Nourishing Our Seeds of Strength was a community-led wellbeing and collective care day that created a safe, welcoming, and inclusive space at Centre 151 for ESEA 25 women and families to rest, connect, and share.
Participants arrived with a mix of emotions, from excitement and confidence to nervousness and fatigue, but quickly found comfort through food, movement, creativity, and open reflection.
They most valued the sense of togetherness, cultural food-sharing, dancing and laughter, opportunities to be heard, and the presence of childcare, which enabled fuller participation.
Looking ahead, participants expressed shared hopes for safety, stability, financial security, health, and solidarity, alongside a strong desire for more training, culturally rooted wellbeing activities, and community-building events.
100% of participants reporting that they felt safe, welcomed, respected, and had a strong sense of belonging, and that their voices, culture, and lived experiences were valued. All respondents also felt more confident and empowered after attending, with 89% reporting improved emotional well-being and feeling calmer, more grounded, and nourished. Importantly, 100% said they now feel more comfortable engaging with SEEAWA in the future and have a clearer understanding of the support available, demonstrating increased trust and accessibility.
If you have an event that you wish for SEEAWA to facilitate, do let us know.
For years, the South East and East Asian Women’s Association (SEEAWA) has been a sanctuary where we share our strengths, nourish our spirits, and support one another through the complexities of life in the UK. But as we look at the shifting landscape of British immigration policy, it is clear that individual resilience is no longer enough. To truly protect our community, we must move from surviving the system to changing it.
This March, SEEAWA is taking our message directly to the heart of power. We are heading to Westminster to lobby Members of Parliament as part of a greater coalition of migrant charities. We aren’t just going to tell our stories; we are going to demand a dismantling of the “Hostile Environment” and a total rethink of the government’s latest proposals.
The Threat: The “Earned Settlement” Model
In November, the Government unveiled a White Paper outlining a new “earned settlement” model. While the title sounds meritocratic, the reality is a regressive system that treats human rights as something to be bought.
Under these proposals, the baseline for permanent residency (Indefinite Leave to Remain) would double from five years to ten years. To “earn” the right to stay sooner, migrants must meet high salary thresholds or advanced language requirements. This is not a “fairer pathway”; it is a system designed to exclude.
Why This Hits Our Community Hardest
The implications for ESEA women and their families are devastating:
Poverty by Design: The expansion of the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) condition means thousands of families—including those with British children—will be barred from the basic safety net we all pay into. By extending the wait for settlement, the government is effectively pushing thousands of children into avoidable poverty.
Moving the Goalposts: These changes are set to apply retrospectively. Women who moved here under one set of rules, planning their lives and their children’s futures, suddenly find the finish line has been moved miles away. This creates a state of permanent “legal limbo” and profound mental distress.
Devaluing “Essential” Work: The model explicitly penalizes those in low-skilled or care roles. Many ESEA women form the backbone of the UK’s social care and service sectors. To label this work “low-skilled” and force these women into 15-year waits for settlement is a slap in the face to those who kept this country running during its darkest hours.
Our Mission in Parliament
Our lobbying event in March is a critical moment for SEEAWA. We will be meeting with MPs to voice our opposition to the White Paper and to explain how these “hostile” policies intersect with the specific challenges ESEA women face—including linguistic barriers, workplace exploitation, and the unique sting of racialized misogyny.
We are seeking Systems Change. This means:
Abolishing the 10-year baseline for settlement and returning to a fair, 5-year route.
Ending the NRPF condition for families with children to ensure no child goes hungry due to their parents’ immigration status.
Scrapping retrospective changes to ensure the law provides certainty, not instability.
How You Can Help
The “earned settlement” model assumes that our value is defined only by our taxable income. We know our value lies in our community, our care, and our culture.
Would you like to join our delegation to Parliament? If so, please email sarahreid@seeawa.org.uk. Together, we can ensure that the voices of ESEA women are not just heard, but acted upon.
At SEEWA (Southeast Asian Women’s Association), we are closely following Spain’s landmark decision to regularize up to 300,000 migrants annually through 2027. This bold policy recognizes a fundamental truth: migration is not a burden; it is a vital economic engine.
While Spain leads the way in Europe, the conversation here in the UK often overlooks the data on how much our community contributes to the nation’s stability and success.
The UK’s Growing Labor Gap
The UK is currently navigating a significant workforce transition. Despite a cooling in overall vacancies, critical sectors remain in a “participation crisis” that only migration can solve:
NHS & Social Care: Around one in five NHS workers in England hold a non-British nationality (approx. 325,000 staff). In the adult social care sector, the recent 65% drop in visa grants has left providers scrambling to fill 100,000+ vacancies.
The Growth Engine: Forecasts suggest that almost all UK employment growth—over a million new jobs—must be driven by migration to offset an aging domestic population.
High-Demand Sectors: Vacancies in transport, logistics, and “green” engineering continue to outpace domestic supply, with sustainable recruitment needs rising 48% over the last five years.
A Net Gain for the Public Purse
The myth that migrants are a drain on public services is debunked by fiscal reality. According to recent reports from the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) and the OBR:
£47 Billion Impact: The 2022/23 cohort of Skilled Worker visa holders alone is estimated to have a present-value net fiscal contribution of £47 billion over their lifetime.
Taxation vs. Use: Most migrants arrive in their 20s and 30s—the “golden age” for fiscal contribution. They pay into the system for decades before requiring the high-cost healthcare or pension support associated with older age.
Refugee Contributions: Even within humanitarian routes, expedited work rights could contribute an estimated £266,000 per person to the UK economy over 12.5 years through taxes and increased productivity.
The SEEWA Perspective: Dignity is Non-Negotiable
For the Southeast Asian women we represent, “regularization” and “visa security” mean more than just a job. It means the right to work without fear of exploitation, the ability to reunite with families, and the freedom to invest in their local UK communities.
Spain has shown that political courage can align with economic sense. It is time the UK narrative shifts from “policing borders” to “powering the economy.” When we empower migrant women, we strengthen the entire country.
Join the Movement: Our Call to Action
We believe that policy change starts with a change in perspective. SEEWA is launching a Policy Discussion Forum to gather stories and data from our members to present to local MPs.
How you can get involved:
Share Your Story: If you are a migrant worker in the UK, how has your work contributed to your local community? DM us or email us at info@seewa.org.
For many women, seeking help is the hardest step. For some, that first step becomes the beginning of a journey not only toward safety, but toward leadership, healing, and community.
Yvette Mercado is one of those women.
A Filipina single mother who has lived in the UK for nearly 17 years, Yvette is deeply committed to supporting other women, particularly migrant mothers who have experienced domestic violence. Today, she is an active volunteer and organiser within the ESEA community, but her relationship with SEEAWA began at a very different point in her life.
Finding Support When It Was Most Needed
Yvette first connected with SEEAWA as a beneficiary, at a time when she was navigating the realities of domestic violence, single motherhood, and the complex challenges faced by migrant women in the UK.
Through SEEAWA, Yvette received practical and emotional support, including financial assistance during difficult periods, and befriending support that helped reduce isolation. Just as importantly, she found a space where her experiences were believed, understood, and accepted, without judgment.
SEEAWA’s workshops, wellbeing activities, and community gatherings offered Yvette opportunities for healing, learning, and connection. As a survivor of violence and a mother caring for a child with additional needs, being welcomed fully, not despite these experiences, but with them, made a profound difference.
“SEEAWA didn’t just support me in crisis — it helped me feel human again.”
From Beneficiary to Trustee
As Yvette rebuilt her confidence and sense of self, she began to give back in small ways, attending events, supporting other women, and sharing her insights. Over time, her lived experience, compassion, and leadership became invaluable to the organisation.
She later became a trustee of SEEAWA, helping guide the charity’s direction and ensuring that the voices of women with lived experience remained central to its work. Her journey reflected what SEEAWA believes deeply: that women are not defined by what they survive, but by what they become when supported.
Continuing the Cycle of Care
Today, Yvette continues to volunteer with SEEAWA, helping organise events, support fundraising activities, and strengthen community connections for East and Southeast Asian women.
Beyond SEEAWA, she is an active volunteer with organisations, leads and supports activities through the Mumshie group, and contributes to projects and documentaries advocating for migrant rights and welfare.
Her work is grounded in empathy, solidarity, and a belief that no woman should face violence, isolation, or injustice alone.
Why Stories Like Yvette’s Matter
Yvette’s journey from beneficiary to trustee to volunteer shows what becomes possible when women are met with care, dignity, and long-term support.
This is the impact of SEEAWA’s work:
Providing immediate support in times of crisis
Creating safe spaces for healing and belonging
Supporting women to move from survival to leadership
As we enter a new year, Yvette’s story reminds us that support changes lives and those lives go on to change others.
If you would like to support SEEAWA’s work and help more women begin their own journeys toward safety and solidarity, please consider donating or getting involved.
Earlier in December, our team received training from Shelter on Systems Thinking in Homelessness. This fascinating training made us reflect on how to approach more holistic approaches to solving complex problems and the patterns, structures and mental models that influence and shape events. Insecure housing is an issue that deeply affects our community, largely as a result of their immigration status. Strengthening women’s immigration status is a key 5 year policy aim SEEAWA is pursuing in 2026.
For SEEAWA, supporting well-being, joy and visibility is key to help our community flourish and thrive.
Members of our team joined Imkaan, a feminist umbrella organisation dedicated to addressing violence against Black and minoritised women and girls, to attend a Wellbeing Day that included yoga, painting and lunch at the Africa Centre Restaurant.
Other members of our team were supported by Human Expansion School to reflect on how to develop and cultivate deeper listening. We also explored how to release stress from the body through breathing, ice baths and sauna at The Sanctuary &soul.
Through our events such as drama workshops with Philippines Theatre UK, participants supported their wellbeing through creative, joyful exercises.
Finally, our Christmas party was attended by over 80 community members, their children and families from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mauritius, Philippines, Thailand and the UK came together for festive food, games and tai chi! A wonderful afternoon and here’s to more successes in 2026!
SEEAWA’s stand on the Immigration White Paper is in solidarity with the joint statement written by Step Up Migrant Women UK, LAWR’s, Southall Black Sisters, Hibiscus, and End Violence Against Women. Our take on it highlights a few points from their joint statement.
For migrant victims of domestic abuse
SEEAWA supports ESEA women in the UK to thrive. We are concerned that the sweeping changes to immigration policy in the White Paper will particularly harm ESEA survivors of violence, trafficking and modern slavery by losing their status and becoming vulnerable to exploitation.
The White Paper fails to address the vulnerability of migrant survivors of VAWG who are unable to access mainstream refuges, gain financial support, stable housing or legal advice to flee domestic abuse and rebuild their lives. The systemic barriers of sharing information with immigration enforcement (which is weaponised by perpetrators and deters access to protection), the enormous burdens of No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF), and restrictive concessions mean that survivors will be trapped with their abusers. The government cannot claim to support survivors whilst engaging in hostile immigration policies that put migrant women in danger.
Labour market and immigration
The White Paper’s approach to migrant labour devalues ‘low-skilled’ roles (carers, domestic workers, support services) overwhelmingly held by migrant women. Removing care workers from the list of essential workers risks significantly reducing the number of carers in the UK, putting the safety and health of the elderly and those with disabilities in danger.
Restricting access to migrant women workers to long-term immigration stability and settlement will force workers to accept poor conditions and reliance on partners and employers, increasing the risks of abuse and exploitation.
Criminalisation of victims/survivors
The White Paper stops survivors of VAWG, or women who have been trafficked and exploited, from accessing support if they have committed a crime under the UK justice system, falling under the ‘foreign national offender’. Most women in prison have experienced abuse or exploitation, and often as a result of coercion or economic precarity. Automatic deportation and accelerated removals will prevent survivors from pursuing meaningful justice and rebuilding their lives.
Calls to Action If you are interested in taking steps to change the White Paper and want to help with your unique skills, experience and passion, please email sarahreid@seeawa.org.uk
In recent news, the Southeast and East Asian Women’s Association (SEEAWA) has spoken out about one of the UK’s most prolific rapists, Zhenhao Zou, recently convicted in the UK, whose abuse in both the UK and China have sparked extensive debate. SEEAWA’s insights reflect the complexities surrounding cultural perceptions, our commentary offers a necessary lens through which to examine his actions.
The Case of Zou
Zhenhao Zou, a Chinese PhD student, was found guilty in London last month of drugging and raping 10 Chinese women across two continents. Sadly, at his trial, police said they had found video evidence, filmed by Zou himself, of potentially 50 more victims, and they say that there are many more victims out there. Since his prosecution, 23 more women have come forward to report their assault.
Zou’s case has been a flashpoint in the UK, bringing to light not only the harrowing details of the crime but also the broader societal implications that arise when such incidents occur. The crimes have been centred around the Chinese community, which is normally very reticent about discussing issues such as rape.
Through our discussions with the media, SEEAWA provided a UK East and Southeast Asian feminist framework for understanding the reactions to Zhao’s case. We noted that the attitudes towards rapists are often shaped by deeply entrenched cultural narratives, and even in the UK, five out of six women do not report their rape.
Looking to the future Despite these challenges, SEEAWA hopes for a transformative shift in attitudes. We emphasise the importance of education and advocacy in reshaping the narrative around sexual violence. In our work, by fostering discussions on what constitutes consent and teaching respect for bodily autonomy, there is potential for societal change. Activism, particularly from young people and women’s rights groups, has been instrumental in pushing back against outdated beliefs and demanding justice for victims.
As the discourse surrounding Zhao’s case continues, SEEAWA’s voice stands as a critical reminder of the work that remains to be done. Our call to action emphasises the necessity of reshaping cultural attitudes towards sexual violence, supporting survivors, and holding perpetrators accountable.
A case in France recently highlighted Gisele Pelicot’s plight, in which her husband drugged and allowed her to be raped by several men. Remaining defiant, she said: ‘it’s not for us to have shame – it’s for them.’
SEEAWA believes that by engaging in constructive dialogue, advocating for survivors, and educating communities, society can work towards a future where justice prevails and victims are empowered.
Meet Lyn who was once a beneficiary we helped to support and now is a member of our team who uses her lived experience, empathy and compassion as a Bespoke Women’s Co-ordinator to help support other ESEA women to thrive in the UK.
Where are you from?
I was born in Quezon City, Philippines, to loving but very poor parents. From a young age, my mum noticed how determined I was when it came to studying. I worked hard and was consistently placed in the top section throughout primary and high school. I went on to receive a full university scholarship, which covered all my tuition fees.
What job did you do after University?
After graduating, life wasn’t easy. I juggled one short-term job after another until I finally secured a government post with the Social Welfare Office. I stayed there for five years, but had to stop working when my dad suffered a massive stroke that left him partially paralysed. It broke me. I moved out to live on my own in Intramuros and started working for the Election Office.
What is important to you?
During this time, I also served as a volunteer lector at the Manila Cathedral, which gave me peace and purpose.
Eventually, I passed the Civil Service exam and got a job with the Competition Office. Around this time, I met the man who would later become my husband. We agreed it was too hard to live apart, so we got married and I moved to London to build a life with him.
What was moving to the UK like?
But moving to the UK turned out to be incredibly difficult. From the moment I arrived, he made it clear that I was a burden. He reminded me constantly that he had spent money on my visa, flight, and requirements. He accused me of things I never did, often saying I was living a life of luxury while he was the one feeding me. Even eating became difficult—I felt guilty with every bite. His behaviour became controlling, hurtful, and emotionally abusive. That dark period lasted for two years.
How did you find help?
Eventually, I took a leap of faith and fled the abuse. That’s when I found a Filipino charity that gave me the support I needed.
I found the Filipino Charity in Filipino-British Facebook groups about their advertisement of the Charity (Kanlungan).
Solace Women’s Aid later helped me apply for the Domestic Violence Concession, which allowed me to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain. When the result came back, and it was successful, I couldn’t believe it. I was finally safe, and I could stay in the UK legally—on my own terms.
What did you do next when you began to feel safe, secure and confident?
I began volunteering with the same Filipino charity that helped me, supporting other women facing abuse—helping them access benefits, secure housing, and apply for visas, just like I once had to.
Eventually, I met a new partner and moved to Leicestershire. I found work with the NHS, then as a Clerk for the local council, and later became a Women’s Support Officer for SEEAWA, where I still work today.
In January this year, I applied for British Citizenship. The result came back in March—approved. My citizenship ceremony was held on April 24, which is also my birthday.
After everything—the pain, the fear, the resilience, the faith—I am now a British Citizen.
Every hardship I endured, every step I took, every act of courage—it has all led me to this moment. And though the journey was far from easy, I am beyond grateful.
Because now, I’m free. I’m safe. I’ve come full circle. And I know this is just the beginning.
My Own DV journey in today’s society: SEEAWA Digital Story under Let us Lead the Change Programme:
What do enjoy about being in the UK and your work?
The mixture of richness in history and hidden gems with a very nice touch of nature and delicious meals
I am a very family oriented because it’s a Filipino culture I love the family I built here in UK.
Charity Family that I worked with to give back to the community. Found a special someone who is my long-time partner now and his family that makes me feel that I’m not alone. The friends of my partner became my friends too.
Join us in celebrating East and Southeast Asian Women in the UK – shattering stereotypes, breaking boundaries, and reclaiming our power!
Identity Unbound is an International Women’s Day Celebration that uplifts and empowers women from East and Southeast Asian communities in the UK. Let’s come together, share stories, and build a stronger community. Register here or through the link in our bio: bit.ly/SEEAWAwomensday
Here’s our powerhouse lineup:
Panel Discussion: Navigating identity and belonging as an ESEA immigrant in the UK A discussion on what it means to be an ESEA woman living in the UK and all the complexities that come with it. Our speakers:
Eileen Wada Willett – Founder, East Asian Girl Gang
Silfana Nasri – PhD researcher
Anna Chan – Founder, Asian Leadership Collective
Moderated by Amanda Lago, SEEAWA
Presentation: Your Role in Democracy Learn how to vote, get involved, and make your voice heard with Shout Out UK
Talk and Q&A: Understanding Your Rights & Responsibilities Legal insights on citizenship, dual nationality & your rights as immigrants with Dias Solicitors
