100 signatures reached
To: Theresa May, Home Secretary
Making asylum decisions safe
Dear Home Secretary
We call on you to ensure that:
(i) the prime motivation of the asylum process is to identify victims of torture and those in danger in their countries.
(ii) the government policy of destitution is ended. This is coercive, causes great suffering and has no place in a civilised society
(iii) people who have been illegally working because they have been forced into destitution by government policy, do not have their protection needs compromised.
(iv) the system is robust and credible and all stages are independently monitored (which at present they are not)
(v) nobody is returned to persecution by the UK
Why is this important?
Reports from Freedom from Torture(1) and Justice First(2) show the decision-making process in the UK is flawed and people seeking refuge are returned to torture.
A few months after those seeking refuge arrive here, this flawed, rapid process leads, in most cases, to a negative decision(3). But people still have protection needs. Then the government's destitution policy kicks in(4). People are left destitute and vulnerable. They are not allowed to take up any employment in the UK. There are many vulnerable people, including torture victims in this Catch 22 position here(5)
Those who start to work in order to survive, face prosecution and being put into the 'foreign criminal' group, with their need and right to protection erroneously forgotten. They have not hurt anyone and are contributing to the host society, while they battle with their cases. Unless these cases, like all others, are dealt with correctly, people will be sent back to persecution in the country they fled.
All cases must be fairly and safely dealt with, in accordance with the law, without making people destitute and starving.
The Home Office do not have any monitoring of the system which is demonstrably flawed so they do not know how many people are unsafely returned.
1.‘Sri Lankan Tamils tortured on return from the UK ‘- Briefing 13 September 2012
2.‘Unsafe Return: Refoulement of Congolese Asylum Seekers’ C Ramos, November 2011
3.‘Refugee Council Asylum Statistics’ p.3. February 2012
4.‘New reports on destitution highlight government inhumane policy’ Refugee Council 7 Nov 2006
5.‘Poverty as a barrier to the rehabilitation of torture survivors in the UK’ Freedom from Torture 2013
