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Dickensian future for
asylum seekers Families whose asylum claim has been turned down will now be denied all support unless they agree to be "voluntarily" sent back to the countries they have fled (Blunkett toughens rules, October 28). So we face the Dickensian prospect of destitute mothers and children once more wandering the winter streets - being arrested for begging or prostitution - and of children being taken from their parents. Asylum seekers will also have only one appeal and legal aid will be so limited it will be difficult for even the most compelling cases to succeed. These measures will be particularly devastating for women. More than 200 women have come to us for help over the last few months. We hear daily reports of rape by soldiers, rape in detention, women being forced to watch their loved ones being murdered. Many of these women are already living on the street, others are sleeping on night buses, in the A&E departments of hospitals, or moving nightly from place to place, cold, hungry and ill, scavenging for restaurant leftovers to stay alive. Blunkett is driving people to "choose" between starvation in the UK and rape and murder in the countries from which they were forced to flee. The man who will decide when it is safe for people to go home is already sending Iraqis back to the country Britain has helped to devastate. Will the churches, mosques and temples, unions, doctors, lawyers and other professionals, feminists, the anti-war movement and the spokespeople against sexism and racism take a stand against this enforced pauperism and brutality? Niki Adams PRESS
RELEASE from the No room at the inn for asylum seekers. Children out on the streets at Christmas! "We are suffering hunger and homelessness. Our health is getting worse. As the winter approaches, some of us will not survive." Rape victims, in
self-defense, are now willing to speak to the media. With winter setting in and many already sleeping rough, Home Secretary David Blunkett has announced that the government will be putting asylum seeker families, including children, out on the street. Using an amnesty for some to cover for this brutality, he said that families who have arrived after 2000 whose asylum claim has been turned down will be denied support unless they agree to be "voluntarily" sent back to the countries they have had to flee. During the last few months, over 200 desperate rape survivors from many different countries have come to us for help. We know of many, many others, women and men, who are sleeping on night buses, in the A&E departments of hospitals, scavenging for restaurant leftovers to stay alive. Women are homeless and destitute either because of Section 55* or because their asylum claims have been turned down, despite compelling evidence, and often as a result of negligent legal representation. We face the Dickensian prospect of destitute mothers and children once more wandering the winter streets - and then being arrested for begging and prostitution. The Eritrean women's group, part of the Crossroads Coalition for Justice for Asylum Seekers, says "We are suffering hunger and homelessness. Our health is getting worse. As the winter approaches, some of us will not survive," The particularly terrifying effects on women, who everyone knows are more vulnerable to rape and other violence, are censored out of the news. An estimated 50% of women claiming asylum are survivors of rape, often by the police or soldiers of Western-backed dictators. One rape victim who fled to the UK was again raped by the man she was forced to depend on after being made homeless. And what does this mean for children who are even more vulnerable? A month ago, on 23 September, the High Court ruled that destitution is legal under Section 55*: it is, said the judges, acceptable to leave an ill and vulnerable man "living" at Heathrow airport because "he had shelter, sanitary facilities and some money for food. He was not entirely well physically, but not so unwell as to need immediate treatment." While the Nazi holocaust 60 years ago against Jewish and Roma people, gay people, socialists and others, is officially commemorated and condemned, this chilling High Court decision was a watershed, removing the final legal obstacle to Blunkett's latest Nazi brutality. Niki Adams from Legal Action for Women commented at the time:
This is only the latest legislation establishing a separate (and unequal) system for those of us who are asylum seekers: exclusion from the NHS and from state schools, a separate benefit system, detention even of children, forced dispersal, slum housing, and now cutting legal aid for asylum claims. NGOs which are supposed to defend asylum seekers have been recruited into a privatised apartheid industry for asylum seekers, and given contracts to implement government measures - to the tune of £70m a year in the case of the Refugee Council (RC). Asylum seekers, starting with women who had been made destitute by the RC, had to sleep rough and picket at their door before the RC announced it was cancelling its housing contract, Blunkett intends to drive people to choose between starvation in the UK or rape and murder in their country of origin. This is the man who will decide when it's safe for people to go home, who is already sending Iraqis back to the country Britain has helped to devastate. At a time when wars around the world to advance Western economic, political and military interests are forcing millions of people to flee their homes, and when billions of pounds are invested in the continuing occupation of Iraq, who will join those of us who are insisting that resources must go to protecting and defending human life, rather than destroying it? Will the churches, the mosques, the temples, the trade unions, the doctors, lawyers and other professionals, the prominent people, the anti-war movement, and the spokespeople against sexism and racism, take a stand? The Crossroads Coalition for Justice for
Asylum Seekers, NB *Section 55 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act deprives asylum seekers of accommodation or money unless they claim "as soon as is reasonably practicable" after their arrival in the UK. In practice, if people don't apply within 24 hours of arriving, they are refused support, no matter what the circumstances. |