Applicants' accounts of experiences of fear, trauma, violence, and persecution are central to the process of claiming asylum. These narratives are, at a human level, primed to provoke emotional responses, not only in the narrator but also in those to whom the account is relayed. In this article, we explore the vectors of emotionality that permeate asylum decision‐making in the United Kingdom, focusing particularly on the risk faced by the professionals involved of suffering vicarious trauma. More specifically, based on a series of 104 semi‐structured interviews with asylum stakeholders and observation of 48 appeals to the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the First‐tier Tribunal, this article identifies the adoption by legal and quasi‐legal professionals of emotional coping strategies – of detachment and denial of responsibility – that risk being deployed in maladaptive ways that jeopardize the prospects for justice.

Asylum applicants in the UK must show, to a 'reasonable degree of likelihood', a well-founded fear of persecution, on the basis of race, religion, political opinion or membership of a particular social group, in the event of return 'home'. This requirement presents myriad challenges both to claimants and decision-makers.Based on findings from a three-year national study, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, this article explores those challenges as they relate to women seeking asylum in the UK, whose applications include an allegation of rape. The study explored the extent to which difficulties relating to disclosure and credibility, which are well documented in the context of women's sexual assault allegations in the criminal justice system, might be replicated and compounded for female asylumseekers whose applications include a claim of rape. Findings suggest that the structural and practical obstacles faced in establishing credibility, and the existence of scepticism about rape claims and asylum-seeking more generally, mean that 1 The authors are indebted to The Nuffield Foundation for funding this research (AJU/36101) and to Zoe Harper, our research assistant during the data generation stages of the project. Thanks are due to the project's Advisory Board for their time and advice. We would also like to thank all those who generously gave their time and support to the study, whether by being interviewed or facilitating tribunal observations. We are particularly grateful to the asylum claimants who allowed us to observe their hearings or to otherwise learn about their cases, and to include their experiences in our research. 1 decision-making can often be experienced as arbitrary, unjust, uninformed or contradictory, making it difficult for women asylum applicants who allege rape to find refuge in the UK.

The barriers that prevent or delay female victims of sexual assault from disclosing to criminal justice authorities, and the obstacles that often disincline professional and lay decision-makers from finding such narratives credible have been well documented. This article explores the extent to which such difficulties may be replicated, and compounded, in the case of female asylum-seekers; it will examine the complex ways in which the structure and processes, as well as the heavily politicised context, of asylum decision-making may contribute towards a silencing of sexual assault narratives. The article will explore the ways in which the intersection of race, ethnicity, gender, culture, religion, language and nationality present distinct challenges to women asylum applicants for whom an alleged rape is a part of their claim, and reflect on some of the difficulties which this presents in terms of assessing the credibility of sexual assault allegations, and of the overall asylum claim.

A significant proportion of women seeking refugee status in the United Kingdom will claim to have been raped in their country of origin. Even where this is not the sole basis of an asylum claim, it may be relevant to its determination. While criminal justice responses to rape have been the subject of extensive academic criticism and legislative reform, the processes of disclosure and credibility assessment in the asylum context have received little attention. This article explores possible parallels and dissonances in the treatment of rape across the asylum and criminal justice contexts, drawing in particular on the findings of a 2007 pilot study. It considers how problems such as the underreporting of rape, the inability of the victim to`tell the story' in her own words, a hostile adjudicative environment, and the tendency to regard factors such as late disclosure, narrative inconsistency, and calm demeanour with suspicion ± may be replicated and compounded in asylum cases. It also acknowledges the complex intersection of race, gender, culture, and nationality in this context.