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Commission finds asylum a muddle
by Bill Bowder
 PA |
| THE British want their country to be a place of sanctuary for people fleeing persecution and torture; but many dismiss actual asylum-seekers as economic migrants seeking to benefit from welfare provision, the Independent Asylum Commission has concluded in its first report.
The report, Saving Sanctuary, says that confusion about, and stigmatising of, asylum-seekers challenges Britain’s proud tradition as a place of safety for refugees.
The Citizen Organising Foundation set up the Commission two years ago to investigate the implementation of national policies on asylum. It consulted hundreds of individuals and organisations through public hearings, written and video evidence, and research. Sir John Waite, who co-chaired the Commission, said its inquiry was on an unprecedented scale.
It published its interim findings in March (News, 28 March). The UK Border Agency’s responses, and the Commission’s assessment of them, are in the new report, launched on Tuesday at 19 Princelet Street, Spitalfields, a museum of immigration in London.
“Asylum is so misunderstood and tarnished as a concept that there is no common understanding of it, and it is seen as negative and is not associated with people fleeing persecution,” said Katie Ghose, director of the British Institute for Human Rights, and a member of the Commission.
It had found that people responded more positively to the language of sanctuary than to that of asylum. They wanted the UK to be a safe sanctuary, with secure borders. They also wanted swift and effective decision-making that took pride in offering sanctuary to those who needed it and was clear about those who did not. Asylum-seekers should be able to work and pay their way, and should be helped to integrate if they stayed.
Another member of the Commission, the Revd Professor Nicholas Sagovsky, Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey, said that its 48 recommendations emphasised the importance of good initial decision-making and legal representation. The decision-makers now received 55 days’ training, but they needed to know more about the countries that asylum-seekers had fled. He was very concerned that traumatised torture victims, particularly women, were being fast-tracked out before they could tell their story.
Available from the IAC, 112 Cavell Street, London E1 2JA; email evidence@cof.org.uk or phone 020 7043 9878.
www.independentasylumcommission.org.uk |
