205 SEVEN Women refugees and asylum seekers A headline in the New Statesman 29 October 2009 reads: ‘Home is where the heartbreak is. Asylum-seeking women are especially vulnerable to persecution, but the British immigration system does little to help’: ‘Maybe I should just go back and die,’ says Esther. ‘It happens all the time. People go to sleep and just don’t wake up.’ If she returns to her native Kenya, Esther will be under threat of murder and rape. But the UK has refused her asylum. Her situation is typical of the plight of vulnerable female
This book establishes asylum seekers as a socially excluded group, investigating the policy of dispersing asylum seekers across the UK and providing an overview of historic and contemporary dispersal systems. It is the first book to seek to understand how asylum seekers experience the dispersal system and the impact this has on their lives. The author argues that deterrent asylum policies increase the sense of liminality experienced by individuals, challenges assumptions that asylum seekers should be socially excluded until receipt of refugee status and illustrates how they create their own sense of ‘belonging’ in the absence of official recognition. Academics, students, policy-makers and practitioners would all benefit from reading this book.
143 10Asylum seekers and refugees Practice scenario i went to croydon, queued up and got a ticket. that was the most daunting thing. this place has no privacy. i was called to a window. the guy next door could hear what i was saying and so could the guys behind me. you’re talking behind Perspex. the thing i found so difficult was, as a gay man coming from a country where you don’t talk about sex, the first contact i had, the interviewer was an elderly asian lady, someone i’d put in a place like my mum. She asked: why are you seeking asylum? it was the
9 Contact: Andrew Dawson Senior Lecturer Depar tment of Comparative and Applied Social Sciences University of Hull Cottingham Road Hull HU6 7RX UK +44 (0)1482 466215 +44 (0)1482 466366 a.dawson@hull.ac.uk www.hull.ac.ukw t f e The problem with asylum- seeker dispersal: transitions, structures and myths1 Andrew Dawson Based on research in Hull, this article considers whether initial failings of national dispersal policy were merely transitional. Declining rates of ‘drift’, whereby asylum seekers voluntarily leave dispersal sites, suggests that this may be so
233 EIGHT refused asylum seekers, destitution, poverty and social networks Destitution is shaming. Both for the individual and for the society that tolerates it…. Hungry and homeless people who lack any sense of purpose in their lives, who cannot, will not or fear to return to their country of origin ought not to disappear into a murky twilight on the fringe of society. It benefits no one. It has a negative impact on the economy, on public health, on community relations. These ‘invisible people’ need to be brought out of the shadows so that they may be
187 ELEVEN LGBT asylum seekers and health inequalities in the UK1 Kate Karban and Ala Sirriyeh VIGNETTE Jay was born in Nigeria where same-sex behaviour between adults is punishable by up to 14 years’ imprisonment. Although she identifies herself as a lesbian, she was pressured into marriage and has one child, now 10 years old, who remains in Nigeria and who she has not seen for seven years. Jay rarely goes out as she is frightened of meeting people from the Nigerian community, fearing harassment or violence if they find out about her sexuality. She has
231 FOURTEEN Building strengths in asylum-seeker communities in Australia Lis de Vries, Mohita Roman and Linda Briskman Introduction An asylum seeker receiving individual casework said of her experience: “The only hope for people like me is Red Cross. I thank first to God. Second to the Australian Government because I feel safe. And third Red Cross.” (Briskman, 2014a, p 60) Australian Red Cross (Red Cross) has for many years delivered high- quality, strengths-based individualised casework services. In the last few years, our experience, on-going consultation
137 EIGHT Participatory action research with refugee and asylum-seeking women Margaret Greenfields Introduction This chapter discusses the methods, processes and outcomes of a Comic Relief1-funded three-year community development and advocacy programme undertaken with Refugee and Asylum-Seeking Women (RASW) in London. It focuses on how the use of participatory action research and training delivered by RASW can challenge and inform the way in which ‘professionals’ deliver health and legal services to vulnerable communities. The project, undertaken during
49 FOUR Collage-making with migrant, refugee and asylum-seeking women When researching people’s perceptions of their own bodies – fat bodies, anorexic bodies, ill bodies, sporting bodies, dis/abled bodies, childbearing bodies, bodies undergoing plastic surgery, and so on, the body is already inscribed in the research inquiry. However, one of the aims of this book is applying the concept of embodied research to areas where the focus of research it not already the body itself. As I have argued in the previous chapters, doing embodied research means not
43 3 Forced labour among asylum seekers and refugees in the UK Introduction In this chapter we focus on the 30 asylum seekers and refugees we interviewed who had experiences of severe labour exploitation and forced labour. Drawing on their own testimonies, we show how all our interviewees experienced forced labour practices in multiple forms and diverse labour settings while working in a wide range of sectors in the UK, for varying periods lasting days, months or many years. The chapter first introduces the conceptual framework of forced labour as defined
