A report published on Tuesday by the influential centre-left think tank, the Institute of Public Policy Research, shows that people are driven to seek asylum by war, ethnic violence, repression, and human rights abuses, rather than by poverty.
In order to identify the 'root causes' of forced migration to the European Union, the ippr focused its attention on the ten countries from which the majority of asylum seekers have come over the past decade. The evidence demonstrates a clear link between the situation in countries of origin and the levels of asylum applications in the EU and shows that war and persecution are by far the most important factors in determining the number of asylum seekers arriving in Britain. In 1998 and 1999, during the Kosovo crisis, the largest group of people who sought asylum in the UK were from the Former Republic of Yugoslavia - 16% of the total. In 2001, during the Afghanistan war against the Taliban, 13% of asylum seekers came from Afghanistan. In 2002, 17% of asylum applications in the UK came from Iraqi nationals.
The evidence belies assumptions about the causes of forced migration to the EU, in showing that underdevelopment and poverty are not in themselves major 'push factors' for putative asylum claimants, but may be crucial in precipitating conflict, which in turn may lead to forced migration.
States of Conflict: Causes and patterns of forced migration to the EU argues that European governments must address the underlying causes which cause people to flee their countries of origin if they hope to reduce the numbers of asylum applications and to join up their policies across areas of migration, foreign policy, arms export, trade and development.
Alison Fenney, Head of Policy at the Refugee Council said:
“This important report demonstrates conclusively that people are driven to seek asylum in the UK by war, repression and human rights abuses and are not drawn here by the so-called “pull factors” that appear to lie at the heart of the government’s approach to asylum policy.
“It upholds the Refugee Council’s view that initiatives to reduce the number of applications to the UK must address the root causes of why people flee their homes. Making conditions for asylum seekers in the UK harsher will not reduce numbers and will only increase social divisions and hinder integration.
“Locking them up in camps outside the European Union* would be equally ineffective, costly and unworkable. This report offers a solution consistent with the UK's commitment to the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention: the government must join up its policies on asylum, international relations, trade and development to ensure the root causes of forced migration are tackled”.
Further information & links
Read a BBC online report
ippr website
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