Dear Sir/Madam,

Credit for the demise of Section 55 (S55) has gone to the asylum charities like the Refugee Council (Guardian 26 June 04).  Yet it was women asylum seekers, with the support of grassroots organisations like ours who led ferocious protests against this return to Dickensian pauperism.

The protests exposed the asylum charities for signing lucrative government contracts which bound them to deny help to asylum seekers made destitute under S55.

Countless women, some of them pregnant, some with young children, some who had been raped and whose families were murdered in front of them were put on the streets by the Refugee Council, while others had to agree to be returned to the country they had fled from before they could get a roof over their head.

Community groups, many from within the church, sprung up from Lewes to Glasgow, providing clothes, food and survival money to destitute asylum seekers.  Many people took vulnerable asylum seekers into their own homes. Others helped prepare appeal cases and find good lawyers.  Many cases were won through the determination of asylum seekers terrified of being sent back and people of good will indignant at this sexist and racist denial of human rights.

New Labour’s draconian immigration laws could not have been brought in, or would not have had such devastating impact, if organisations like the Refugee Council had refused to be embedded with the government and carried on defending human rights.  They deserve more blame than credit.

Niki Adams
Legal Action for Women
230a Kentish Town Road
London NW5 2AB
Tel 020 7482 2496, 07956 316 899

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