Today, a representative from a Filipino community organisation, which advocates on behalf of frontline nurses and care home workers in the UK, including undocumented workers who lost their jobs in the current crisis and who cannot access any State support, contacted RAPAR. Deaths attributed to the coronavirus have occurred among undocumented workers in the Filipino community.
The representative described how one such worker, Rose, forced to leave her care home job because of Home Office changes to requirements for visas for migrant care worker, is living in a British City with six other undocumented people in cramped accommodation. Rose is surviving from the money she is getting from the children of British elders who are paying her to go into the nursing home where their parents live to look after them. No one outside of an environment where they can self isolate as needed, stay clean, and maintain social distancing has the power to follow the Public Health directives necessary to limit COVID19 viral transmission to the absolute minimum. Anyone can now sign the Open Letter petition, launched by 37 organisations across Ireland and the UK, with receipt now signed for at Downing Street and the Dublin offices of the Taoiseach, calling upon the UK Prime Minister and the Taoiseach of Ireland to use their vested powers to instruct the British and Irish States to act immediately and in all ways necessary so that ALL undocumented people, destitute people and migrant people in legal process in both the UK and Ireland are granted Status Now: Leave to Remain. Also today, MASI (Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland) told RAPAR “People seeking asylum in Ireland who work as care givers are risking their lives to protect the Irish people and are still having to return to over-populated rooms in Direct Provision Centres. The number of people in the Centres who are presenting with COVID-19 symptoms keeps on growing, yet no one from the Irish Government is disclosing the number of people living in Direct Provision who are testing positive. We call on the Irish Government to house Carer Workers alongside everyone else currently in Direct Provision, in safe places from which they may continue their exceptional work caring for others.” The Irish and British Governments have the power to enable undocumented people, immediately, to care and protect themselves, their loved ones and their living and working communities. RAPAR asks “When will they stop moving the deckchairs*, use their power and save lives?” (*move (the) deckchairs on the Titanic’: To partake in or undertake some task, activity, or course of action that will ultimately prove trivial or futile in its possible effect or outcome.
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64Open Letter to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is calling on both governments to create access to health and safety for all. People can sign the petition, just launched, HERE.
#healthandsafetyforall The Open Letter, which has been signed by 64 organisations (as at 17th June 2020) in the UK and Ireland, says it is imperative that everyone’s basic needs are met during the current Covid-19 pandemic and the only way to ensure this happens is by giving Leave to Remain to all refugees and migrants both inside and outside of the asylum and immigration system. People living in extreme poverty, destitution and without immigration status are unable to socially isolate, many cannot access health care and other support, and they are prevented from helping to make the population as safe as possible during this time of global crisis. Migrant people who are in the legal system cannot keep physically safe on their allowances because those allowances are not enough for them to eat healthily or buy appropriate cleaning materials. Many are living in accommodation where it is impossible for them to socially isolate. People who are destitute or undocumented fear what will happen to them if they identify themselves. They cannot access healthcare, emergency shelter and food. Or report or seek protection from domestic violence, rape, exploitation and other abuses – the levels of which are already rising. One of the signatories to the Open Letter, All African Women’s Group, said: “Many of us are living in dangerous and abusive conditions, either in slum asylum hostels or as unwelcome guests in other people’s homes. We need money of our own and the right to stay. Now is the time for the government to take practical measures to prevent infection. Now is not a time for racism, segregation, enforced destitution or a hostile environment for anyone. We will only survive if everyone has status in the UK and can get food, healthcare and housing.” Black Women’s Rape Action Project added: “We know that domestic violence has soared but what remains hidden is the violence and exploitation against women seeking asylum, or with no status, who have been left dependant on others for their survival. Women must have the right to stay and an independent income and housing so they can be safe.” ATD Fourth World UK said: "Now, more than ever, it is imperative to ensure that the most vulnerable of us are protected. Those in immigration limbo are overlooked, unsupported and left to struggle; the COVID 19 pandemic once again shows the fragility of their existence and we call for them to receive the care and attention we all deserve, not just now, but always. "Although we are glad to see some public policy measures being taken to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on people in deep poverty, we are reminded that it is only on the ground that it is possible to measure that impact and to understand whether policies are actually reaching their intended beneficiaries. Expertise by experience is essential to getting the response right, as demonstrated by this Open Letter." Fizza Qureshi, CEO of Migrant Rights’ Network: "At a time of an unprecedented public health crisis, we need this government to react with a humane response so no migrant fears accessing healthcare, or any other service they need. MRN along with others urges the UK government to offer legal status to all undocumented migrants, and those awaiting a decision on their immigration claim, and on public health grounds because everyone deserves safety and protection during these difficult times." Lucky Khambule, co-ordinator of MASI – Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland, says: “Since the start of the Covid19, MASI has always been critical of the way the Department for Justice and Equality responded in assuring the safety of those seeking asylum and living in direct provision. Currently there are over 60 direct provision centres and emergency hotels accommodating, with about 7,500 asylum seekers in the Ireland. For the past 14 months there has been an increase in the number of new applications and this has made the government accommodate people beyond centres’ capacity. “The life style and living arrangements in direct provision is a recipe for disaster and should there be an outbreak in any of the centres, it would be very difficult for the department to cope. There is no social distancing as advised by the HSE, it is impossible for those living in direct provision as they are forced to share the same space with no privacy as all. “Even the suggested on site isolation rooms are a joke as they put six to eight beds in one room very close to each other. We have been proactive in letting the Justice Minister and his colleagues know our concerns and made suggestions on what the immediate attention should be. On the 18th March 2020, we wrote to the Minister and amongst other things, we requested that all vulnerable people above 60 years and on long term illnesses be moved immediately from the direct provision set up and housed in a safer environment.” Dr Rhetta Moran, from RAPAR, added: “Deeds not words save lives and create futures worth living.” Please contact admin(at)rapar.org.uk for more information. #healthandsafetyforall 12th April 2020 Update Our Campaign leader, Professor Esmail was quoted yesterday in the New York Times. Today he tells us: "The COVID-19 pandemic had laid bare the reliance of the NHS on migrant labour. Nearly 40% of doctors are from BME backgrounds (the majority qualifying abroad). They are currently bearing the brunt of the burden in terms of deaths in the workforce probably because they work in the most deprived and therefore under resourced parts of the NHS. When this emergency is over the sacrifice of these people should be acknowledged and the contribution of all BAME staff to the NHS recognised and rewarded. The NHS represents the best of Britain because it is so international and diverse." Refugee doctors say: "LET US WORK TO HELP CORONAVIRUS PATIENTS IN THE UK" More refugee doctors have come forward to offer their skills to the NHS during the increasingly grim battle with the Coronavirus pandemic. Two years ago, RAPAR joined refugee doctors to launch a campaign which called for the unrealistically high levels of English language testing to be reviewed and relaxed so that many more highly qualified doctors, nurses and other medical professionals could work in the NHS. See ITV news item this week which features a Syrian doctor. The group of medical professionals we have been campaigning with have signed an Open Letter sent by 37 organisations to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. Nearly 1,000 individuals, groups and organisations have signed the petition. Dr Aneez Esmail, Professor of General Practice at Manchester University Medical School, has backed our campaign from the start. Read his article here in the medical magazine Pulse. "It is deeply disappointing that just as the NHS faces an acute shortage of medics, hundreds of doctors, including potential GPs, are being excluded from joining the workforce because of an arbitrary change in English language proficiency standards. At a press conference to raise this issue, I spoke to four doctors in the audience all of whom are legally entitled to live and work in the UK because they are refugees or have been given leave to remain. They are all highly experienced having worked in Sudan, Iraq and the Congo in very difficult situations. They spoke fluent English – conversing easily with me as they explained their background. Yet none are practising as doctors in the UK because they failed the first hurdle in trying to get registration to work as doctors in the UK. Current regulations require them to score 7.5 in the International Language Testing System (IELTS). All had previously sat the exam and scored 7, but in 2016 the GMC raised the bar for people wanting to register for the next stage of the registration process – which requires doctors seeking UK registration to sit the Professional and Linguistic Assessments Boards (PLAB) test – to 7.5. The test does not reflect the skills required for good communication in medicine It might seem an inconsequential change, but this has barred hundreds of doctors seeking registration in the UK. The IELTS test is graded in bands and skills are assessed in speaking, listening, reading and writing. At Band 7 the person’s standard of English is considered ‘Good’ – meaning they would handle complex language well and understand detailed reasoning. To give an idea of the standard, students from non-English language speaking countries wishing to study in the UK would be required to have an IELTS score between Bands 6 and 7 by most Russell Group universities. It is essential that everyone seeking to practice medicine in the UK has excellent communication skills – it’s a central skill in medicine and it is right that language skills are assessed and only those shown to speak English at a high standard should be allowed to register and practice medicine. But the IELTS is designed for academic study and does not properly reflect the skills required for good communication in medicine. It’s partly in recognition of this that the GMC has recently introduced the Occupational Exam Test (OET), which more accurately reflects the level of English needed to practice medicine. The OET was developed in Australia (where the IELTS requirement is Band 7) and many doctors believe it will be a better assessment of English required to practice medicine here. However, the exam is prohibitively expensive for doctors in this situation, costing three times as much as the IELTS – which many have already paid to sit. Interestingly, the UK regulatory bodies for pharmacists and dentists set the level of IELTS at 7 and 6.5 respectively. In the UK, we face a shortage of doctors in a range of specialties including general practice. We have a group of doctors, the majority of them highly experienced, who have ended up in the UK and who are desperate to contribute their skills and expertise. Setting the standard at an arbitrary level (there is no evidence that having a score of 7.5 as opposed to 7 makes the doctor any safer or better) is not the best way of determining whether someone is able to practice medicine. This approach subordinates people to policy, denying employment to a group of people who almost certainly have the experience and talent to help us deal with an acute shortage of doctors. We need to support this group of doctors through tests that we have set – most of them legitimate – so that we can use their skills to contribute to the NHS. We could help by offering dedicated training to learn the conversational skills required for medicine in the OET, offering loans so that they can attend the courses to help them do this. We should also avoid setting arbitrary test scores that don’t test the specific requirement for language skills for the practice of medicine. This is a waste of talent that we need now. Amongst the many hundreds of doctors caught in this state of limbo, there are doubtless a large number of GPs who with the right help and training could help relieve the acute shortage that we are facing, rather than waiting for the promised 5,000 new GPs in five years’ time." For more information about the campaign see here.
On 26th March 2020, RAPAR blogged: As tonight’s call went out for the country to Clap For the NHS, health workers and MPs were clamouring for the Government to fast track the registration of refugee doctors in the UK. Instead of using their skills to care for people who have been hospitalised because of the Covid-19 pandemic, refugee doctors and other health professionals have been forced to work as taxi drivers and in takeaways because the re-accreditation process in the UK is lengthy, expensive and onerous. Dr Mohammad Haqmal, a refugee from Afghanistan, told The Guardian newspaper that his background in public health and specifically HIV meant he had a lot to offer in the fight against the pandemic. He works in medical research but did not go through the re-accreditation process as a doctor because of the difficulties and expense. He knows many qualified doctors who are driving taxis and working as shopkeepers when they would rather be treating patients. Under pressure and with an increasing number of health workers falling ill themselves, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said he will look at the proposal to expedite qualified doctors from overseas into the NHS. Yet just over two years ago, when NHS cuts continued to threaten the lives of patients and the well-being of health workers, RAPAR worked with a group of medical professionals to launch a campaign calling for the registration process to be less complicated, less onerous and less expensive. Five hundred medical professionals signed up to the campaign and hundreds more signed a petition. Despite coverage in the medical press and widespread lobbying of MPs, the call was ignored – to the frustration of the refugee doctors themselves and leading NHS medical staff. Dr Aneez Esmail, Professor of General Practice at the University of Manchester’s Medical School, backed the campaign and said at the time: “When the NHS is really desperate for extra staff, it is strange that there is a failure to recognise the contribution that refugee doctors and other medical professionals from outside the UK can make.” Dr Hiba Alzamzamy, one of the campaign founders, produced research exposing the unrealistically high level of English testing set by the General Medical Council – one of the barriers to re-accreditation. She said: “We are highly skilled people who want to help patients at a time when the NHS is in crisis.” It has taken a pandemic for the Government to be forced to listen to that plea. For more information about the campaign see here. In the last 48 hours RAPAR members who are destitute - no secure shelter, no money and no right to legal work - have been:
... "Send applications via post or email" ... "We have decided to pause face to face substantive interviews" without any guidance on how they are supposed to access computers to email or printers to print paperwork, or to pay for any of the above, or postage. It's no surprise then that, just now, led by the Runnymede Trust, race equality and migrant rights organisations have begun to call for independent review into institutional racism in the Home Office. This is destitute RAPAR Member Jenny DaCosta from the Democratic Republic of Congo, this morning, on the steps of the Friends Meeting House, the site of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre. He accepted a small amount of cash from RAPAR because "Yesterday I had to speak with the court service to find out if my hearing is postponed to a later date, taking into account the period we are going through, to my great surprise I was invited to appear in court on the date initially planned because no change or modification is planned, the hearing will indeed take place. So I had to contact the organisation ... ". After giving Jenny a small amount of cash this RAPAR volunteer drove out of the city centre and, while they were waiting at a red traffic light, photographed this homeless man near Piccadilly Station... When is the State going to reach out to these vulnerable people and help them, and the people around them, to protect themselves and each other? It's called Public Health.
Interrogating and challenging the UK's 'hostile environment' through research and activism
About the events These ESRC Festival of Social Sciences events - co-delivered by the Centre for Citizenship, Conflict, Identity and Diversity, University of Huddersfield, and RAPAR, a human rights organisation based in Manchester - will comprise a co-delivered seminar and workshop to interrogate and challenge the ‘hostile environment’ that targets people seeking asylum in the United Kingdom. They will draw upon co-research between the University of Huddersfield and RAPAR's young people seeking asylum that took place as part of the PARTISPACE project funded by H2020 (2016-2018) and explored young people’s participation in the hostile environment, as well as ongoing research on activism, campaigning and young people’s lives. They will consider transcultural ideas of space, place and borders, who ‘belongs’ and ‘others’, and explore what and how discourses of othering, central to the ‘hostile environment’, enforce and reinforce exclusion and difference in individuals’ everyday lived lives, and how people counteract these discourses through their own actions. Welcoming academics, practitioners, the public, activists and advocates, the events will begin informally with refreshments and a screening of ‘Faceless’, a film written, produced, directed and performed by young people (aged 25-30) seeking asylum. A seminar talk describing ongoing participatory action research by and with young people seeking asylum will follow. Co-delivered by academics and community activists, the concluding workshop will explore participatory action research in the academy and community human rights activism to explore the question: How do the concepts of space, place and the ‘other’ materialise and what can we do, between us, to transform them? The event will run twice: in Huddersfield (4th November 2019) and Manchester (7th November 2019), both 13.30 to 17.00. Click here for more details. RAPAR's lead caseworker Dan Isaac has been running a series of casework co- learning sessions examining all aspects of the asylum and immigration system.
Twenty people completed the course and have continued to volunteer for casework, enabling RAPAR to take on more cases. There has also been a significant improvement in the depth and quality of evidence based development of cases - and this has made it easier for our members to find legal aid lawyers to take on their cases and, hopefully, ensure their safety. Dan says: "The popularity of the course was such that a range of people are clamouring for more opportunities to undertake RAPAR's Casework Co-learning and we are keen to secure further funds to repeat the course and to develop it as a model that is offered externally for other organisations." The popular sessions were attended by RAPAR members who have been working on their own asylum cases and by our volunteer casework team. RAPAR would like to thank the cosmetic firm LUSH for the funding which covered the co-learning sessions and also enabled a film to be made of the 'Moot Court' which ended the course. The participants enjoyed displaying the knowledge they had acquired during the course at the final Moot Court session - a "mock" court with RAPAR members and volunteers playing the parts of appellant, judges, immigration lawyers and Home Office representatives. Many thanks to Sandra Chapman for the filming of 'Moot Court'. You can watch the film here. RAPAR member who was on the plane stopped by the Stansted protesters shocked by their conviction under anti terror laws Rally at 5.30pm-6.30pm St Peter's Square, Manchester on TUESDAY, December 18th 2018 Manchester-based human rights organisation RAPAR will be at the city centre rally today (December 18th) to show support for the 15 peaceful protesters convicted under anti terror laws after they stopped a Home Office charter flight taking people seeking asylum in the UK to Africa.
A RAPAR member was on the plane protesters prevented taking off at Stansted Airport in March 2017. He was one of 60 refugees who were on the charter flight bound for Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone – he informed the escort officers that he did not come from any of those countries but was told that the country he was being sent to was near to his home country and that he could “get a bus”. Our member, whose case had not been resolved, was one of the unlucky people on the flight which eventually left Stansted the following day. But the courageous action of the protesters prevented 11 people seeking asylum from being removed from the UK. The delay meant that those 11 people were able to access their lawyers and their removal was stopped. RAPAR's member, who wishes to remain anonymous, said he was very shocked by the conviction at Chelmsford Crown Court which could see the 15 protesters facing life imprisonment. Today is International Migrants' Day and there will be rallies throughout the UK and Ireland to protest about the conviction of the Stansted protesters. In Manchester, there will be a demonstration from 5.30pm-6.30pm in St Peter's Square and RAPAR urges everyone to attend. The charges facing the Stansted 15 were unjust. Commenting on the use of anti terror laws against the Stansted 15, former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg (who was released without charge) said: “Despite being imprisoned under terrorism laws by both Britain and America, I have no convictions. The Stansted 15 on the other hand are convicted terrorists in Britain today. “One day, as a nation, Britain will look back and ask itself 'What have we become?' Sadly, that day is not today.” Dr Rhetta Moran, of RAPAR, said it was “intensely ironic” that all the refugee people on the Stansted 15 plane were being removed to one of three former British colonies – Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. “As our refugee members often remark: 'We are here because You were there',” she said. Dr Moran added: “This conviction is the latest attempt to criminalise public protest that RAPAR first detected - and successfully resisted - in 2010 in Bolton. “Then, the State sought to prosecute anti-fascists for exposing and stopping the English Defence League from running amok in Bolton. “Now, their use of anti-terror laws to criminalise young British citizens who take peaceful, direct, solidarity action with Refugees is the latest in a long line of backward and cynical moves on the part of the prevailing politico-legal elite. “It demonstrates an abject failure to confront the fact that young British people are deeply and increasingly concerned about what the British State is doing in the name of its people. “It is not the Protesters or the Refugees who are the dangerous ones here.” Rhetta Moran from RAPAR attended the African Rainbow Family's annual conference in Manchester on August 11th. Read their press release calling for an end to sexual exploitation of LGBTIQ refugees and an end to the Home Office's policy of demanding a high standard of proof of sexuality.
Manchester will host again, the second LGBTIQ people seeking asylum and refugee conference today [11th August], shining the light on the extent of active and subtle sexual and domestic abuse, sexual exploitation, modern day slavery and trafficking that exists in the LGBTIQ people seeking asylum's community in the UK. Mostly perpetrated by people who owe them duty of care. The conference will, following the #METOO movement, feature LGBTIQ refugee speakers telling their personal experiences of abuse, exploring how the hostile environment which seeks to deport as many people as possible in order to meet Home Office's set targets, such as in the Windrush Generation; has reinforced a high standard of proof sexuality policy in the Home Office leading to many LGBTIQs being refused asylum and highlighting the plight still faced by LGBTIQ people seeking asylum today. In many countries, particularly in Africa, homosexuality remains illegal and violent attacks on LGBTIQ people are common. Many are forced to flee, some to the UK, after being publicly ‘outed’. Gay people seeking asylum coming to the UK face significant barriers. The Home Office culture of disbelief has meant that it refuses to accept that any LGBTIQ seeking asylum are homosexual unless they provide ‘proof of sexuality’. This position is an extremely toxic shift towards high number of deportation following the ruling in 2010 which prohibits the Home Office from deporting LGBTIQ people seeking asylum on the grounds that they could ‘be discreet’ about their sexuality in their home country to avoid harm. We know that the Home Office has and continues to illegally and forcibly deport many LGBTIQ people seeking asylum through its brutal charter flight methods. 'Experimental' data released by the Home Office in November 2017 for LGBT+ asylum cases (01/07/15 - 31/03/17) shows that over two third of 3,535 asylum applications made partly as LGBT+ were rejected. 2,379 clear LGBT+ claims were rejected, with only 838 approved. The conference is being organised by African Rainbow Family (ARF), a charitable group that supports LGBTIQ people of African heritage and wider BAME in the UK. ARF works with the growing African LGBTIQ people seeking asylum and refugee communities including wider BAME who face harassment, hate crimes and discrimination. It will see a call on the Home Office to abandon its ‘high standard of proof sexuality policy, which ARF says is demeaning, humiliating, dehumanising, cruel and a driver of the culture of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation in their community. Speakers will include:
Aderonke Apata, Founder of the ARF and a long-term campaigner on LGBTIQ asylum, who is also speaking at the conference, said: "We are starting a cultural revolution which forms a platform to inspire LGBTIQ people seeking asylum to come forward, tell their experiences of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation and let their voices to be heard in order for us to see consequences in terms of their perpetrators who owe them a duty of care to be brought to justice. "The Home Office's high standard of proof policy drives a culture of sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, domestic abuse, modern day slavery and all forms of emotional, psychological and mental problems in the LGBTIQ people seeking asylum's community "I ask that the Home Office drops their high standard of proof in sexuality policy as well as the wider asylum applications." THE METRO - Rebecca Yeo: "Before he was murdered, here is what a disabled asylum seeker had to say about Britain’s ‘hostile environment’" >>> THE GUARDIAN - Steven Morris : "Memorial to murdered refugees unveiled in Bristol " >>> Human rights campaigners in Bristol pay tribute to Kamil Ahmad who was brutally murdered after suffering racist abuse. Ahmad was one of the participants of the Disability Mural that brought to light the struggles faced by disabled asylum seekers, amongst them, RAPAR members Manjeet Kaur and Mary Adenugba. Now the mural will grace the walls of Bristol City Hall in remembrance of both Kamil Ahmad and Bijan Ebrahimi who were both murdered in brutal racist attacks. “By putting the artwork on the walls of City Hall I hope it sends a message that their lives mattered.” - Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bistol Both the case of Ahmad and Ebrahimi showed that though both had been the victims of serious racist abuse, deep systematic failings and institutional racism meant that the authorities failed to protect both Kamil and Bijan resulting in their murders. Learn about the Bristol Disability Mural here >>>
RAPAR raises concerns about new Immigration and Voluntary Returns “surgeries in the community”
RAPAR is querying the Home Office's new policy of introducing immigration and voluntary returns surgeries into the community. We are currently gathering questions about voluntary returns to send to the Home Office. Questions already put forward, most of them from refugees and people seeking asylum, cover a range of concerns about voluntary returns – including asking how the Government can be sure that people being encouraged to “go home” can be truly safe. The Home Office claims there are now 30 voluntary returns surgeries in the community including one in Manchester which is running twice monthly sessions at the Transformation Community Resource Centre in Longsight. One of the aims of this initiative is to persuade refugees to return to their home countries under a Government scheme which offers up to £2,000 for people to “voluntarily” return. Julie Ward, North West MEP, has added her voice to questions being raised by RAPAR about the surgeries which are also operating in London, Birmingham and Slough. She said: “This new development is very worrying and comes hot on the heels of an insidious government policy that used homelessness charities as a means to identify and deport EU migrants before Christmas. The Home Office has a duty to uphold international norms regarding the treatment of vulnerable people such as refugees and asylum seekers. This should mean ensuring adequate and tailored support for a range of options. By locating voluntary returns surgeries in community spaces government policy may appear to be more benign than it is. “I am very concerned that taxpayers' money is being used in a targeted and unbalanced way, with an emphasis on persuading vulnerable people to return to the very places that they were forced to flee for good reason. We need to question why this is happening in an increasingly hostile and xenophobic environment with a Conservative government that has failed in its basic duty regarding unaccompanied child refugees, let alone wider issues appertaining to the asylum process.” People seeking asylum have pointed out to RAPAR that the Home Office's voluntary returns service is already easily accessible and, if people want to take advantage of it, they can. There is no need for “community surgeries”. Sanctuary seekers in the UK have been forced to flee their home countries because their lives were at risk and they are among the most vulnerable, impoverished and traumatised groups in our society. They should not be pressured into returning to a situation where their safety cannot be guaranteed. Dr Rhetta Moran, from RAPAR, said: “People seeking asylum - and those who have decided to stay in the UK undocumented after their cases have been failed by the Home Office - are here because they feel they are still in danger. Completing a 'voluntary' return form in a 'community' setting does not alter that danger. “We have asked the Home Office to explain how they can ensure people's safety if they return. The Home Office knows it cannot do this. Community immigration surgeries are not offering people a real and free choice. There is nothing 'voluntary' about 'voluntary' returns.” RAPAR also questions how impartial and non directive advice about voluntary returns can be given by Home Office staff in community surgeries when they are employed by a Government department which has been charged with driving down net migration. On Wednesday 28th February 2018, at 1pm, we will be outside the Transformation Community Resource Centre, Richmond House, 11 Richmond Grove, Ardwick, Manchester, M13 0LN to communicate to people who may use the surgery why there is no such thing as a ‘Voluntary’ Return. |
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