Campaign Overview

Juliette Mahoro is asking for support in her campaign to stay in the UK with her young son. She suffered rape and torture as a result of her father’s prominent position in the opposition group National Liberation Front (FNL) in Burundi. In May 2003, government soldiers attacked the family home and killed her father and her two brothers. Ms Mahoro and her young daughter managed to escape and went into hiding. However, being under constant threat for their lives, Ms Mahoro decided to try to protect her daughter’s life and because she was ill, left her in the care of friends. Soon after, Ms Mahoro was captured by rebel soldiers who held her in a camp where she was repeatedly raped and beaten.

When government soldiers attacked the rebel camp, she was taken to prison on suspicion of being a rebel supporter. She could not disclose her real identity in fear of being killed like the rest of her family. In prison Ms Mahoro was repeatedly raped by prisoners, while the guards did nothing to intervene. Eventually, when guards came to kill her, she was taken out of prison quarters, where she was raped, beaten and left to die from the injuries. While she was unconscious she was found and given shelter by someone who later helped her flee the country. After arriving in Britain, she was distressed to find out that she had become pregnant from being raped. She gave birth to her son in May 2004.

Ms Mahoro’s asylum claim was refused by the Home Office which did not believe that she is from Burundi (because she could not speak Kirundi, after living most of her life in Uganda) and therefore refused to believe everything that had happened to her, including that she had been raped! Such summary dismissal by the Home Office, mirrors the official response to women who report rape in the UK, which has resulted in shockingly low conviction rate for rape of 5.3%. Ms Mahoro’s appeal was dismissed despite expert evidence from Women Against Rape (WAR) detailing the rapes she had suffered and confirming the symptoms of Rape Trauma Syndrome.

Ms Mahoro has now made further representations to the Home Office, supported by expert medical evidence, including from the Helen Bamber Foundation, which confirms the torture she suffered. She receives regular counselling from her local Community Mental Health Team and has been receiving counselling and other intensive support from WAR for over three years. WAR's spokeswoman says:

“We have seen first-hand the devastating impact on Ms Mahoro's life of being a victim of such violence. She is a distinguished and caring woman whose life has been shattered by her horrendous ordeal. She desperately needs support and protection to recover, and she cannot get this in Burundi. All that she suffered, including repeated rape, was dismissed by an adjudicator. Adjudicators and immigration judges are notorious for their sexism and other bias against rape survivors and are shored up in this by government policies which systematically undermine women’s ability to get justice and protection.[1][1] Ms Mahoro has courageously decided to go public to fight for her right to stay in the UK with her son and we know from previous experience that when the public hears how vulnerable mothers like her are treated, they are horrified and forthcoming in their support.”

Despite the pain of her experiences and the ongoing separation from her daughter, of whom she has had no news for almost three years, Ms Mahoro has worked hard to establish a life in Britain for herself and her son. She is an active member of the All African Women’s Group, a self-help group of women asylum seekers, based at the Crossroads Women Centre, where she also volunteers. She is also a committed member of her local church and her son attends a local playgroup regularly. She is in no doubt that her life and her young son's life would be in danger if they were returned to Burundi because of her father's previous political activities. She has no family, friends or support network there and no way of earning a living to provide for herself and her son.

[1][1] Misjudging rape: Breaching Gender Guidelines & International Law in Asylum Appeals by Black Women’s Rape Action Project and Women Against Rape, published December 2006.