'Tortured' asylum seeker's plight
An asylum seeker who says she was tortured in her homeland claims she was forced by poverty into prostitution after her bid to stay in the UK failed.
Lina Ndayi Nabintu, 29, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, refused official help to return home. It meant she could not claim benefits and says money worries led her to trawl bars in Cardiff offering sex for £10. The Home Office said a distinction had to be drawn between successful asylum claims and economic migrants.
Ms Nabintu is one of a group of asylum seekers who have spoken out on the BBC’s current affairs show Week In Week Out. She says she was tortured as a political prisoner in DR Congo but the Home Office rejected her asylum claim.
It also rejected her appeal and under immigration rules asylum seekers who have exhausted all their legal avenues of appeal, get no housing or benefits.
