Staff member Loa Pour Mirza carried out research with Ubuntu Women Shelter to explore the mental health impact of the NRPF condition on migrant women seeking asylum in Glasgow.
This study used collage-making and a virtual focus group to explore the impact of the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) condition on the mental health of women seeking asylum in Glasgow. Research has found that post-migration stressors largely contribute to poor mental health outcomes in people seeking asylum (Solberg et al., 2020). In particular, policies such as no right to work and NRPF push already vulnerable populations further into precarity (Dudhia 2020). This has a distinct effect on migrant women with NRPF who are at increased risk of facing ‘the fours D’s’ - disbelief, destitution, detention and deportation (McIlwaine, Granada and Valenzuela- Oblitas, 2019). Carrying out a thematic analysis, three themes were determined; “My inner self is broken”, “Waiting just kills” and “Dark stormy fairytale”. The findings of this study highlight how the asylum process infringes upon people’s identities, their sense of control over the future as well as belongingness to Scotland. Social support emerged as a critical tool to tackle some of the mental health concerns that prevail as a direct result of the post-migration environment (Salway et al., 2020).
To read the full paper, please visit: https://www.talkaboutx.net/xpositionvolume/6-2/Loa-Pour-Mirza
