Select Committee on Home Affairs Additional Written Evidence


35.  Memorandum submitted by Chris Mullin MP

I am the Member of Parliament for Sunderland South, the constituency in which Mr N and his family have lived for most of the last four years. I was until May this year a Foreign Office minister whose responsibilities included relations with Africa and entry clearance. I am also a former chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee which has oversight of the Home Office and its agencies, including the Immigration and Nationality Department.

  By way of background I should perhaps explain that I am generally supportive of the government's reform of the asylum process. The one aspect with which I differ is as regards the removal of children who have lived for much or all of their lives in the UK to countries where the social fabric has disintegrated, giving rise to the possibility that they face destitution on their return. Angola is one such country.

  Mr and Mrs N arrived in the UK on 22 April 2001 with their son G, then aged three and a half years. A second son, E, was born in the UK on 31 August that year. Briefly, their story is that Mr N deserted from the government army, was imprisoned, escaped from a truckload of prisoners on their way to be executed, made his way to the house of a distant relative who hid him for several months while making arrangements for he and his family to leave the country. Meanwhile government soldiers, searching for Mr N, raided the home of his father. Not finding Mr N they set about beating his wife with the buckle end of a belt in an effort to make her disclose the whereabouts of her husband. To this day Mrs N bears scars consistent with the events she describes and the older boy who is blind in one eye—an injury which, according to his mother, was caused when the buckle of the belt with which she was being beaten caught G's eye. Following this Mrs N and her son sought shelter in a church in Sonafe where she remained for several months until a relative arranged for them to leave the country. This is the story which, with minor discrepancies, they have told since they arrived in the UK. The asylum adjudicator chose not to believe them. I am inclined to, although I accept that, at this distance, their story cannot be proved one way or the other.

  My primary interest, however, is in the fate of the children. Although the 27-year civil war in Angola is over the country is in ruins. Several million people remain displaced. The government is unable to provide even the most basic services for many of its citizens and where services do exist they are mainly provided by foreign NGOs or UN agencies. Only about 50% of children receive any form of schooling and Angola is ranked third in the world for infant mortality. A considerable part of the population, including many in the capital Luanda, are destitute or live on the edge of destitution. Violence and lawlessness are rampant. Justice is non-existent or arbitrary. What few functioning institutions there are riddled with corruption. To take young children who have tasted our life and who—in the case of the younger boy—know no other life than ours and return them to a life of destitution would in my view be an act of unpardonable cruelty.

  I remind the court that, according to his teachers (see attached letter from Mrs W R) the older boy was traumatised when he first attended school and only gradually came out of his shell. This view is supported by the educational psychologist who examined him in July this year who described him as "a damaged and traumatised child who has, until now, blocked off memories and who would appear to be continuing to deny many of his past experiences . . . " She adds that he is "a highly anxious child." As well he might be, given the fate that now awaits him.

  The principle that differential treatment should be accorded to families with young children who have spent most of their conscious lives in this country has already been conceded. In October 2003 the Home Secretary announced an amnesty for families who had been in this country for three years up to that date. The N family have the bad luck to fall one year short of the deadline. I believe there is a case for extending the amnesty.

  I have one other concern. If we are to return families to lawless or dysfunctional countries such as Angola, I do not think it is good enough to simply drop them off at an airport, wish them good luck and wave goodbye, which is effectively what happens at the moment. Basic decency dictates that we should ensure that they have enough money in their pockets to ensure that they have at least a chance of re-integrating. Even the Hong Kong government which, in the final months before the hand-over to China, operated a ruthless system of repatriation of Vietnamese refugees, gave each a small basic payment so that they had had something in their pocket when they came off the plane at the other end. The power to do this was inserted, at my suggestion, in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (at Clause 58 (3)), but so far as I am aware only very limited use has been made of these.

  If we are to repatriate families to countries such as Angola, there is in my view a strong case for the Home Office to be required to satisfy itself that they have some means of survival in the immediate aftermath of their return. This could be done by make an arrangement with a non-governmental organisation to help with the re-integration of repatriated families. Once again, the principle has already been conceded. In the case of the first failed asylum seekers—all single males—deported to Afghanistan, arrangements were made for them to receive help once they were back in their own country. If it can be done in this case, it can be done in others. There has been talk for years of enlisting the services of appropriate NGOs or the International Organisation for Migration to help with repatriations. So far as I am aware, however, little or nothing has come of this and I do not believe anything will come of it unless the courts insist.

  In the case of the N family, I invite the court to rule that the forcible repatriation of these young children to Angola where they face an unknown fate, after their having lived in this country for so long, would be wrong under all circumstances.

  Failing that, I invite the court to rule that if children who have lived for all or most of their in this country are to be forcibly repatriated to a country where they are at risk of destitution their removal should be conditional upon adequate arrangements being made for their reception and reintegration on arrival.

16 December 2005





 
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