April 2021

April 30, 2021June 16, 2021

Women for Refugee Women

QARN signed this letter

Updated 16 June 2021 – see the response below:

30 April 2021: Women for Refugee Women: New Plan will harm women:

OVER 70 LEADERS WORKING WITH REFUGEE WOMEN COME TOGETHER TO HIGHLIGHT TO THE HOME SECRETARY THAT HER NEW PLAN FOR IMMIGRATION WILL HARM WOMEN

The government’s New Plan for Immigration will harm women seeking asylum. Today, 30 April 2020, more than 70 leaders of organisations and groups supporting women who have sought asylum write to the Home Secretary to express shared concerns about the New Plan.

Read the full letter below:

April 30, 2021May 22, 2021

Concerns about New Plan for Immigration consultation process

QARN signed this letter: 30 April 2021: Guardian: ‘Sham’: 200 groups criticise UK government consultation on refugee policy

Bodies say survey is poorly designed, rushed and may exclude refugees from responding

Almost 200 organisations have branded a government consultation on fundamental changes to refugee policy “a sham”.

A total of 192 refugee, human rights, legal and faith groups have signed a public statement condemning the six-week consultation on the government’s New Plan for Immigration as “vague, unworkable, cruel and potentially unlawful”.

April 30, 2021April 30, 2021

Huge obstacles faced by stateless people in UK

Ekklesia: UNHCR, THE UN REFUGEE AGENCY, has released a new study showing that many of those who find themselves in the UK without a nationality face major obstacles trying to navigate the country’s statelessness determination procedure, and hence experience prolonged periods in legal and personal limbo.

To better understand the situation faced by stateless people in UK, the UNHCR interviewed a selection of those who had an ongoing application or had been recently recognised as stateless. The resulting report, I am Human,’lays out the challenges they face, for example in obtaining evidence to support a statelessness leave application.

April 28, 2021April 4, 2023

Support for people seeking asylum

28 April 2021: Home Office to resume evicting some asylum seekers with immediate effect.

23 April 2021: The Home Office writes:

We will be sharing details of the current number of cases for review with local authorities to assist them in planning. However I would like to emphasise that it is not possible at this stage to be definitive about the final volume of cases that will have their support discontinued. This is partly because all individuals will continue to receive a minimum of 21 calendar days notice from the decision to stop their support and have the opportunity to remain in their accommodation, supported under section 4(2) of the 1999 Act, provided that they agree to take reasonable steps to leave the UK (in practical terms by registering with the Home Office’s voluntary returns programme and leaving when a flight can be arranged for them)

April 26, 2021June 8, 2021

Agnes’ petition: Priti Patel’s detention policies found to breach human rights rules

26 April 2021: Agnes’ petition: Stop the new detention centre for women

My name is Agnes. I am a refugee, I am a woman, I am a human being. The Home Office has started building a new immigration detention centre at Hassockfield in County Durham to lock up women like me. Please join me in taking action to stop them.

Please join me in taking a stand against this detention centre.

If you want to know more and get involved in this campaign in other ways please visit: www.refugeewomen.co.uk/campaign/setherfree

April 25, 2021April 25, 2021

Home Office sued by asylum seeker over baby’s death

Guardian: Home Office sued by asylum seeker over baby’s death

Woman claims asylum housing staff ignored pleas for help when she was in pain while 35 weeks pregnant

A woman whose baby died is suing the Home Office for negligence over claims that staff at her asylum accommodation refused to call an ambulance when she was pregnant and bleeding.

April 20, 2021September 18, 2023

Being Human in the Asylum System

Jesuit Refugee Service has published a report called Being human in the asylum system.

JRS UK report seeks to envisage a just and person-centred asylum system by bringing refugee experience and policy analysis into conversation with Catholic Social Teaching, against the backdrop of new, deeply troubling government proposals for an overhaul of the asylum system:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report seeks to envisage a just and person centred asylum system by bringing refugee experience and policy analysis into conversation with Catholic Social Teaching, against the backdrop of new, deeply troubling government proposals for an overhaul of the asylum system.

April 16, 2021April 16, 2021

IRR: Sewell report seeks to sideline structural factors attached to racism

14 April 2021: IRR: Sewell, stigma and the policing of race

Ultimately, what we at the IRR fear is that such disaggregated, ethnic-specific data will be used to create a kind of league table of good and bad, successful and failing groups. A variation of the ‘good migrant’ ‘bad migrant’ scenario. A kind of stigmatisation via comparison. Sewell, the chair of the commission, has form here – and we already see this in his report, contrasting good parenting techniques and enterprising family structures in the Black African community with family dysfunction or breakdown in other communities, most notably the Black Caribbean.

April 16, 2021April 4, 2023

UK Asylum System and Asylum Seekers’ Mental Health

The Mental Health Foundation has found that the increased vulnerability to mental health problems that refugees and asylum seekers face is linked both to their pre-migration and post-migration experiences. People who have fled persecution, violence and war hope to find safety and security in the UK. Tragically, the current UK asylum system often exacerbates their suffering, with long waits for asylum decisions, poor accommodation and a ban on working all contributing to this situation.

April 8, 2021April 8, 2021

Teenage refugee killed himself in UK after mental health care failings

8 April 2021: Guardian: Coroner rules seriousness of Mulubrhane Medhane Kfleyosus’s illness went unrecognised

A teenage refugee killed himself after the serious nature of his mental illness was not recognised, a coroner has concluded.

Mulubrhane Medhane Kfleyosus, 19, was the fourth from his friendship group of Eritrean refugees to take his own life within a 16-month period after arriving in the UK.