New evidence shows the extent of skills wasted by not allowing asylum seekers to work
New research by the Refugee Council and the Zimbabwe Association reveals the range of skills the UK is losing by denying the vast majority of asylum seekers entitlement to work.
The study, focusing on the Zimbabwean community, uncovers the range of professions and training among Zimbabweans who are currently in the UK, but who are prevented from working by the UK government.
Clemence, a qualified nurse who was unable to work for eight years, said:
“I would feel wasted and undignified having to scrounge for provisions when I was, able physically and intellectually to sustain myself and my family. Being denied the right to work when seeking asylum is tantamount to prolonging the persecution the victim is escaping from.”
Read the full Refugee Council press release
All Media Scotland: UK workplace losing out on asylum seekers skills
Joseph Rowntree report shows increase in destitution amongst Leeds asylum seekers
Still Destitute, a report by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, calls for asylum seekers who are unable to return home to be allowed to work. This is the third targeted report from the Trust which looks at asylum seekers in Leeds and lists 273 destitute people in the city, including 30 children.
60 of the destitute people went through the New Asylum Model, and many were destitute due to administrative delays. In the last year the number of people sleeping rough in the city has increased from 75 to 85. Over a third have been destitute for a year, and two thirds of destitute asylum seekers came from just four countries with well-documented human rights abuses: Iraq, Iran, Eritrea and Zimbabwe.
The Guardian: Refused asylum seekers forced to eat from bins, says Rowntree trust
Yorkshire Evening Post: Asylum seekers caught in limbo
Inside Housing: Failed asylum seekers swell homeless numbers
Humanitarian crisis continues in Calais
The issue of migrants in Calais continued in the news, with Donna Covey, Chief Executive of the Refugee Council, writing for The Guardian about the humanitarian crisis.
The Guardian: Comment: Donna Covey: Migrants in Calais need our help
Immigrants not given priority in social housing, report shows
Research by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has shown that immigrants have not been given priority access to social housing. The study found that only 1.8 per cent of tenants in social housing had moved to the UK in the past five years. 87.8 per cent were born in the UK and 10 per cent were people who had moved to the UK over five years ago.
The Prime Minister has called for “a bigger role and more responsibility for local authorities to meet housing needs of people in their areas” but the IPPR analysis suggests that this would be hard to implement in practice without accusations of discrimination and the possibility of legal action.
Sandy Buchan, Chief Executive of Refugee Action, said that reprioritising refugees’ housing needs could have the opposite effect to changing public perceptions: “The spectacle of homeless refugees sleeping rough and begging in the streets is hardly going to win public confidence in the prime minister’s management of either housing or immigration policy.”
The Observer: Brown’s policy of local homes for local people may be illegal
The Independent: Migrants ‘not given housing priority’
Play deals with experiences of smuggled migrants
Staged entirely inside a shipping container, The Container is a new play in London telling the story of a group of Africans, Turks and Afghans who are at the mercy of a trafficker.
The play is currently being staged outside London’s Young Vic theatre and runs until the 30th July.
The Guardian: The Container’s captive audience
The London Paper: Theatre review
BNP leader calls for migrant boats to be sunk
Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, told the BBC’s The Record Europe programme that the only way to stop people migrating from Africa to Europe was to “sink several of these boats… They can throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya.”
The Guardian: BNP leader: sink boats with African migrants on board
