APPENDIX 5
Memorandum submitted by Asylum Aid
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Asylum Aid is an independent, national
charity providing free legal advice and representation combined
with policy work and campaigning for the fair treatment of refugees
in the UK. We have over 12 years experience in this field.
1.2 The Refugee Women's Research Project
is an arm of Asylum Aid. This project, which includes a dedicated
team of researchers, focuses on the situation of refugee women.
1.3 This submission is specifically prepared
in response to the Home Affairs Committee's invitation (Asylum
and Immigration: Removals Inquiry).
1.4 We shall, however, focus in this submission
on the situation of women because it is often women that are most
prejudiced by the worst aspects of the asylum process.
THE COMMITTEE'S
TERMS OF
REFERENCE
2.1 The Committee's focus is on removal.
However, removal is simply one possible outcome of the asylum
process. If removal is viewed as a goal for and of itself, aims
such as "effective and humane methods of removal" and
"voluntary departures" will largely not be realised.
If removal targets are set without considering the process holistically
these broader aims, implicit within the Committee's questions,
and ultimately any targets, will not be met. This is particularly
so when the asylum process continues, in so many respects, to
be inadequate, inconsistent and in such perpetual flux.
MAIN SUBMISSION
3.1 The Committee asks what incentives there
may be to encourage voluntary departure. In our view, the single
greatest incentive for someone refused asylum to make a voluntary
departure would be that she was confident her claim had been fairly
and carefully considered and the decision was just and consistent.
Key reasons why the process does not engender such confidence
include:
— expedited procedures that single
out some asylum seekers for their claims to receive less consideration;
and impede trust building in the process such that some individuals
may never disclose all of what has happened or what is feared;
— incorrect decisions resulting from
flawed interviews and inadequate, and partial, country information
are all too common; perhaps because decisions are not supervised;
— reasons for refusal letters that
frequently include reasons that patently misrepresent, or are
simply irrelevant to, the claim under consideration; and make
assertions on the country of origin that are clearly incorrect
and sometimes in direct contradiction to the Home Office Country
Assessment;
— delays in the process that can be
measured in terms of months and years; indicating to an asylum
seeker that nobody is much interested in her asylum claim;
— inconsistent decisions; often resulting
out of delay for one asylum seeker such that it is said the country
situation has changed, which is very difficult for an asylum seeker
to understand when she knows someone else has been granted refugee
status;
— inappropriate cross examination on
appeal; often arising because the Home Office representative has
so little time with the case papers or, in any case, derives such
little assistance from what has gone before; and
— arbitrary enforcement action whereby
steps are taken to remove someone, or occasionally an asylum seeker
is removed, despite a claim or appeal being outstanding.
3.2 These factors and others can only impress
upon an asylum seeker that she is not wanted, her reasons for
fleeing her country are not of interest and she can have no faith
in the ultimate decision that she should return. This is compounded
when she has either been unable to fully disclose her asylum claim
or has been disbelieved because it is said her disclosure was
late.
3.3 In November 2000, the Immigration Appellate
Authority (IAA) introduced gender guidelines: a positive, and
long overdue, step. The Home Office have indicated their intent
to introduce such guidelines, yet their recently issued "Protocol"
on interviews makes no reference to such guidelines. The Home
Office remains impervious to considerable obstacles placed in
the way of women seeking asylum:
— women are habitually subjected to
interviews (whether screening or substantive) conducted by men,
where partners or children are present or with interpreters from
their country of origin: each well recognised to impede disclosure
of rape, sexual assault or domestic violence;
— expedited processes give a woman
very little time to establish trust even with a representative
(especially if dispersal or an expedited appeal means her representative
is not constant): moreover, if she has arrived with family, she
may well feel systematically or culturally compelled to claim
as a dependent;
— detention with male partners (eg
at Oakington) may preclude disclosure of rape or sexual abuse
(social stigma in societies from which many asylum seekers originate
is extremely strong) and is likely to preclude disclosure of domestic
violence; subsequent dispersal, often to where there is no recognisable
community from whom she may seek safety and support, ensures her
silence;
— this latter is compounded where she
has children to worry about: NASS officially recognises such problems
but, even where these are disclosed, is often unable to assist
due to organisational difficulties including staff ignorance.
3.4 Trafficked women face all these difficulties.
Moreover, a woman brought to the UK for prostitution, or forced
into prostitution here, may be confronted with imminent removal
before she has any opportunity to take stock of what is happening
to her. The exploitation she has experienced means she may not
know or understand the possibility of seeking asylum, and that
she may have exceptional difficulties in trusting in anyone (including
an advisor). The risk of such a woman being swiftly removed to
the country from where her abuser originates may never be considered.
This is similar for other situations: eg domestic and bonded labour.
CONCLUSION
4.1 There is no illegitimacy in removal
of asylum seekers who, after full and careful consideration, can
be seen to have no lawful claim to remain in the UK. Nevertheless,
it is our firm view that the asylum process frequently fails to
provide such consideration. The result is that any isolated inquiry
on removal risks reaching conclusions that are seriously tainted
by the substantial flaws that exist in the asylum process.
October 2002
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