Organisations like the Refugee Service have been restricted in the amount of help they are permitted to give to asylum seekers under section 55 of the National Asylum and Immigration Act 2002, which stops benefits being provided if application for asylum is not made upon entry to the country.

The Refugee Council denies the individual allegations made by the women, but accepts that due to section 55 it is unable to help asylum seekers who have been denied support because they did not apply for asylum upon entry to the country. "We are sympathetic to all those who slept outside and we are doing our best to change things. It is an appalling piece of legislation and we are doing our best to get the government to repeal it," said a spokesperson for the Refugee Council.

Important questions need to be asked, however, about what exactly these voluntary organisations are doing. When the Labour government came to power, it set out on a deliberate policy of co-opting the voluntary sector as it provided compliant, often cheap, labour. This approach effectively split the sector into two groups: one made up of non-governmental organisations who agreed to work with Whitehall, effectively operating as an extension of government and implementing policy, and another of those who would not comply as service deliverers. The latter group have since been shunned by the government.

The effect of co-option has been seen across the board in the areas of overseas aid, homelessness, criminal justice and asylum and immigration policy. As time moves on, the gap between genuine non-governmental organisations and the pretenders who depend on government funding to build voluntary sector empires grows ever wider.

At the recent World Trade Organisation ministerial conference in Cancun, the division became clear when the discussions collapsed. Some non-governmental organisations were appalled by the breakdown while others stood with the developing countries in their belief that it was the best result possible in the circumstances.

The division between the genuine NGOs and those which are in truth just extensions of the government is also becoming apparent in the area of refugees and asylum seekers. The treatment of women seeking refuge outside the Refugee Council is outrageous. The government decrees that these women must not be helped; as a result, rather than endanger its funding, the Refugee Council treats them as outcasts.

Other organisations that help implement the government's asylum policy include Migrant Helpline, Refugee Arrivals Project and Refugee Action. "The Refugee Council say section 55 is not their fault, but we say that if they hadn't taken part and implemented every piece of repressive legislation coming out of government they would not have got away with it," said Nicky Adams of Legal Action for Women.

The government policy of denying asylum seekers any support if they enter the country and fail to apply immediately for asylum is forcing destitution on desperate people. Those organisations which take the government's money are so compromised by this that they are unable to do the task they were set up to do. The hundreds of asylum seekers now being forced into destitution are having to rely on churches and other independent voluntary organisations to support them.

The home office, which appears only too willing to follow the rightwing viewpoint which automatically sees asylum seekers as criminals, now risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. By denying asylum seekers the ability to live and work, it forces them into an impossible position of having to choose between seeking to obtain charity or committing crime to survive.

Matters are now deteriorating on this front, with the government decision to cut legal aid allocations to six hours for each asylum case. This is an inadequate allocation, and is having the knock-on effect of driving a number of law firms to withdraw completely from the asylum arena.

Lack of medical care for refugees who are clearly mentally and physically scarred from the experiences they have endured in their own countries presents another problem. A number of women had struggled to get onto GP lists. People fleeing oppression in other countries have often suffered trauma as a result of being tortured. They require special treatment and counselling but in many circumstances are being made instead to struggle to get the most basic medical service that is available to ordinary citizens in this country.

The combination of all these factors is making the life of the genuine asylum seeker who comes to these shores impossible. The people I met at the Crossroads Centre are brittle and ready to break. They suffered great hardship and trauma in their own countries and did not leave lightly. Rather than offer them the support that they need and deserve, the British government is making their plight even worse.