campaigns > destitution

Fleeing Sudan

Imagine your family - mother, brother, father, sister - being attacked in front of you.

Imagine watching your home being torched.

Imagine your fear of the attackers returning.

That fear is what drives people from conflict-ridden, or human-rights abusing regimes to seek asylum in the UK.

In 2007, three out of every four Sudanese asylum seekers were refused the right to stay in the UK. But their fear remains.

“I would rather be destitute than dead”

Those who are refused asylum are cut off without support, sleeping on the streets or on the floors of well-wishers.  Our caseworkers learn of asylum seekers eating out of rubbish bins to survive.

Joined up thinking?

The government uses strong words to denounce human rights abuses and vicious armed conflict.  David Miliband, Foreign Secretary, has expressed deep concern at the "appalling suffering" that fighting in Darfur has caused, and at reports of the Sudanese government using aerial bombardment, in contravention of UN resolutions.  In September 2007, the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown threatened possible sanctions against any party blocking progress on peace in Darfur, calling the issue "the great humanitarian disaster of our generation".

And yet refused asylum seekers from Sudan and other countries are subjected to utter destitution in the UK, in the misguided assumption that this may make them return to the horrifying situations from which they have fled. 

The government is reducing survivors of civil wars and human rights abuses to destitution in an attempt to force them to return. 

Please write to your MP today.

The UK, with other European states, has signed a commitment to protect people threatened by “indiscriminate violence in situations of international or internal armed conflict”*.  But they’re not living up to this commitment. Only 55 people were granted this status – given Humanitarian Protection – last year.

We’re asking the government to listen to their own statements about countries like Sudan, Iraq and Zimbabwe– and to understand why forcing frightened people into destitution isn’t making them return.

We want new operational guidance for Home Office case workers so that they can grant Humanitarian Protection, a form of temporary status giving the right to work, to asylum seekers in cases like these. 

*Article 15C of the European Community Qualification Directive, incorporated into the UK’s Immigration Rules.

 

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