UK mothers with children from abusive relationships discriminated against by benefits system, court told
Two mothers who conceived children while in physically abusive relationships have been discriminated against after being denied access to benefits, a court has been told.
The women launched a challenge against the universal credit system after being denied an exception to the two-child cap.
The cap typically has exceptions, one of which is the 'rape clause', which means that a child conceived through sexual assault will still be entitled to it.
On Tuesday, however, Leeds administrative court was told that this rule only applies to third or subsequent children, meaning that some woman are unable to claim an exception if their first two children were conceived non-consensually.
Karon Monaghan KC, representing the women, who can only be identified as LMN and EFG, said the pair had conceived their children when they were in their teens and vulnerable.
Monaghan said that both women were regularly subjected to violence and coercion during their respective relationships, with one saying that she was choked until she lost consciousness and raped multiple times.
The court was told that LMN had older children who were in care, as well as two children who lived with her. When one of her older children returned home, however, she was refused an exception to the two-child limit that she thought she had been entitled to.
The other woman, EFG, had two children who were the conceived through rape and a third who was conceived through a consensual relationship.
The court heard that EFG was initially paid for her third child, but that the payments were rescinded once her fourth child was born, with the Department for Work and Pensions telling her she could only claim for two children, not four, due to the 'ordering provisions'.
Monaghan told the judge, Mrs Justice Collins Rice, that these ordering provisions are irrational and breach the women's right not to be discriminated against under article 14 of the European convention on human rights.
She also told the court that the government had an obligation under article 3 of the convention, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, to ensure that 'women are not penalised' and 'they have the resources to support themselves'.
'It must ensure it doesn't take away benefits because the two children are the product of non-consensual sex', Monaghan said, while also claiming that the money these women could receive is only 'a drop in an ocean' of the £300bn-plus national benefits budget.
The hearing, which neither woman attended in person, is due to continue tomorrow.
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