LONDON: Walking the few feet from her gas fireside chair to the window is slow and painful for Fawzia. The struggle to move her crippled limbs is barely worth the desolate view afforded her - a grim concrete car park, beyond which the rain is further discolouring the filthy sandstone of a disused mill.

Aged 24, Fawzia is house-bound. She cannot tackle the flat’s three flights of narrow, twisting stairs since her pregnancy forced her to stop taking medication which eased the symptoms of her wasting illness. Isolated and depressed, this young Iraqi refugee has no television, radio or friends to pop by. She passes the time in prayer.

She and her husband Ahmed know no one in this northern town and the few clothes they have are inadequate for the weather. Ahmed, who is desperate to start an English course, makes only essential trips out, to buy food with the $37 in vouchers they get weekly. He worries for the security of his wife - the front door does not lock and is wedged shut using a folded piece of cardboard.

Often the most vulnerable among the asylum seekers who find their way to Britain, the plight of refugee women is a major concern. Women who have lost the extended family network and the community that would have helped with childcare, have complex problems.

In the UK they are often prevented from working, and a woman illiterate in her own language is less able to learn English. When she goes outside she faces racial or religious intolerance, if not blatant hostility, while women in relationships where there is domestic violence are silenced and trapped. Older women struggle as they are more entrenched in the traditions of home and less adaptable, while younger women can suffer at the hands of their own community, over fears that they will forget their original values in a new culture.

Sally Price, director of Refugee Action, said the practice of moving mothers within two weeks of giving birth is a damaging one. “Refugee Action helps women like Fawzia to understand what will happen to them when they give birth. A caseworker may visit them after the birth and make sure the baby has clothes and blankets and they try to bring women together to support one another and make friends.”

The value of Refugee Action is measured by the case of another new mother who was to be dispersed from Southampton to Glasgow. She had spent the maternity vouchers that must be used within a month of the birth on a cot and pram and took them with her to the bus. There she was told the bus company was under contract to the Home Office to carry only one bag per passenger: “We’re not a removal firm you know,” the driver told her. Refugee Action picked up the cot and pram and arranged transport of the equipment north. —Dawn/The Observer News Service.