Human Rights Campaigning …and please sign our petition!

Through daily contact with people in the drop-in we have come to understand directly and in a very personal way the asylum process and its effect on people’s lives. Our experience accords with many of the findings of the four excellent reports of the Independent Asylum Commission, published in summer 2008.

Matters of particular concern to us:

• 1). 75% of asylum claimants are refused asylum here – they all face destitution. As we get to know people we understand how the asylum system lets down those who desperately need it.
• 2). The final tier of support – Section 4 – is available under certain conditions to those who would otherwise be destitute. This requires people to live on the shockingly low weekly sum of £35 – issued not in cash but in the form of supermarket gift cards.
• 3). Detention of children. Two young children in our ‘family’ at the Welcome centre were detained for 9 weeks between them over the past few months. This has given us some shocking first-hand information on the treatment of families in Yarl’s Wood removal centre.
• 4). We firmly support the IAC recommendation that anyone whose case has taken more than 6 months to determine, should have the right to work to maintain themselves. This should also apply to those who have been refused but not removed.

These concerns will form the basis of our campaigning work over the coming year.

Please sign our petition by going to the following site :-

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/dignitynotdestitution

Thousands of people fleeing conflict or persecution seek sanctuary in Britain. Three out of four of them are refused, but for various reasons it is impossible for them to return to their home country. They remain here, often for long periods of time, living in poverty, lacking adequate support from public services, and denied the right to support themselves by taking paid work.

Believing that such people deserve to be treated fairly, humanely and with dignity, we call on the Government to :-
- end the threat and use of destitution as a tool of Government policy against refused asylum seekers;
- provide all asylum-seekers with adequate financial support and access to public services, including health care and education;
- give such support in the form of cash, and end the use of supermarket gift cards;
- allow asylum-seekers, including those whose application has been refused, the right to work if, after six months in the asylum process, they have neither left the UK nor been given leave to remain.