Home Affairs Committee
INITIAL ASYLUM CLAIMS: political pressure to refuse as many asylum claims as possible. Minor inconsistencies in an asylum seeker’s story may be magnified to unfairly damage credibility even if there are good reasons for these inconsistencies. A culture of disbelief amongst officials. Country of Origin information is sometimes out of date. While it is important that all asylum claims are assessed rigorously officials need to take into account the following factors.
- — fear of disclosing the full story, especially in relation to sexual abuse, rape, torture etc for both sexes because of fear, shame, trauma.
- — asylum seekers may be genuinely unable to remember some parts of their story because they have blocked out the trauma of what happened to them.
- — Problems with translators. Asylum seekers may be wary of disclosing the full story to a translator from their country if they suspect that s/he worked with the government of their country or belongs to a different tribe or political group. Translators with a political agenda may misrepresent the facts when translating or the translator may not be proficient in the language being translated from and may unintentionally misrepresent what the asylum seeker has said.
- — People smugglers may tell asylum seekers to present a certain story even if it is not the truth. Asylum seekers who have no knowledge of how the system works may heed this advice, not realising the serious, adverse consequences of doing so.
- — The people who are most vulnerable are often the least likely to succeed in getting support and asylum because they may be too traumatised to talk coherently about what happened to them, ignorant or afraid of the asylum system and so unable to get decent legal advice and unassertive (because they are used to abuse and control) . The system is usually either too fast or too slow. Fast track does not give the person a chance to think, recover or get proper legal advice and non-fast track can take years. The result of all this is that people who arrived in the UK traumatised, but with hope and motivation, become psychological wrecks who, if finally given status in the UK, will take years to recover and become self-supporting. This costs the NHS and Social Services a great deal, and could be prevented with a more sensible asylum system.
Recommendation: ensure that high quality, independent legal advice and representation is available to all initial claimants. As The Home Affairs Select Committee and many others have stated many times, getting decisions right first time will reduce the ‘clogging up’ of the system, save the government money and alleviate the suffering of asylum seekers being left in limbo for months or years. Address the culture of disbelief amongst officials. Ensure that country of origin information is regularly updated and independent.
SUPPORT: this is woefully inadequate. Income support is deemed to be the minimum amount that people without income can survive on. Yet Section 95, Section 4 etc are set considerably below that level. It is impossible to survive entirely without cash. Those in receipt of cashless Section 4 support need to travel on buses in order to get to vital appointments etc but Azure cards make this very difficult.
It is of concern that after April 1st most asylum support JRs will be ‘out of scope’ and legal aid will no longer be available for asylum support disputes although funding for JRs to challenge such disputes will still be available. Would it not be more sensible to keep legal aid for these problems in the hope of resolving them before a more expensive JR is required.
Government insistence that asylum seekers wishing to lodge a fresh claim must travel to Liverpool to deliver (but not be interviewed about) this fresh claim, causes enormous hardship. Previously solicitors or asylum seekers themselves could submit these claims in the post. Many refused asylum seekers who are in the process of lodging a fresh claim or who have already done so have no support at all.
Destitution has many consequences, all of them negative. Hunger can lead to malnutrition and other illnesses. It increases the psychological trauma that many asylum seekers are already suffering as a result of what happened to them in their home country and it greatly increases their vulnerability—those forced to sleep outside are vulnerable to robbery, sexual assault etc. Many are sexually or domestically exploited as a result of being destitute. Many are destitute for a long period of time because of government delays in processing their cases.
MEDIA REPORTING: Media is divided in its reporting of asylum issues. There have been many instances of factually inaccurate, negative reporting in some tabloid newspapers. It would be helpful if government could publicise context more widely eg: the small numbers of people claiming asylum compared with overall immigration figures, the small percentage of asylum claimants the UK receives compared with countries like Germany. A lot of prejudice against asylum seekers is based on media disinformation. While governments of all political complexions may feel that support for asylum seekers will never be a vote winner, governments have a responsibility to improve community cohesion and counter prejudice wherever possible. The wider implications for British society of allowing prejudice and misinformation to flourish are far-reaching.
Recommendation: disseminate accurate and balanced information to the media about asylum.
TORTURE ON RETURN: it is of serious concern that the government does not monitor the fate of refused asylum seekers who are forcibly returned to their countries. It is notoriously difficult for the individuals returned to communicate their fate on return if they experience problems—those who are killed are unable to complain and their families may be unaware of what has happened to them. Those who are imprisoned, tortured etc are also unable to raise the alarm. NGOs in returnees’ countries are often in a vulnerable position themselves and don’t have the capacity to monitor the fate of returnees. Government says they are forcibly returning people to countries they believe are safe but this belief lacks credibility if it is not backed up by an independent monitoring system. UKBA last year conducted a fact finding mission into persecution on return to DRC. The report found that some groups were at risk yet sentences such as the one below were removed from the final version of the report.
Returnees with criminal record and or arrest: if there is a warrant of arrest, the person will be definitely arrested and would be lucky if human rights groups become aware of the case, otherwise the person could disappear.” [Para 4].
Recommendation: establish a monitoring system in countries where torture and other forms of persecution have been documented such as DRC, Cameroon, Uganda etc. UN, British embassies in the receiving countries, local and international NGOs should work in partnership on this.
Conclusion
To quote former Home Secretary John Reid the part of the Home Office dealing with asylum is still not fit for purpose. The consequences of this are enormous in terms of financial implications, human suffering and the efficient running of a government department. The continued negative headlines about the running of this department are damaging for government.
London Destitution Forum
April 2013