Melanie McFadyean | ukwatch.net

A Savage Sanctuary

Ellie Keen — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:11:20 +0000

Last week I got an email, subject line “Iraqis leave voluntarily or starve”. The content was a circular from the case resolution directorate of the Border & Immigration Agency (BIA), the body responsible for asylum seekers. The subject line wasn’t the directorate’s – hardly the BIA’s turn of phrase. The circular says the BIA is writing to Iraqis on “hard cases support”, those refused asylum but for whom there is no viable route back to their home country. The catch is, to qualify for “hard cases support” – bed and board – they have to agree to return when the BIA considers it safe to do so. Leave or starve …

“The secretary of state,” reads the circular, “considers that travel to Iraq … is both possible and reasonable.” The secretary of state may be alone in failing to consider the implications of this. Even if you can get there safely, Iraq is clearly unstable and dangerous. Failure to respond to the BIA letter within 21 days, and demonstrate plans to return, will meet with forcible removal, although people can appeal. With almost 3,000 Iraqi hard cases, the exodus could be massive. And those refusing to leave will join hundreds who have arrived since the war, had their cases rejected and been left destitute in the UK.

Meanwhile, Iraqis who work for British government agencies in Iraq, and are in danger from compatriots who regard them as collaborators, are due to begin arriving In April. After lobbying by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty and the Refugee Council, special arrangements were announced last year to resettle Iraqis employed by the UK administration in Iraq, particularly interpreters – and there is every reason to help them. But it throws the reality for other Iraqis seeking sanctuary in the UK into sharp relief.

There are three ways for Iraqis to enter the UK as refugees, the first two open to those arriving in April. Iraqis formerly employed by the British in “similarly skilled or professional roles necessitating the use of … English” are eligible to apply under the government’s Gateway scheme, with 500 places reserved for Iraqis this year. To qualify they must have left Iraq and be recognised by the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) under refugee convention criteria. Applications are then processed through the BIA.

The second way is to apply through what a Foreign Office official called “the easier scheme” for which there are “not so many checks and balances”. This applies only to people currently employed in Iraq by the Foreign Office, Department for International Development, British Council, or Ministry of Defence. The Foreign Office estimates that 280 employees and their dependants might be eligible. Under both schemes 351 Iraqis have so far been accepted to resettle or take financial compensation; 450 have been rejected, and 100 are still being processed.

The third way – and only way open to most – is to spend your life savings on a grim journey organised by people smugglers. Around 1,300 Iraqis claimed asylum in the UK last year. The rejection rate was 88%. Sweden, which refused to get involved in the Iraq war, took in 15,000 Iraqi refugees in 2007.

The BIA has no breakdown indicating where Iraqi asylum seekers are from, but most are thought to be from Kurdistan – to where they can be forcibly returned, and have been throughout the past five years.

The Foreign Office advises against travel to Kurdistan, citing two suicide bombings last year. Such danger is not exclusive to foreigners. The UNHCR does not recommend return anywhere in Iraq and a spokesman cites Turkish and Iranian incursions over the borders of Kurdistan as adding to the instability.

Recently I heard the story of a young Iraqi Kurd, an orphan forced into a violent marriage. Her husband abandoned her to the mercy of her violent father-in-law. She fled to the UK but was refused asylum, despite proof from a consultant gynaecologist that she had been raped. Destitute, she went into hiding. To return would mean the risk of being the target of an “honour” killing. Dashty Jamal, of the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees, describes Kurdistan as lawless and undemocratic. He gets regular reports of honour killings.

Kurdistan is deemed safer than the rest of Iraq, to which nobody is forcibly returned (though people return voluntarily). But is this to change? The case resolution directorate’s letter makes no distinction – returns are to Iraq.

Making concessions to a few hundred of those who have worked for the British in Iraq doesn’t make up for the cruelty of turning a blind eye to thousands of others who are destitute, locked up in detention centres, or being forced to return to chaos and bloodshed.

Brutal Immigration Policy

Alex Doherty — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 01:34:43 +0000

This weekend there will be protests across the country against a new piece of legislation that will see parents made destitute and their children taken into care. That’s the implication of section 9 of the Immigration and Asylum Act being piloted in Greater Manchester, Yorkshire and parts of London, covering 116 families. Rolled out across the UK, it would affect 5,000 families. It rules that rejected asylum seekers who refuse to take “reasonable steps” to leave the UK “voluntarily” will lose entitlement to benefits and housing. Once destitute, their children can be taken into care.

The End of the Road, a report published by Barnardo’s last week, called section 9 “inhuman” and “administratively disastrous”. The 33 local authorities that participated found it incompatible with the Children Act, and it would not “significantly increase the numbers of families leaving the UK”.

When appeals are rejected, asylum seekers get a letter giving them 14 days’ notice that their benefits will stop and they will be evicted unless they take “reasonable steps” to leave the UK. If they don’t comply, they get a second letter and an interview. The Home Office insists that section 9 support “is not designed to make families destitute or to split families up”. But that is exactly its implication. Some 30 families caught in the pilot, faced with such desperate choices, have melted away; 40 have lost all support. As the Barnardo’s report noted, once beneath the radar, these families, already vulnerable, are open to “abuse and exploitation”. Only 16 families have taken up the option to leave. None has yet been returned, nor have any children been taken into care.

The Home Office line is that families resisting section 9 “cannot be allowed unfettered recourse to children’s resources … section 9 provides a legal framework, allowing local authorities to defend themselves from adults, who might be seeking to misuse the children’s welfare system”.

Compare the tone and semantics of this statement with one of Tony Blair’s: “A parent’s love and care is the best guarantee that a child will thrive. It’s not easy being a parent … I am convinced most parents believe, as I do, that the government’s role is to support them in their choices and help protect children from new threats … This Labour government will continue supporting parents in the difficult, but vital, task of bringing up their children.”

The Sukulas arrived three years ago from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and settled in Bolton. They have six children, between 10 months and 19 years old. Kiala Sukula, a suspected opponent of the regime, says that he fled after threats were made against him. One night soldiers searching for him beat his wife, Ngieidi. She tells how her children were woken by the noise and found her unconscious – she was in hospital for three weeks. The soldiers threatened to come back and kill the whole family if they didn’t reveal Kiala’s whereabouts.

The Home Office rejected their claim and cut off their benefits in August. They would be homeless if their council had followed the section 9 ruling and evicted them. Two thousand people have signed a petition supporting the family, and their community is looking after them. Florence Hill, a Unison convener who works for Bolton metropolitan borough council’s children’s services, says social workers would resist orders to separate the children: “They’ll make a stand, and the union will support them. It would go against their ethics. If they [the family] are forced to return, they will be killed.”

Peter Gilroy, the chief executive of Kent county council and chair of the asylum taskforce of the Association of Directors of Social Services, has said section 9 raises “legal and ethical dilemmas” for local authorities. “The government has already accepted that, wherever possible, children should be cared for by their parents and has made this clear by making reductions in the numbers of children in public care a principal target for local government. It seems iniquitous that they have now introduced immigration legislation that militates against this view.”

With the help of Liberty, the Sukula family is challenging the decision, saying their human rights are being breached. The Home Office’s Country Information Policy Unit, which provides information on countries of origin, details terrifying, wide-scale arbitrary violence by the military and police against the civilian population. Having read the report, nobody with a conscience could send back a family such as the Sukulas.

The policy behind section 9 reveals a brutal absence of humanity in the drive to please certain sections of the electorate. Policymakers should note that members of an informal focus group – local authority employees expected to render families destitute and take away their children – are disinclined to do so. And communities are providing material and emotional support for these families, because they do believe that a parent’s love and care is the best guarantee that a child will thrive, and that it’s not easy being a parent.

Melanie McFadyean lectures in journalism at City University; details of this weekend’s events at melaniemcfadyean@yahoo.co.uk

Slave Labour

Mon, 06 Jun 2005 12:21:26 +0000

My friend Paul Foot used to put on a voice like a pompous giant gargling marbles when taking the mickey out of the great farts of our times. As you read the following guff from Lord Rooker, imagine your mouth is full of Foot’s satirical marbles. Here is his lordship, a former immigration minister, on plans to force failed asylum seekers to work for nothing or lose the roof over their heads. Some might call it slavery, but not m’lord Rooker.

“We would not want them to be destitute,” he told the House of Lords in June last year. “However, we must recognise that there is a cost to the taxpayer of providing … support. Those failed asylum seekers who are able to participate in community activities should … give something back while they are waiting to return home. By asking people … to make a short-term contribution … we will continue the enormous progress that we have made in restoring credibility to the asylum system.”

For restoring credibility read getting rid of the marauding scroungers of popular press and imagination, finagling their way around the welfare state and doing us out of housing, health services, benefits and education. The idea that there is a plague of human locusts sweeping through the land is one in which many of us collude, making acceptable a succession of restrictive laws, most recently this one condoning slavery. We are complicit – the government makes the laws, but without our collusion they wouldn’t work. We don’t catch the asylum seeker’s eye; we look away.

Esrafil Tarajoghi, a destitute asylum seeker whose appeal had been rejected, slept in wheelie bins. He was terrified of deportation to Iran, where he feared being killed because of his homosexuality. Eighteen months ago he set himself alight and died a few days later. The story didn’t make headlines. Nobody wanted to know.

The fact is that this “plague” of Esrafil Tarajoghis makes up 0.4% of the population and contributes more in tax than it gets in benefits. Our ignorance is spectacular: a 2003 poll found that the public imagines 23% of the world’s refugees come here – 10 times the actual number.

During his marble-gargling session, Rooker was referring to section 10, an amendment to the Asylum and Immigration Act 2004, which came into force in April and targets failed asylum seekers who cannot return home for reasons accepted by the government – their country is too dangerous, the journey too hazardous, they are ill. But once an appeal is rejected, asylum seekers must leave their National Asylum Support Services accommodation whether they can be “removed” or not. They are not entitled to benefits or health services. They are not allowed to work for money. Many become destitute. As they are rendered homeless, social services can take their children into care. The only benefit available is “hard cases” support: board and lodging, no cash. Of 8,045 recent applications for hard cases only 5,180 qualified. Of the 3,000 rejected many will be destitute. In Greater Manchester alone, the Red Cross Destitution Project gives out 200 food parcels a week. Stories of people sleeping rough – on the streets, in burned-out cars – are two a penny.

Those who can’t be removed can apply for hard cases but must go to the hostel allotted even if it’s miles from friends or family; if they don’t, they forfeit the shelter. And now, under section 10, they must also work for nothing. The only other people made to work for nothing are those convicted of crimes for which community service is the punishment.

The Home Office invited voluntary bodies to run a pilot scheme, and until last week YMCA England had been in the running for it. Challenged on this, Kevin Williams, a spokesman for YMCA England, had agreed that asylum seekers should be allowed to work and be paid, but since they aren’t the YMCA would offer “meaningful activity”.

“We believe it will be possible to enhance the lives of asylum seekers,” he said. “If it doesn’t we’ll withdraw.”

Williams gave examples of “meaningful activities” such as working with elderly people or those with learning disabilities. What about training? Williams replied that many asylum seekers had “expertise”. (Indeed: 1,000 asylum-seeking and refugee doctors are on the BMA database, only 57 of whom are practising in UK.) Rooker suggested hard cases recipients could contribute to the “maintenance of their own accommodation”. How marvellous for property owners.

YMCA England teetered on the brink of a contract – struggling, I imagine, with the ethics enshrined in their mission statement: “We all need to feel OK about ourselves, be valued by others and to feel we belong. The YMCA wants every person to feel this sense of … value and purpose … belonging and trust – with a sense of a future … positive relationships with family, friends, and the wider community.”

The question of value came up during a rowdy meeting in Liverpool last week, during which refugee organisations and community groups argued with YMCA England official Richard Capie and Home Office representatives. Capie told the meeting: “We’re not here to talk about morals and values.”

But it seems they were. After the meeting they changed their tune: “YMCA England always had concerns about the compulsory nature of the legislation,” said Capie. They would not, after all, run a scheme that involves compulsion. “We are [talking] to the Home Office about whether a voluntary pilot could be run.”

Pressed on whether they will have to back down, the Home Office will only say: “We are considering YMCA England’s concerns very carefully and continuing our discussions with them before we decide on any next steps.”

They can hide behind diplomacy all they like, but YMCA England’s change of heart leaves the Home Office in a pickle. There were no other takers. Maeve Sherlock, chief executive of the Refugee Council says: “Forcing people to work for food and lodging is unacceptable. Rather than spending money organising compulsory community work schemes, why not let those asylum seekers do real jobs and earn money to support themselves?” Tony Fuller of Migration Helpline adds: “It’s a form of modern slavery. The Home Office went to the voluntary sector and asked if we were interested in running this scheme. Almost everybody said no, it’s slave labour.” Refugee Action, the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux and the Immigration Advisory Service also condemned the plans.

According to a 2004 report by the joint select committee on human rights, there is a “significant risk” that section 10 is in breach of key articles of the European convention on human rights (ECHR), including article 4, which covers slavery and forced labour. Under the 2004 immigration legislation there are increased fines for illegally employing workers; using slave labour carries a 14-year sentence. This presents us with the paradox of the government, whose section 10 makes forced labour legal, perhaps being found in breach of ECHR rulings for employing people as forced labour. That will cost the taxpayer a bomb in legal fees while asylum seekers could be working and paying tax. Slavery could turn out to be not only immoral but also expensive.