To: UK Government
• Many people seeking asylum in the UK are mothers fleeing war, persecution, rape and other torture.
• To protect themselves and their children, mothers are often forced to leave their children behind –usually they don’t know where they are going or how they will survive.
• Mothers may lose contact with children back home or hear of them unprotected and suffering, and can do little to prevent it.
• It can take many years for an asylum claim to be settled; meanwhile: children suffer the torture of being deprived of their mother’s love and care, left destitute, at risk of sexual and other violence; mothers are treated as single people and the pain of separation and of trying to be a carer long distance is invisible and unrecognised.
• When mothers win the right to stay, most are not automatically granted the right of family reunion. If children turn 18 while their mother’s application is being considered they lose the right to join their mother.
* We are a mothers’ campaign, so we speak particularly of mothers, the primary carers in every society, but we know that the problems and heartbreak we describe are often true of fathers, grandparents & other carers.
WE DEMAND THAT:
1. Everyone who wins the right to stay in the UK, no matter under which law or convention, must have the unconditional right to family reunion.
2. Children should have the right to join their mother or father even if they turned 18 before their parents’ asylum claim was settled.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
Sign here: http://www.petitiononline.com/MumsKids/petition.html
The Asylum: Mothers’ & Children’s Right to Family Reunion Petition to UK Government was created by Mothers’ Campaign of the All African Women’s Group in collaboration with Legal Action for Women and written by Jeto Flaviah (aawg02@gmail.com). This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.