Applying for 'settled status' as an EU citizen has shown me how the government discriminates against women

Since Brexit negotiations began in 2016, EU citizens have found themselves in a vulnerable position.

Stripped of our rights of free movement, and with the threat of losing our livelihoods and possibly having to leave a country we now consider home, we are now faced with a new form of discrimination – the settled status, a government application process which offers EU citizens the right to reside in Britain. This is despite the UK being our home over many years – decades for some of us – and where our children have grown up.

Terms like “digital discrimination” and “gender discrimination” sound vague but their meaning became all too apparent when a group of seven anxiety-ridden EU citizens got together a couple of weeks ago to start the stressful process of “applying” to remain in our own homes. Seven of us had planned to apply together, partly to support each other and partly because of the astonishing requirement of only being able to access the process through an Android-only app – not through laptops, computers, iPhones or tablets. Two of the seven women had android phones. According to reports, 71 Labour MPs and MEPs have accused the Home Office of “digital discrimination” for creating an Android-only app for EU citizens.

The lobbying group for EU citizens’ rights, the3million, has highlighted countless examples of discrimination, asides from using an Android-only app. These include the burdensome evidence to prove settled status, the onus being on the applicant and not on the Home Office to apply, which could potentially force EU citizens into the status of undocumented immigrants if they don’t know about the requirements, the punitive attitude of the government towards applicants who don’t fit the restrictive boundaries and the arbitrary rejections of applicants who have been employed continuously for more than five years. One of our group refused to apply, not wanting the government to be able to share her personal data with third parties. Another of our group is lucky enough to already have a British passport.

That left five of us.

The first stop of the settled status process is a digital scan of the applicants’ records and a fee of £65 per person. The required records are from HMRC and the Department for Work and Pensions. These requirements immediately discriminate against women who choose not to work outside the home. Women in our group of applicants who did not have HMRC records were stuck at the first stage and had to be moved to a stage which involved support from caseworkers, a part of the government helpline for applicants who do not fit the narrow criteria. This delayed the decision and caused more unnecessary anxiety.

Of the five who applied on the same day, two of us were informed by email that we had been successfully awarded settled status, both of whom had had no name changes and could provide tax records. One of us went through the case worker stage and received her settled status a week later. The other two are still in limbo. For so many of us, the stress has been compounded by the hostile reputation of the Home Office, which is not known as being the most user friendly or anti-discriminatory government department. The Windrush scandal, over which the Home Office presided, involved brutal treatment and deportations of British citizens who were granted legal rights to settle here under the British Nationality Act 1948. Not a great omen for us EU citizens.

The second complicating factor was whether a woman applicant had adopted a married name. The digital check was unable to carry out a search for the same person who had records in more than one name. Two women in our group are still struggling with this aspect of the application almost a month after we started. One of them, who has lived in the UK for more than 50 years, has been reduced to tears. She told me she is frustrated by the “tortuous and incorrect” advice she received and the numerous phone calls she has had to make, having to produce her passport, driving license, marriage certificates, all of which either have her married name or her maiden name, which the digital check is still unable to compute.

It shouldn’t be this way. In 1986, the UK ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. As a signatory, the UK has “to ensure elimination of all acts of discrimination against women by persons, organizations or enterprises,” and having ratified the Convention, the UK government is legally bound to the provisions – this includes looking at any new policy or law through a lens to ensure women’s equality.

For us EU citizens applying for settled status, it is vital that anti-discriminatory practice is prioritised to avoid stress during the application process. It really does affect individuals when the government does not adhere to international Conventions it has ratified, and when policies are created without considering gender. Women cut across every group and community in society. To disregard issues that are specific to half the population creates systemic gender injustice. It also risks normalising discrimination, and we can’t let that happen.

As to what happens now, to our group and the thousands of others applying for residency in the UK, the future is uncertain.