Trapped by visa denials, endless rejections, and escalating financial burdens, a new report from Women of Zimbabwe and Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) unveils the profound toll of family separation on single migrant mothers in the UK’s health and Social care workforce.
By Patricia Chinyoka (Women of Zimbabwe)
June*, a healthcare worker from Southern Africa, arrived in the UK in 2021, leaving her then two-year-old son with an aunt for what she thought would be six months at most. “I speak to him most days, depending on electricity where he lives and with his aunt being available”, she says. “They are two hours ahead, so when I finish work, sometimes it’s too late to catch him before he is sleeping”.
June has applied three times for a visa with three different lawyers, spending around £5,000 on legal advice. Her applications have been refused. Her child is now 5 years old, and she is no closer to having him join her. “My boy is now of an age where he asks all the time when he’s coming to be with me.”
Sadly, June’s story is not uncommon. Today, Women of Zimbabwe and Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) have just released a report exposing systemic failures and discrimination by the Home Office against single-mother migrants working in health and social care.
“My boy is now of an age where he asks all the time when he’s coming to be with me.”
So what’s happening?
In 2022, the UK placed care work on its Shortage Occupation List in an effort to fill the high number of vacancies in the care sector. This made it easier for employers to recruit overseas, and tens of thousands of experienced care workers were recruited from non-EU countries, particularly India (33%), Zimbabwe (16%), and Nigeria (15%).
From 2023 to 2024, 105,000 new international recruits came to the UK to work in social care. Their children could come too—that is until the Conservative Government introduced new rules on 11 March 2024 barring care workers from bringing their dependents. When this happened, the government made clear that these new rules did not apply to care workers already in the UK.
Yet, Women of Zimbabwe have been contacted by some 2,000 women who arrived before 11 March 2024 but who have been denied visas for their children. The vast majority are single mothers, which is not a coincidence. Despite no inkling of this at the recruitment or application stage, these mothers are required to meet significantly greater burdens of proof to obtain a visa for their child. This is due to having to prove ‘sole responsibility’, which involves not just showing proof of being the only parent involved in their child’s life but also proof of a negative: the absence of an active father in their child’s life.
Our analysis of approximately 1,000 applications and refusal letters has suggested systemic failings in the UK Visa and Immigration (UKVI) system’s processing of these applications. These include a lack of clarity about the evidence required to prove sole responsibility, inconsistent and arbitrary assessment of applications, seemingly haphazard decisions ignoring the Home Office’s own guidance, and cultural illiteracy, which has led to discrimination against single mothers.
Even when children do eventually obtain visas, this may take months or even years. When we surveyed 86 women in this position, 80% had been separated from their children for 12 months or more. Almost 4 in 10 (39%) had been separated from their child for over 18 months. Visas are denied to children of all ages, including babies.
During Women of Zimbabwe’s demonstration and open letter hand-in at the UKVI in Sheffield on 27 September, we were joined by a young mother and social worker, Maria. Maria had been separated from her baby for 10 months. Her little girl was just 6 months old when Maria first left her in the care of her own mother in her home country, hoping to see her baby a month, if not weeks, later.
Mothers we worked with reported their children expressing feelings of abandonment and insecurity, school performances dropping, and anxiety and depression rising as children were left in limbo and without their mothers.
Sylvia* (case study 8 in the report) was separated from her then 14-year-old son for 18 months after arriving in 2023. After the initial refusal, she paid around £2,400 for costly immigration advice but the second application was also rejected. For her third, which Women of Zimbabwe supported, she provided 22 documents (including police records) proving evidence of ‘sole responsibility’ as well as abuse from her son’s biological father. This application was refused. However, knowing she had provided strong evidence, Sylvia submitted the same documents again, and the visa was granted. This is one of many examples of seemingly arbitrary decisions we encountered.
After a refusal, mothers would go to great lengths to find documents that might be accepted as proof of ‘sole responsibility’, such as finding biological fathers who were abroad and hadn’t been seen in years or obtaining certain official court documents. This was sometimes then used against them.
An extract of the UKVI refusal letter to Makeda’s* son reads, “I also note that this document was obtained shortly prior to your previous visa application… and therefore, I am not satisfied that this document hasn’t been obtained solely in order to facilitate your travel to the UK.” This document would never have been necessary for Makeda to have outside of the application process, and she obtained it expressly for the purpose of providing proof that UKVI needed. Many mothers like Makeda find themselves in a Kafka-esque catch-22.
The Devastating Consequences of Refusals and Delays on Migrant Mothers and Their Families
The impacts of these refusals and delays are profound. Unsurprisingly, our work revealed a deep sense of hopelessness, acute stress and desolation amongst mums separated from their children. “I would cry myself to sleep and wake up crying”, Cilla* (case study 4 in our report) said about the 18 months she was separated from her 16-year-old daughter. Though they are now reunited the separation and uncertainty took its toll on their relationship.
The widespread impact on children has yet to be studied, but what we have seen matches the House of Lords enquiry, which looked at the impact of enforced family separation 10 years after the migration rule changes in 2012.
It noted in particular the impact on children “whose development is impaired by separation and emotional loss” and highlighted long-term impacts on their educational and labour market performance. Mothers we worked with reported their children expressing feelings of abandonment and insecurity, school performances dropping, and anxiety and depression rising as children were left in limbo and without their mothers.
It is a huge miscarriage of justice that thousands of women who were told they could bring their children and who came over to prop up our ailing social care system have had that right denied to them by the UK government on the grounds that are clearly unfair and misjudged.
Apart from this, many women face severe financial strain. 51% of those we surveyed had spent over £2,500 so far on visa applications. That’s on top of the more than £5,000 that almost half (46%) had spent so far on housing their children back home, for years in some cases. Considering the salary of a care worker and the cost of living it’s no surprise that 79% had had to borrow money to cover these costs and were getting into debt.
Our partners, Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) – who have co-written the report – call out these decisions as part of “colonial attitudes” from a hostile Home Office shaped by the UK’s long and unequal relationship with Southern Africa and other parts of the world. Pressures to reduce immigration may well play a part, but whatever someone’s position, to deny valid applications for children of single mothers already in the UK and who had a right to bring them is clearly unacceptably cruel.
It is a huge miscarriage of justice that thousands of women who were told they could bring their children and who came over to prop up our ailing social care system have had that right denied to them by the UK government on the grounds that are clearly unfair and misjudged.
Together, Women of Zimbabwe and ACTSA have made seven urgent demands for the UK Government to implement.
You can watch the video of the report “All Families Matter” launch here.
Help us overturn this injustice by spreading the report, following us on social media, and contacting your local councillor or MP. Someone caring in your community is likely to have faced or is facing, this inhumane treatment. Let’s take a stand against this together.
*All cases have been anonymised
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Patricia Chinyoka is the founder of Women of Zimbabwe and a human rights activist who dedicates her life to defending and promoting fundamental human rights for all. She works through advocacy, campaigning, and education to combat injustice and inequality, focusing on women’s rights and safety issues in Zimbabwe.
