Protests Against Section 55 continue

On 23 September, the Appeal Court upheld the government’s appeal against a ruling in July that it had breached the Human Rights Act by denying support to a homeless man under Section 55 (S55) of the Nationality, Immigration & Asylum Act. Under S55 asylum seekers are not entitled to accommodation or money unless they claim “as soon as is reasonably practicable after the person’s arrival in the UK.” What happens in practice is that if people don’t apply within 24 hours of arriving, they are refused support, no matter what the circumstances.

The previous High Court judgment set a standard whereby destitution amounted to “inhuman and degrading treatment”. The Home Office conceded all the othercases brought at that time, resting their appeal on the least strong, butstill horrendous, one of Mr T. Mr T was homeless and had been living in Heathrow airport for nine days. The Appeal Court judges agreed with much of what Mr T described about his situation: “He found it difficult to rest or sleep because of the noise and the light and because he would be moved on by the police. Any ablutions were confined to public lavatories and he was unable to wash his hair or his clothes or to bathe or shower. He developed a problem with his left eye and also a cough." His mental health suffered. Yet they ruled: “It is impossible to find that T’s condition on 24 April had reached or was verging on the inhuman or the degrading [and therefore a breach of the Human Rights Act]. 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.”

An angry and determined group of 40 women – destitute asylum seekers and anti-racist supporters – who gathered outside the court immediately denounced the verdict as opening the way to mass pauperism in Britain. All were shocked but not surprised that the Home Office should insist on its
right to make people destitute in a way that is reminiscent of Nazism, and outraged by the judges who colluded with it.

Niki Adams from Legal Action for Women commented:
"We find it abhorrent that judges, who every day go back to often luxurious homes with comfortable beds, baths, toilets and kitchens, can be so callous about others’ suffering. It is immoral and should be illegal to deliberately make people destitute, especially people who have suffered so much and are traumatized by rape and other torture, war and being witness to atrocities committed against others, sometimes loved ones. It seems that the most vulnerable people in society – people with no vote and facing a vicious government-led media witch-hunt – get the shabbiest and most inhumane treatment. And this in the UK which has a religious prime minister, an established Church, and is supposed to be guided by the ethics of Christian charity."

S55 cannot be seen in isolation. It is only the latest brutal piece of legislation which has established a separate (and unequal) system for asylum seekers such as exclusion from the NHS, a separate benefit system, detention including even of children, forced dispersal and slum housing, etc. Far
from opposing this apartheid, many of the refugee NGOs, and first of all the Refugee Council (RC), have colluded with the government and taken contracts to implement these measures. They were nowhere to be seen at this or the previous High Court protest -- clearly choosing not to be outspoken against their paymasters.

The Eritrean Women’s group, which with the support of Legal Action for Women organized an action lobby outside the Refugee Council one-stop shop in July, came out to the High Court in numbers and asked why so few groups joined in the protest. Zizu Mengistab said: ”While we suffer from hunger and homelessness, the RC get £70m a year from the government. Our health is getting worse. As the winter approaches, some of us will not survive”.

The particular experience of women under S55 has been hidden by this ruling. Anne Neale from Women Against Rape’s Asylum From Rape Project comments:

“Women who have fled rape and other torture are left to beg for food and sleep on the streets where they are once again vulnerable to attack, even more vulnerable than men. Some have children and many have severe health problems.

In one of many shocking cases, a young Somalian woman who had seen her parents killed by police, was detained and gang-raped. On arrival in Britain last March she didn’t speak the language and didn’t know what to do, so it took her two days to claim asylum. The Home Office claimed this was unreasonable delay and refused her any support.

In such drastic cases either the HO concedes as soon as a legal challenge is brought, or the court decides that the woman should be provided with support. But a precedent is not set because the court that hears the case is never high enough to set a precedent. However, bringing the case to court is only possible if the woman can find a committed lawyer, and this can take weeks. Meanwhile women are left with nothing while trying to pursue their asylum claim. As a result of this Home Office tactic of avoiding a court hearing of the most desperate and blatantly unjust cases, those who have no legal representation have no legal precedent to protect them.

S55 has a particularly terrifying effect on women. It is estimated that 50% of women claiming asylum are survivors of rape, often by police or soldiers in detention. The stigma attached to rape, together with the fact that most are too traumatized to speak to anyone about their ordeal, almost always ensures that women will not report rape to immigration officials the moment they arrive in this country, and thus condemns rape victims to destitution.

Speaking passionately and often close to tears outside the court, women seeking asylum who are now destitute after fleeing from Comoros, Eritrea, Ethiopia and other countries, spoke out about their suffering: having to sleep on the streets, on night buses, in A&E departments, under stairwells, and on a friend’s floor, often begging for food – now also frowned upon. A woman who slept outside the Refugee Council during August described the humiliation of being forced to go to the toilet in the street and how scared she and other women were. A woman from Cote D’Ivoire reported that people are beginning to sleep outside the Refugee Council again, as they are told that sheltering in overcrowded rooms at the back of churches or mosques means they are not ”homeless”. One woman living rough was told by the voluntary group she turned to for help that her case was ”too weak” to bother getting legal help but that she should ”use her feminine charms” at the appeal hearing. She came to Black Women’s Rape Action Project for help just two days before her hearing and with great difficultly they succeeded in finding a lawyer to represent her.

A mother from No School Apartheid described how, despite government lies about asylum seekers, not one school had supported Home Secretary Blunkett’s claim that schools are being ”swamped” by children asylum seekers. A refugee from Ghana, representing the African Liberation Support Campaign, defended people’s right to emigrate to escape persecution and poverty, saying that capital moves freely, so why not people?

Many community groups, trade unions, church organisations and prominent individuals opposed the hated voucher system and it was defeated. S55 can and must go the same way: it is a shocking return to Victorian levels of destitution and suffering, and further brutalizes the society in which we
are living and trying to raise our children by saying that some lives are dispensable, and the suffering of the most vulnerable people is of no concern. At a time when wars around the world are forcing millions of people to flee their homes and seek safety, who will publicly stand with asylum
seekers and insist that S55 is scrapped? When billions of pounds are invested in the ongoing military occupation of Iraq, for example, who will join us insisting that resources must go to protecting and defending human life, rather than destroying it?

Join us in supporting the other demands of the Crossroads Coalition for Justice for Asylum Seekers:

• Immediate housing and support for all those who are homeless and destitute as a result of Section 55 or other legislation.
• Health care and other support for women and children who are particularly vulnerable because they are rape victims, pregnant, breastfeeding mothers, older, have mental or physical disabilities.
• Re-housing for all women from accommodation where they feel under threat.
• The Refugee Council and other NGOs must withdraw from administering the inhumane and discriminatory dispersal and accommodation system
• Abolition of the racist two-tier welfare system which impoverishes asylum seekers and forces many into slums or homelessness. Individuals and families claiming asylum must be given benefits and housing like everyone else in need.
• An end to all forced dispersals.
• The right to work for asylum seekers so they are neither impoverished nor dependent nor destitute.
• The government must recognise rape as persecution and torture and therefore grounds for asylum.

The Crossroads Coalition for Justice for Asylum Seekers includes the African Liberation Support Campaign (nkexplo@yahoo.co.uk), the Eritrean Women’s Group, Legal Action for Women (law@crossroadswomen.net), Payday a network of men (payday@paydaynet.org), Women of Colour in the Global Women’s Strike (womenofcolour@allwomencount.net), and others.

Legal Action for Women

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