By Lynne Miles | 19 May 2009, 18:11

an update on the Sima Valand case from the other week …

Sima Valand is desperately fighting to stop the Home Office sending her to India where she is at risk of murder at the hands of her in-laws. She was not flown on Fri 8th May for reasons that are still unknown but a new removal date has been set for this Wednesday (20th May). She remains in an immigration prison.

Please take the time to send a letter or an email to the Home Office and to Virgin Atlantic Airways demanding that they do not fly this woman into an extremely dangerous situation.

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You can help keep Sima in the UK by:

1) Emailing/Faxing Steve Ridgeway, Chief Executive Officer Virgin Atlantic Airways and urge him not to carry out the forced removal of Sima Valand.

You can copy, amend or write your own version using this model letter.

Please be sure to include all the following details: “Sima Valand, Indian national, due to be forcibly removed from the UK on Wednesday 20th May 2009. Full flight details are being withheld from publicly circulated documents for Sima’s protection”.

Email: customer.services@fly.virgin.com

Fax: 01293 444124 / +44 1293 444124 if you are faxing from outside the UK

2) Please send urgent faxes/emails immediately to Rt. Hon Jacqui Smith, MP, Secretary of State for the Home Office, requesting that the removal order is lifted and that Sima Valand is released from detention.

Please use this model letter or write your own version. If you do so, please remember to include HO ref: A1374200

Fax: 020 8760 3132 / + 44 20 8760 3132 if you are faxing from outside UK

Emails: Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
UKBA: publicenquiries@UKBA.gsi.gov.uk
“CIT - Treat Official” <CITTO@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk>

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BACKGROUND

Sima is unlikely to survive with any dignity if removed to India. Indeed, her life will be at considerable risk if she is returned due to her status as a divorced woman which carries immense stigma. In India, women who are divorced or separated are treated as outcasts and vilified and there is no social welfare system to help them survive. She will be subject to abuse, harassment and violence from which she will not be adequately protected by State institutions, such as the police, because they have the same social values with regards to women in this position.

Sima arrived in the UK, from India, legally in 2006 with her husband. During the 15 years of their marriage Sima was subjected to frequent verbal, physical and sexual abuse by her husband. Following their arrival in the UK, the violence escalated. It culminated in a horrific rape in May 2008. The attack was so severe that Sima made the decision to report it to the police.

While her husband was on bail, the threat to Sima was sufficient to force her to move to cities for her safety. She was subjected to frequent death threats from the husband and from his family in the UK and in India because she was pursuing the court case. In spite of this, Sima continued with the case and her husband was eventually convicted and given a lengthy prison sentence.

As a result of the persecution, Sima applied for asylum on the grounds that she had a genuine fear of being killed by her husband or his family if she were returned to India. Before she left India, she had been treated as a slave and beaten by her husband’s family. Their treatment of her was so bad that she attempted suicide. Her husband’s jail sentence and the fact that she has begun divorce proceedings are seen as publicly shaming her husband’s family and have exacerbated their desire to take revenge. Her in-laws have contacted her on frequent occasions to tell her that they will cut her up and kill her if she returns to India.

India has a deeply entrenched patriarchal system and women are expected to conform to a strict social code. As a result, although it is Sima’s husband who has been responsible for appallingly violent behaviour, it is Sima’s action in reporting that behaviour and giving evidence against him that is considered shameful amongst her family and the community as a whole.

It is extremely common in India that incidents of serious domestic violence against women are not taken seriously. The police and courts are often unwilling to intervene in such matters and frequently help the husbands’ families to destroy evidence of murder or register murdered women as suicides. Amnesty International have noted that it is very difficult for women to seek justice through the criminal justice system in India and that women victims of crime are at a severe disadvantage. This means that it is highly unlikely that Sima will get the protection that she needs should she be returned. Indeed, there have been many cases where women from South Asia have been sent back to India and Pakistan by their families to be murdered as it is thought to be easier to get away with such crimes there.

Sima was born and brought up in Sudan although she is of Indian origin and has an Indian passport. She has few family members in India and following the court case, even these ties have deteriorated. The Home Office have argued that Sima could live with her uncle if she is returned to India. However, the details of the rape case have become widely known and he will no longer speak to her.

Sima’s in-laws in India are aware of Sima’s movements and since being given a removal notice she has received threatening messages stating that they know she is about to be removed from the UK and that they will track her down. Experts on so-called ‘honour crimes’ point to the existence of informal community networks that exist to track down and punish, with death if necessary, women who are perceived as having shamed the community. Sima will be at great risk if she is returned.