law, shouted at him for not having a degree in English law, and ignored his evidence. In his written determination, which Nasreen received two months later, he states:

•This appeal hinges entirely on the validlty or otherwise of an alleged marriage between the appellant and one Abdul Majid. By any applicable standard I regard that "marriage" as dubious in the extreme.

... By neither English nor Mohammedan standard of law, or by any standard of morals or ethics, can this be regarded as a valid and subsisting marriage.

•. My decision to dismiss this appeal may excite a certain degree of sympathy for the appellant but I do not think it should.

It must be borne in mind-firstly that she (having had 2 children by a previous marriage) "married" a man (who had 5 children by THIS Protesters condemn the previous marriage) she had never seen or conversed with and secondly that she having discovered (not surprisingly) that the alliance was a disaster is resolved to live here on Social Security for so long as she can.

I think that to a great extent she has brought her troubles upon herself. fore dismissed » is thereAlthough there is no automatic right to appeal again, Nasreen has fortunately and unusually been granted leave to appeal to the Tribunal in London, but it will be several months before a date is set, all months of uncertainty and anxiety about her and her daughters' future.

At any time Timothy Raison has discretionary power to bypass the appeal system and allow Nasreen and her daughters to stay on compassionate grounds, but he is refusing to consider the case until all the legal procedures have been exhausted.

These appeals are at the centre of the legal procedures associated with the administration ot immigration law, and are an extraordinary revelation of the way that the law works in practice.

They reflect all the racist and sexist elements of the law. Anyone who wants to know what the law is really all about should go to listen to a hearing. They are public and are heard daily at Aldine House, New Bailey St., Salford, Manchester; 1 Tranquility, Leeds; Thanet House, The Strand, London.

*Besides Nasreen, other women have been fighting their cases to be allowed to remain in the country.

Cynthia Gordon from Natio Manchester lived in England for 12 years but is now threatened with deportation because she stayed in Jamaica for six years to care for her invalid mother, and has now only been allowed to return to England as a visitor.

Jaswinder Kaur from Leeds and Nasira Begum from Manchester both had to leave their husbands and consequently the Home Office told them to leave the country.

Home Office All these women have, with the help of support groups been trying to take a stand against the power of the Home Office.

Within the last few weeks Jaswinder and Nasira have both heard that they will be able to stay. So where there is a lot of public pressure and support individuals can win their cases.

Anwar also won because of her campaign. But while the immigration law exists, with its in-built bias against independence for women, the same thing will happen again and again.

As long as Act stays..

Deportation orders will be issued to separated women, who then will be humiliated at immigration appeals.

As long as the 1971 Immigration Act is on the statute book, it legitimises this harassment of women.

Besides campaigning for Nasreen's right to stay in England, the Friends : of Nasreen Akhtar are also trying to get P.P. Simpson removed from the adjudicators' panel. For more information write to the Friends of Nasreen Akhtar, 59 Ashworth St., Rochdale, Lanes.

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Lee Jeans banner at the end of People's March STAN CROOKE reviews 'For a phlet on Lee Jeans from War or THE National Tailor and Garment Workers Union no longer officially supports the women in occupation at Lee Jeans.

The union had officially supported the workers demand that management should open the books. But this demand is not being raised: according to the union leaders, the dispute with Vanity Fair no longer exists.

Support

When the workers suggested that the union might give official support to help them with a new buyer of the factory, the officials replied it was not possible. The decision to draw support had been taken THIS pamphlet covers, at times unfortunately rather sketchily, the history of the sit-in at Lee Jeans and provides background information on the wheelings and dealings of the Vanity Fair Corporation.

It does not aim to draw socialist political conclusions, but the pamphlet is a useful source of information about the sit-in and the corporation, although it would not have been too much to expect a non-sexist cover.

One very clear lesson is that while "good industrial relations" may be very factories b eing shut down.

The pamphlet points out that:

"Apart from a half-day strike last year, the only other industrial action took place in . . . 1971 when the company attempted to smash union organisation . . . the company has lost practically no production as a result of industrial trouble over the last ten years."

Statistics in the pamphlet show that "percentage production against target production" and "overall performance" for the Greenock, factory were consistently higher than for the Lee Jeans factories in Derry and Dundonald, and the percentage of seconds' was two or three times lower:

Shut down But when it came to the crunch, the record of good industrial relations' and 'good productivity' counted for nothng: Vanity Fair chose to shut down and nothing could about it.

At the start it took the union seven weeks before it officially supported the workers.. And even then, the blacking by the T&G on the docks, for example, was organised by the workers themselves and not by the union.

The only thing the women ever got from the union is £9 a week strike pay.

The sell-out has had no effect on the morale of the workers, though they are depending heavily on the offer to buy the factory by Nigel Wright of 'Dickie Dirts' Another round of talks was held between Wright and representatives of Vanity Fair in London last Friday, 31st July, without agreement being reached, though the Greenock factory and went about it with characteristic dishonesty.

Marketing and distribution staff had been withdrawn from the factory in 1977, and the cutting department in August 1980. But when challenged about possible closure, management denied that there was any threat to jobs-only a few months before announcing the intended shut-down.

Record profits

Vanity Fair claimed that closure was necessary because of the slump in the jeans market. But at the same time they themselves admitted that they expected sales to pick up again in August 1981.

And someone, somewhere, must have been buying jeans. In 1980 the corporation achieved record profits of $45 million and notched up even higher profits in the first quarter of 1981 (and 74% of Vanity Fair's total profit come from the sale of jeans).

The pamphlet goes on to describe the meeting where the decision to occupy was taken, and the kind of problems the occupation has come up against.

Here the pamphlet could have gone into how the difficulties invoived in launching and carrying on the occupation for over six months were overcome and how the workers coped By STAN :ROOKE Wright told a delegation from the • factory that a deal was 'only a handshake away'.

New talks are planned.

There is nothing down on paper yet about the wages to be paid if Wright takes over;

the workers are confident TESSA HOWLAND (IFL)

because, they say, Wright is 'a very down to earth man' enters So its seventh month, the as the occupation women, deserted by the leaders of their own union, are depending on the results of the negotiations between Vanity Fair and Nigel Wright.

* Messages/Money:

Helen Monaghan, 55 Cambridge Road, Greenock, Glasgow.

with the radical changes in their domestic lives. But, presumably because the pamphlet is intended for the "general public"

rather than labour movement militants, there is no real analysis.

Even so, one point does stand out: the contrast between the spontaneous reaction of the local rank and file to the occupation on the one hand, and the reaction of the trade union officials on the other:

"Early Friday morning, following the first night of the occupation, shop stewards from the local shipyards appeared, offering their support.

This was only the first of hundreds of trade unionists who have visited the factory bringing with them messages of support and financial assistance.

Full-timers

The full-timers from the National Tailor and Garment Workers Union did not react in quite the same fashion:

"It was seven weeks before the sit-in received official backing from the The second part of the pamphlet, entitled "From rags to riches" looks Lass briefly at the history of the Vanity Fair Corporation, particuarly from the early seventies onwards when it moved into the jeans market, which gave massive boost to its sales and profits.

Between 1968 and 1972 sales increased from $68 million to $297 millions, and by 1980 had reached nearly $634 million.

Vanity Fair has achieved such expansion in sales and profits through tax fiddles and a cynical use of government aid to industry. More: The Ultimate Rip-Off Counter Information Services.

As the pamphlet puts it, "VF Corporation is awash with money, but that doesn't stop it taking other people's cash wherever it can, and there is no shortage of offers."

In Greenock: -the local authority provided the factory free of charge. -rents and rates were waived for the first three Few Dollars , a new pamWant and Socialist Organiser 9 years and half rent and rates were charged for the next three years. - 40% of the costs for machinery were covered by the government. -£2 a week of each employee's wages were paid by the government. -the little that VF itself had to invest was helped by cheap loans, again subsidised by the governPEzE ment.

Vanity Fair has benefitted from similar government and local authority aid throughout the world, especially in Alabama and the North of Irelnd, and has also made a habit of setting up plants in low wage countries like South Africa, Brazil, the Phillipines, Spain and Hong Kong.

In other words, V makes its profits by operating in areas which either virtually pay them to set up a plant there and/or in areas where wage levels are so low that massive profits are guaranteed.

And if VF reckons that profits can be increased by transferring production from one place to another (tor example from Greenock to the North of Ireland) then it does not hesitate to do so, whatever its impact on workers at the factory due for clusre.

At the press conference to launch the pamphlet, Terry Lacey, general secretary of War on Want claimed that such practices by Vanity Fair showed the need "for controls over the mobility of multi-nationals to be tightened up" , and this is the argument implicit in the pamphlet.

But multi-nationals have long since grown beyond the control of national governments, even if any of them were seriously concerned to confront their power.

Only the direct action of the working class, exemplified by the fight of the Lee Jeans workers, can take on and break the power of the multinationals.

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Socialist Organiser 6 August 1981 Page 12

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