Young People Seeking Safety: the network finds its feet in Manchester

The STAR (Students Action for Refugees) Northern Conference was held on March 17^th at Manchester University. The event discussed and emphasised the experiences of both young people claiming asylum and refugees in the UK and informed us all of the reality and issues that young people seeking asylum encounter. The key-note speeches and workshops were particularly useful because they were led by a wide range of people with varying insights on the asylum system. They consisted of practitioners, campaigners and legal experts who all have experience either working and campaigning in this area or seeking asylum in the UK themselves.

Justin Nsenglyuma of Refugee Action addressing the STAR conference
(c) Lora Evans//PressGangLeeds

The event began with a warm welcome by Emma Williams of STAR National and a thank you to Manchester University’s STAR group for hosting and organising the conference. Justin Nsenglyuma from Refugee Action then gave a whistle-stop, explanatory tour of the complicated asylum process and also drew attention to the unhelpful and irresponsible reporting by the mainstream media who regularly fail to make any distinction between people coming to the UK as immigrants or economic migrants, and people who flee their home countries and claim asylum here.

Lisa Matthews from Young People Seeking
Safety (c) Lora Evans//PressGangLeeds

Lisa Matthews from Young People Seeking Safety explained how the asylum system particularly affects young people. She stressed that a significant problem is caused by a person having to fit into a category of the 1951 Refugee Convention in order to receive protection. In many cases the children and young people themselves do not know exactly what circumstances led to their parents or guardians sending them out of the country, and yet this information is demanded by the Home Office. Another massive problem is that the UK Border Agency regularly disputes the age of children, treats them as adults and occasionally detains them with adults. She strongly advocated that the interviewing of young people needs to be child centred; shorter, with more breaks, evidence given the benefit of doubt and with legal representation always present. Lisa concluded by reading a moving poem by a young writer from the English Pen exiled writers’ group about his journey and experiences.

I attended two workshops during the day; the first, ‘Personal Testimony’, was led by a member of WAST (Woman Asylum Seekers Together). She spoke of her journey to the UK with her daughter and the problems they encountered particularly with the Home Office not understanding why they hadn’t brought ‘evidence’ with them. She provided much information about WAST, how the women support each other and share their stories. This was followed by a lively question and answer session. The second workshop, ‘Welfare, Support and Destitution’ led by James Jolly from The Children's Society, looked at how the problem of destitution has been exacerbated rather than alleviated, primarily by the removal of the right to work in 2002.

(c) Lora Evans//PressGangLeeds

The last speech was given by Anita Hurrell from Coram Children’s Legal Centre. Her talk was particularly helpful for those of us without legal knowledge and demonstrated how significantly the law impacts on individuals’ cases. It was interesting to hear her thoughts on the potential for the development of law in the areas of humanitarian protection and discretionary leave, in order to protect more people.

Finally a panel discussion was held with the title 'Access to university is becoming increasingly unequal: where do asylum seekers fit in?’ The struggles people face going to university were talked about, especially the difficulty of demonstrating prior education level and the high international fees asylum seekers have to pay. It was interesting that Manchester University is exceptional for not charging these extortionate fees and the discussion continued to focus on how students can lobby other universities to follow suit.

Final panel discussion (c) Lora Evans//PressGangLeeds

The whole event was really interesting and useful for students and activists who wanted to learn more about young people and the asylum system, where developments are being made and what we can do to create positive change.

By Lora Evans 

Statelessness in the UK

The UN Refugee Agency, alongside Asylum Aid published a report in November 2011 named ‘Mapping Statelessness in the United Kingdom’, highlighting the struggles faced by the ‘stateless’ individuals in the UK. A stateless individual is defined by the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons as a ‘person who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law’. This report aimed to highlight the current problems faced by such ‘stateless’ individuals and make some recommendations as to how their position can be improved.

Despite the United Kingdom's efforts to protect stateless individuals with the ratification of the 1954 Convention, the report still emphasizes some disturbing realities that take place on a daily basis. One of the most fundamental problems faced by stateless individuals is that there is an absence of any formal procedure for which they can apply for their statelessness to be recognized. This has grave practical consequences; with no identity documents, the stateless individual is unable to leave the country. This lack of formal procedure, combined with no leave to remain within the UK, means that individuals are more at risk of having their human rights breached. This is due to the fact that without any formal status they are more likely to be left without residence or separated from their family. However, due to a lack of data surrounding the issue of statelessness, the UN Refugee Agency and Asylum Aid were unable to gain a realistic picture of the scope of such problems in the UK. Nonetheless, it is suggested that these issues already affect many.

Consequently, the report makes some important recommendations to the government and Home Office based on the problems discussed, including a proposal for the introduction of a formal procedure by which stateless individuals can be identified and calls for the reformation of current UK stateless persons law to ensure that it is compatible with human rights declarations. Whilst at present the government does not appear to have acted on these recommendations, it is hopeful that the report will act as the catalyst for such overdue change.

By Ruth Hartley

Sheffield takes a stand against G4S

Yorkshire academics, activists and organisations working within the refugee-related sector have had their suspicions of the multinational corporation, G4S, for a long while. Group 4 Securicor, the conglomeration formed when Securicor merged with other security companies, have recently been deemed the 'preferred' bidder for a huge government contract that would see this profitable private company being responsible for the provision of social housing for asylum seekers in the whole Yorkshire and Humberside region. This is not a regional anomaly. All across the country, these housing contracts are being taken away from Local Authorities and offered to huge, multinational security companies such as Serco, Reliance Security and G4S. G4S are responsible for a huge variety of security jobs, from emptying cash machines to providing security guards for multi-million dollar events. Recently, they have been awarded a £100 million contract for running security inside the Olympic Park. Working alongside the British Army and their ammunition, G4S seems to have a very cosy relationship with government authorities. One of its current directors is the former Home Secretary John Reid. Over the past years, G4S has consolidated its position as the preferred private company to manage the practicalities of the UK's justice system. In 2011, G4S managed 675 court and police cells, four detention centres for asylum seekers, and since summer 2011, they have managed the notorious 'family friendly' detention centre at Pease Pottage. The UKBA has confirmed that the new asylum housing contracts will be given to companies with a good reputation. Unfortunately, a comprehensive portfolio of government contracts cannot suffice as a "proven track record". Until 2011, G4S were also responsible for the transportation, forcible deportation and dispersal of asylum seekers, but lost this contract due to the revelation of their appalling treatment of people in their care. This list, compiled by South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group, proves that G4S has a far from a stellar reputation:

• 2008: Medical Justice detailed nearly 300 cases of alleged physical assault and racial abuse by private security guards in the deportation process. 
• March 2010: G4S (and other security contractors involved in deportation) had failed to manage the use of violent restraint. 
• October 2010: A Colombian deportee was badly injured when forced onto an aircraft by G4S. 
• October 2010: An Angolan asylum seeker died at the hands of G4S during a forced deportation. Two of the guards face criminal charges and G4S are still waiting to hear whether they face corporate manslaughter charges. 
• A report by PAFRAS (Positive Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers) in 2008 interviewed former detainees about their experiences in detention. Five of them encountered racism from the staff in detention centres. 
• April 2010: a 40 year old Kenyan detainee died at G4S's Oakington detention centre, partly due to neglect of his medical condition. 

If this frightening list of malpractice is not enough, in 2010 alone, there were a seven hundred and seventy-three complaints made against G4S by detainees. Shockingly, G4S were allowed to investigate themselves under the 'scrutiny' of the UKBA. This is hardly a comforting thought. We cannot allow governments to place profitability over the safety and human dignity of others; political ideology should not put others at risk. As Sheffield activists proved today, now is the time to take action.

G4S is not a landlord; it's a private security army

After the publication of a letter signed by a multitude of Yorkshire Academics declaring their discomfort with the subcontracting of asylum seekers' social housing provision to multinational corporations - G4S, Serco and Reliance Security - John Grayson, a member of the South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group and a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, has written a striking article that pushes home the importance of resisting government changes to housing provision.

Calling the government's "preferred bidders" for the Yorkshire and Humberside region, G4S, a "private security army" rather than landlords, Grayson details G4S' history of providing poor, and sometimes lethal, services in the detention centres and dispersal procedures that it currently runs. Grayson continues to highlight the dangerous commodification of such critical services:

Although G4S’s slogan is “Securing Your World” its policy and practice is more accurately expressed by a recent description of the US private sector detention and deportation industry: ‘Every prisoner a profit centre, every immigrant a business opportunity’.

As the coalition commits itself to deficit reduction and austerity, its zeal for outsourcing to huge, profit-making, private companies must be kept in check. It has already been reported that the initial contracting of private companies to provide asylum seekers' social housing produced “a housing system which in many instances was poorly regulated, substandard and unsafe” according to the Institute for Race Relations. To grant a private contract which has already been heavily criticised to a company that has a non-existent record of providing dignified and safe services is more than ludicrous; it is highly dangerous. Decisions made by government officials and corporate executives, so far removed from the precarious lives of the people on whom the changes would impact, are set to further endanger the wellbeing and safety of asylum seekers across the country. This is something we must all resist.

The Express, The Telegraph and MP Priti Patel

One of David Cameron's new ministers, Priti Patel, has received a large amount of attention from The Express and The Telegraph over the past few days.

Presenting a written question to the current Minister of State (Immigration), Damian Green, she demanded to know how much the running of Morton Hall immigration removal centre cost the "public purse" in the last financial year. These figures, coupled with the "revelation" that only 9% of people detained in the centre over the last 5 months have been deported, has sparked inflammatory articles from both The Express and The Telegraph bemoaning the "stranglehold" of the European Human Rights Act.

Quoting the Home Office, both papers revealed the heavily euro-sceptic and isolationist approach of the current Coalition towards the rights of migrants and asylum seekers. Claiming that "foreign offenders" are abusing the rights given to them by the Human Rights Act, a Home Office spokesperson stated that "we will shortly be changing the immigration rules to reflect the public interest in seeing the removal from the UK of those who should be removed."

Priti Patel, MP for Witham and one of the Conservative Party's 'bright young things', has already made a name for herself as a hard-line, quasi-Thatcherist. In one of her earliest TV appearances on BBC's Question Time, she stated her controversial support for the re-introduction of capital punishment as a "deterrent" in the UK's penal system. In a similarly brash approach to human rights, she revealed to The Express and The Telegraph that "[illegal immigrants] should be put on the first plane out of Britain with no additional costs to taxpayers."

Whilst this traditionalist Conservative Party view is hardly surprising, Patel's careless approach to the clear differences between illegal immigration, seeking sanctuary and criminality suggests a deeper cancer in the Conservative New Wave's approach to migration. Morton Hall is an all-male facility that houses foreign national prisoners, failed asylum seekers and migrants who no longer have 'right to remain' in the UK. Those incarcerated at Morton Hall, therefore, are under different charges and require very different legal approaches and support. To state that those detained at Morton Hall are all illegal immigrants and should be treated as such is both inflammatory and false.

This confusion is symptomatic of an underdeveloped asylum system in the UK that penalises, rather than supports, those seeking sanctuary. Asylum seekers ‘illegally’ enter this country because there is no legal way to travel to the UK specifically to seek asylum, something that was recognised in the 1951 Convention on the status of refugees. There is nothing illegal about filing a claim for asylum and it is impossible, in legal terms, to have an "illegal asylum seeker." Yet the Home Office’s Five Year Strategy for asylum and immigration published in 2005 revealed their pledge then was to “… move towards the point where it becomes the norm that those who fail can be detained”.

Considering that in the last quarter of 2011, 27% of appeals made by refused asylum seekers were granted, it would suggest that some of those refused asylum seekers incarcerated in Morton Hall have been unfairly denied sanctuary. With the recent revelation that many failed Congolese asylum seekers who had been returned to the Democratic Republic of Congo have either 'disappeared' or have reported instances of torture and intimidation, Priti Patel's approach to repatriation is shockingly ill-informed.

In an interview before the Conservative Party Conference in 2011, Iain Dale, a political commentator, said that Priti Patel was a hard-nosed member of the "hang 'em and flog 'em right." With a myopic protectionism defining her approach to the global question of migration, I can't help but agree. To dismantle a cross-country agreement on unified Human Rights sets a uncomfortable precedent for further erosion of the rights of vulnerable people in the UK and Europe.

They really go for it

Yesterday we had six visitors to our charity. Two student nurses, two student social workers, one development worker and one psychiatric specialist working in Accident and Emergency. We did our usual thing of telling the visitors a little about where asylum system seekers come from, why they end up in the UK, some of the difficulties they face and how our charity supports over 750 asylum seekers and refugees each year.

We also had time for questions. Most came from the psychiatric specialist. She really wanted to understand what was going on. For her it was vital. She’s an expert in self-harm and suicide. The reason she came to see us is that she sees too many asylum seekers in her job. Asylum seekers who are so desperate because of how they are treated in the UK, that that try to kill themselves. “And they really go for it,” she said.

What struck me was what she said next. She has to send them away as they do not have a mental illness. Their self-harming and attempting suicide is caused by what they are experiencing. In some ways it is perfectly natural for someone to resort to such desperate measures when they are in such desperate situations.

At least 33 asylum seekers have committed suicide in the UK since 2005 (http://www.irr.org.uk/2005/september/ha000021.html).

by Peter Richardson, Leeds Asylum Seekers' Support Network, http://www.lassn.org.uk/