By IRR News Team
13 December 2007, 3:00pm
A coalition of groups assisting asylum seekers, including Medical Justice and the National Coalition of Anti Deportation Campaigns, is collecting information on alleged cases of assault during removal.
The information required for the study is detailed in the document (available at the link below) but includes a person's name or initials; the date of alleged incident; the place of alleged incident description of incident; Immigration Escort company involved (if known); whether the incident was reported to police; whether a complaint was submitted to the Home Office or Immigration Removal Centre; country to which the removal / attempted removal was.
For further information or return completed forms to: assaultsduringremoval@hotmail.co.uk.
The Institute of Race Relations is precluded from expressing a corporate view: any opinions expressed are therefore those of the authors.
Related links
National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns
Medical Justice
Download the table detailing the information required (word doc, 102kb)
Condemning the unborn
By Jon Burnett
13 December 2007, 1:00pm
British asylum policies are condemning increasing numbers of children to illness, poverty and deprivation before they are even born.
On the top floor of a high-rise flat in Leeds a young mother sits with her newborn child. Unlike most new mothers she is not surrounded by cards and flowers. Nor is she surrounded by well-wishers. The flat is dilapidated and in the bedroom a second-hand cot is pushed up against a damp and moulding wall. It is the only piece of furniture the baby has.
Like most new parents she is tired and under intense stress. Unlike most mothers, though, her child is malnourished and underweight. This is a direct result of a policy which forces destitution on asylum seekers who have had their claims rejected. The child is one of an increasing number who are being harmed before they are even born, as their mothers are forced into rough sleeping, without food, denied the right to work and access to secondary medical care.
Estimates of the number of destitute asylum seekers vary but some organisations suggest a figure of up to 400,000.[1] With no official figures, it is impossible to say how many of these are pregnant mothers. The Leeds-based charity Positive Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers (PAFRAS), however, is seeing an increasing number of babies born with serious defects and sometimes chronically under-developed. Recently, a mother gave birth to a baby weighing a little over four pounds. In the UK, the average is seven and a half pounds.
Such under-nourishment is a clear sign that the child has not been able to develop properly in the mother's womb and it can be an obvious signifier of physical harm. According to the Rev Paul Nicholson, Chair of Zacchaeus 2000 - a London-based charity committed to combating poverty - poor maternal nutrition can lead to brain disorder and mental illness. Whilst Christine Smith, a retired senior sister who has significant experience of work at a premature baby unit explains: 'An unborn baby will take every ounce of nourishment it can from its mother but if there is nothing there, it has nothing to take. If a mother is destitute there is a higher risk of still birth. But even if born alive the child will be prone to colds, coughs, asthma, and diarrhoea. With a weakened immune system, in the first year at least there will be a higher risk of death.
Destitute asylum seekers who reach seven months pregnancy can apply for 'Section 4' support, which entitles them to £35 a week in food vouchers and provides accommodation. Getting the claims for support processed though, can, and often does, take up to two months. By this time the child may already have been born. And even when this support is processed, the 'benefits' provided are often woefully inadequate. The government has contracted out Section 4 housing in a public/private market which, for the applicant, operates on a 'no-choice' basis. A virtual industry of housing providers have been quick to move in and the standards of properties are often particularly low. In one case, a pregnant woman was put in a room with no furniture - not even a bed.
And in order to spend her £35 food vouchers, the mother mentioned above needs to walk miles to a specific supermarket that has a contract for voucher redemption. The vouchers will not be accepted anywhere else and she has no money to use public transport. If she is lucky, the supermarket will allow her to spend her vouchers on nappies, toiletries and items for her child. Some, however, do not. In which case she may be forced to contribute to a growing economy whereby people sell their vouchers for cash. This, though, is rarely an equal exchange and £35 in vouchers seldom trades for £35 'real' money. Either way, she has to get to the shop first to find out. This is made more difficult by the fact that she has no pram for her child. After only a day, she was discharged from hospital and has since been left to bring up her child with practically no assistance. Her midwife has not visited and she has no support from a health worker. Unsure of how to feed the child, she has had to rely on local charities to provide basic kitchen utensils to warm up baby milk. She has only one set of baby clothes and no blankets, and keeping the baby warm is particularly difficult. Housed in an area known for racist violence; not long after the child was brought home a brick was thrown through a window of the flat.
She is yet to find out whether the period spent destitute whilst carrying her child has caused any permanent damage. In order to do this she would have to first access secondary care, which she may be charged for. One mother with a newborn child, who could not afford the costs, was soon after visited by a debt recovery agency.
In a policy climate where the New Labour government proclaims 'every child matters', increasing numbers of children are being condemned even before they are born. Yet these children offer living (though sometimes barely so) proof that some children mean nothing to the same government that utters these words. This is the same government that dehumanises their parents - making them endure abject, enforced, poverty in an attempt to force them to leave the country - and the existence of a 'condemned' number of children is not even acknowledged. Moreover, this situation may become even bleaker. Plans to debar 'failed' asylum seekers from primary health care, originally mooted in 2004, have recently been re-invoked and, as well as condemning untold numbers of people to increased illness, their children, too, will suffer.
[1] BBC News, 'Asylum backlog cleared "by 2011"', (19 July 2006). Jon Burnett is Information and Communications Officer at PAFRAS and is currently researching destitution policies and their impacts within West Yorkshire. For further information phone 0113 248 4147 or email: pafrasemail@yahoo.co.uk.
The Institute of Race Relations is precluded from expressing a corporate view: any opinions expressed are therefore those of the authors.
A gathering for Muslim
and Christian women
Wahida Shaffi & Dilly Baker
18th -20th January 2008 £160
Taking the theme of Sarah and
Hagar, the weekend will offer women
the chance to explore the
interconnections between their lives,
their religion and their spirituality
Discounts from £30 to £160 available
and are sponsored by the Christian/
Muslim Forum. Please contact us to
find out more. See below for details.
This event is open to all women who are
practising members of either the
Christian or Islamic faiths and who are
keen to engage with the theology that
will underpin this exchange.
Facilitators: Dilly Baker, Director of
Development at Scargill and Wahida
Shaffi of Women Working Towards
Excellence. Both are members of the
National Christian/Muslim Forum.
To book contact Scargill House
e: bookings@scargillhouse.co.uk
t: 01756 760234
For more information contact
Dilly Baker t: 01756 760234
e: dilly.baker@scargillhouse.co.uk or
Wahida Shaffi t: 07983 646096
e: wahidashaffi@aol.com
Charity no. 228031
Scargill, Kettlewell, Skipton, BD23 5HU t: 01756 760234 e: bookings@scargillhouse.co.uk
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PHOTO: AYOUB MZEEMEET Mrs. Janet Kataha Museveni-Uganda First lady and wife of the President is the Founder and current Patron of UWESO. Janet Museveni (née Keinembabazi, born August 15, 1949) is the First Lady of Uganda since May 1986. She is married with four children to Yoweri Museveni.
Janet Keinembabazi Kataha Museveni was born in Bwongyera village in Kajara county, Ntungamo district, Uganda to Mr and Mrs Edward Kataha. She attended Kyamate primary school and Bweranyagye Girls Secondary School. After secondary school, she lived with a cousin, John Wycliffe Kazzora, who financed her overseas studies. She attended a secretarial course in Wales, and on returning to Uganda got a job as a ground hostess with the then East African Airways.In November 2005, she announced that she would seek the parliamentary seat of Ruhama in the February 2006 Ugandan general elections. She contested the seat against the candidate for Forum for Democratic Change, Augustine Ruzindana, and won.
Prince Charles[above] at one of the CHOGM meetings in kampala -uganda
Christmas should be a time of real joy and a time of sharing. But sometimes you might share more than you bargained for. At this time of year we all go out a little more, shop a little more and consequently spend a little more – giving unscrupulous fraudsters more opportunities to steal your most important possession – your identity.
Identity theft is a real menace in today’s society and affects as many as 1 in 4 UK consumers – and its effects can be devastating. It can take hundreds of hours to get your finances straight again, not to mention all of the accompanying heartache.
Unless you take precautions, you could be at risk. Don’t expose yourself to this danger, don’t be a victim of identity theft this Christmas.
Protect yourself:
Don’t let your credit card out of your sight.
Don’t keep receipts on you.
Don’t carry your Driving Licence.
Don’t use full names on your gift list.
Don’t carry all of your credit cards.
Don’t keep your National Insurance number on you.
DO monitor your credit report.
The United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, visited Addis Ababa for a series of meetings on Wednesday. During her visit, the Secretary of State held three separate meetings on Somalia, Sudan and the Great Lakes Region with regional leaders. She also had bilateral discussions with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Foreign Minister Seyoum, focusing on regional security and fighting terrorism, democracy and human rights, economic development and food security and health concerns including HIV/AIDS as well as issues with Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea. The Secretary encouraged Prime Minister Meles to send the troops Ethiopia had previously pledged to Darfur and to work with Khartoum to allow UNAMID deployments. She encouraged Ethiopia to avoid any actions that might heighten friction with Eritrea and to take concrete steps to lessen tension along the border. She said there must be no resumption of hostilities by either side. She also discussed the importance of strengthening democratic institutions in Ethiopia and emphasized that the US administration did not support the HR2003 bill. The Presidents of Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda, as well as the interior minister of the DRC joined the US Secretary of State in urging the strengthening of the DRC security forces to drive out foreign and rebel forces. The four countries of the Great Lakes region appealed for greater international help, and recommitted themselves to the November agreement between the DRC and Rwanda. On Sudan, although there was no government delegate present, the main focus of the meeting was to urge the Government of Sudan and the SPLM to implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) with a view of ensuring peace in Sudan. Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum said that the CPA was a great achievement and that the international community should not sit back when it was facing difficulties. It was also suggested that IGAD should convene a meeting with a view to helping the parties move the peace process forward. Foreign Ministers of IGAD member states or their representatives and AU and UN representatives were also present at the meeting on Sudan. Secretary Rice also raised concerns over the delays in deploying the UN-AU peacekeeping force in Darfur.
Identity theft is a real menace in today’s society and affects as many as 1 in 4 UK consumers – and its effects can be devastating. It can take hundreds of hours to get your finances straight again, not to mention all of the accompanying heartache.
Unless you take precautions, you could be at risk. Don’t expose yourself to this danger, don’t be a victim of identity theft this Christmas.
Protect yourself:
Don’t let your credit card out of your sight.
Don’t keep receipts on you.
Don’t carry your Driving Licence.
Don’t use full names on your gift list.
Don’t carry all of your credit cards.
Don’t keep your National Insurance number on you.
DO monitor your credit report.
The United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, visited Addis Ababa for a series of meetings on Wednesday. During her visit, the Secretary of State held three separate meetings on Somalia, Sudan and the Great Lakes Region with regional leaders. She also had bilateral discussions with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Foreign Minister Seyoum, focusing on regional security and fighting terrorism, democracy and human rights, economic development and food security and health concerns including HIV/AIDS as well as issues with Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea. The Secretary encouraged Prime Minister Meles to send the troops Ethiopia had previously pledged to Darfur and to work with Khartoum to allow UNAMID deployments. She encouraged Ethiopia to avoid any actions that might heighten friction with Eritrea and to take concrete steps to lessen tension along the border. She said there must be no resumption of hostilities by either side. She also discussed the importance of strengthening democratic institutions in Ethiopia and emphasized that the US administration did not support the HR2003 bill. The Presidents of Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda, as well as the interior minister of the DRC joined the US Secretary of State in urging the strengthening of the DRC security forces to drive out foreign and rebel forces. The four countries of the Great Lakes region appealed for greater international help, and recommitted themselves to the November agreement between the DRC and Rwanda. On Sudan, although there was no government delegate present, the main focus of the meeting was to urge the Government of Sudan and the SPLM to implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) with a view of ensuring peace in Sudan. Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum said that the CPA was a great achievement and that the international community should not sit back when it was facing difficulties. It was also suggested that IGAD should convene a meeting with a view to helping the parties move the peace process forward. Foreign Ministers of IGAD member states or their representatives and AU and UN representatives were also present at the meeting on Sudan. Secretary Rice also raised concerns over the delays in deploying the UN-AU peacekeeping force in Darfur.
