Engendering Socio-economic Prosperity of the United Kingdom through Gender Equality: Shelving the UK-Rwanda Agreement on Asylum-Seekers Sunderland University in London

Abstract: Most women suffer discrimination, which denies them the freedom to engage actively in the socio-economic endeavours of society in consonance with Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 5). This article contends that the United Kingdom-Rwanda Agreement on deportation of asylum-seekers to that country, is brazen demonstration of deportation as a malleable concept misused by politicians and policymakers to achieve expedient political gains. Although the challenges of asylum and immigration are partially pervasive in the UK, the article argues, that the erstwhile Conservative government’s agreement with Rwanda as strategy to stem the problem is not only ill-thought-out but a drain on national coffers, which could have been strategically invested in health or education productively. Furthermore, this article holds the view that a percentage of the £700mn paid to the Rwandan government should have been expended to revamp the technical and logistical facilities of Asylum processing centers, as a ploy to integrate the asylum seekers, especially women, to take up essential vacant positions in the NHS, social care services and agricultural activities to expand the economy. The article opines that the UK government should have leveraged the asylum seeker as strategic assets by re-training and assigning them to shore up sectors with dire vacancy challenges, post implementation of the Brexit agreement. Moreover, the article proposes that with society’s confidence waning in domestic British politics, coupled with the UK’s reputational decline globally, the government endeavours to protect the dignity and human rights of women asylum-seekers to regain some credit as proclaimed by the Labour Party’s 2024 elections manifesto. Finally, the paper recommends that securing gender equality enhances SDG 5, thus, the government must thrive to win the British people’s trust by instituting an inclusive committee, with a diverse membership of society to deliberate on the issues of refuges/immigration; so that governmental decisions and policies on the topic bear strands of public/community support.

Key words: Asylum-women, Aphasia Rwanda, SDG 5, socioeconomics, strategic thinking 

JEL codes: F