Home Affairs Committee
Issue: Experience of Asylum seeker X’s experience of the present UK system illustrating a) the problems caused by not allowing asylum seekers to take paid work and b) the inefficiency of the UKBA (now Home Office) decision making system.
Submission by Mrs Janet King, Founder member of Liberal Democrats for Seekers of Sanctuary (LD4SOS) www.ld4sos.org.uk ; member of Detention Forum (Indefinite Detention Working Group).
1. In 2010 I organised a fringe meeting at Liberal Democrats Federal Conference called ‘Voices of Experience’, which brought together professional lawyers and asylum seekers. One of the latter was a young man from Zimbabwe, who spoke movingly of his experiences both in his home country and during the asylum process in the UK. Although he bore the marks of a machete attack from his African days, in some ways his time here had been more traumatic.
2. He was a successful DJ before the persecution began and he brought with him some savings, enough, he believed, to live on until he resumed his career in the UK. How wrong he was! It took 8 years to have his case decided; the decision was eventually after a refusal in his favour. He was able to keep up his DJ skills through voluntary work but was not allowed to take paid employment (DJ is not a shortage occupation as symphony orchestral musician is) and his savings soon disappeared. During those very long 8 years, his claim was refused and when he spoke at ‘Voices of Experience’ he told us that he had just been forced to leave his NASS accommodation in Birmingham. ‘I shall have to sleep in the local graveyard again’ were the final words of his talk.
3. Indeed he had slept rough before after being forced by UKBA to leave his music technology course in Corby, where he was a star student, but this time he did not have to do so because I invited him to stay in my family home. He remained with us rent-free, for just over six months, when he was told by UKBA that he must move to Sunderland (where there was no relevant treatment for torture victims) to live in NASS accommodation (of which there is plenty in Birmingham). It was only by last minute calls from myself and his counsellor at Freedom from Torture* to an officer in Sunderland that we managed to arrange his return to the West Midlands, where he had to accept a room in an asylum hostel in central Birmingham.
- — Asylum seeker X was receiving counselling treatment from the Birmingham centre of Freedom from Torture www.freedomfromtorture.org.uk.
4. The movement of asylum seekers, awaiting claim decisions, seems to be arbitrary and I have seen this happen amongst other Zimbabweans. eg Asylum seeker Y, a British trained & qualified nurse (training paid for by UK Government) also had no right to work here yet became established in her Birmingham community, where she worked as a volunteer for the Red Cross and a housing charity. She was forcibly moved to Leicester in 2011 (no reason given).
5. During the time he stayed with us, asylum seeker X had to go to the UKBA office in Liverpool (NO travel allowance) on two occasions to further his appeal and I realised that seeking asylum seems to be regarded by UKBA as criminal behaviour. On first application finger prints and photographs are taken and at the reporting office in Liverpool everyone is scanned. This may seem trivial but is part of a process which suggests to an asylum seeker that he/she is suspect and clearly doing something unacceptable. Whether the illegal immigrants about which the Home Office agonises are, in fact, pushed into illegality (ie not applying legally for asylum) because the process is so totally unwelcoming is open to discussion
6. Asylum seeker X remained free of detention in the UK probably because he could easily prove that he had been tortured but for some eg victims of rape it is not so easy. The culture of disbelief at UKBA has already been well documented but my experience with asylum seekers suggests that this is a very real problem.
7. My next example is of third Zimbabwean (A), who was referred to us through the Zimbabwe Association, as needing help with accommodation. She was a nearly 40 years old, privately educated, lady who had been in the UK for nearly 12 years. In Zimbabwe she had been working in a fashion boutique, was a member of Rotaract organising charity events for Rotary International and also active in local politics (MDC).It took 12 years for her case to be decided, which is far too long, and by this time she was living on the charity of friends, having declined to apply for NASS accommodation. She has now received the right to remain and works as a paid care assistant in a nursing home, a job which she could have done during her years of waiting for a decision. Again this illustrates the lack of understanding of the ‘no right to work’ system.
Janet King
April 2013