South Asian Bodies at British Borders in the 1970s: From the Ugandan Asian ‘Stateless Husbands’ to ‘Virginity Testing’

ABSTRACT This article looks at two critical moments in British immigration – the case of the ‘stateless’ Ugandan Asian husbands, whose wives successfully argued for their entry in Britain in 1973 and the ‘virginity test’ performed on Mrs K at Heathrow Airport in 1979. The article argues that in the late 1960s, the focus of immigration legislation was to keep male primary and dependant migrants out of Britain. Thus, the Ugandan Asian women constructed a narrative of the hapless and helpless South Asian woman in order to argue for family reunification. However, the Ugandan Asian crisis shifted attention to the dependant question, and given that the entry of male migrants could be legally restricted, it was the female dependant whose entry had to be curbed. This article then traces how the South Asian female body was examined for evidence of fraud in order to curb and deter the number of female dependants who could legally enter Britain. Thus, this article traces how the female dependant became the focus of discriminatory bordering practices and the use of the female body as an evidentiary source within the immigration system.