THE teenage asylum seeker who sparked the Glasgow Girls campaign has been granted leave to stay in Scotland after a four-year campaign.

Agnesa Murselaj, 19, a Roma gipsy from Kosovo, and her family have received permanent leave to remain following a drawn-out battle with the Home Office.

In 2005, the Murselaj case became the founding cause of the Glasgow Girls, which was formed at Drumchapel High School, where Miss Murselaj was a pupil.

After her family was removed from their home in a dawn raid and put in a detention centre in Luton for more than three weeks, the Glasgow Girls passionately campaigned for better rights for asylum seekers.

The Home Office later agreed to reopen the family's case to stay in the UK.

The group's calls for more sensitive detainment of asylum seekers, particularly those with children, took them twice to the Scottish Parliament and won backing from politicians from all sides.

Miss Murselaj, who is training to be a hairdresser, said: "It feels good that we know we can be here, and nobody can come knocking on the door for us again.

"I think we are going to stay in Scotland for good. We know it is a good place and there are good people here.

"My parents are delighted what happened with the Glasgow Girls was really important."

Amal Azzudin, 18, was the key founder of the group. The Somalian also has leave to remain as a political refugee.

Ms Azzudin said: "Everyone is extremely happy.

"When I think back to that time, when there were all those phone calls to the detention centre and Agnesa was crying, thinking she was going to die, I could not have imagined this was going to happen."

Roza Salih, 19, a Kurd who lives in the city and is also an active member of the Glasgow Girls, has learned her family is allowed to stay following a Home Office review of legacy cases - those of asylum seekers who have been in the UK for four years or more.

She is now studying politics at college.

The Glasgow Girls became one of the most vocal and powerful pro-asylum seeker campaigners in the country, appearing in two television documentaries and hosts of interviews.

At the peak of their success, they won a clutch of awards for their appeals, including Best Public Campaign at the Politician of the Year Awards in 2005.

They were also invited to the Scottish Parliament, where they met the then First Minister Jack McConnell and secured an agreement not to deport asylum-seeker families during examination times.

Rosemary Burnett, who is director of Amnesty International Scotland, said the girls showed that motivated young people can effect real change.

She added: "The Glasgow Girls' campaigns raised the issue of the devastating effects of dawn raids on their classmates and on themselves.

"This led to more political movement than had been achieved by human rights and refugee organisations."