'Indefinite Leave To Remain' for people who are undocumented, destitute, and those in the legal process #HealthAndSafetyForAll
Join us on Monday 13th May to hear more from migrant voices on how we can change the immigration system in the UK.
Date and time: Monday, May 13: 5 – 6:30pm GMT+1
Location: Online
Continue reading “Migrant and Refugee Voices Demand Status Now, 4 All!”Join us for a powerful event of connection and collaboration as SistersNotStrangers comes to Liverpool for an afternoon conference!
This event is a unique opportunity to meet members of our coalition, particularly those working with asylum seekers, refugees, or individuals with lived experiences.
SistersNotStrangers is a UK-based coalition dedicated to supporting asylum-seeking and refugee women. It is made of 7 groups: The Women’s Group (Swansea), DEWA (Sheffield), Women for Refugee Women (London), CARAG (Coventry), Refugee Women Connect (Liverpool), Women Seeking Asylum Together (Manchester)c, Women With Hope (Birmingham).
Our mission is to campaign against destitution and other inhumane policies affecting women seeking safety in the UK. SistersNotStrangers envision a world where these women are seen as sisters, not strangers – as women, neighbours, mothers, colleagues, and activists.
It was written jointly by the Refugee Council, the Helen Bamber Foundation and Humans for Rights Network. It found that at least 1,300 refugee children were placed in unsupervised adult accommodation and detention in an 18-month period (January 2022 to June 2023), after being wrongly age-assessed on arrival in the UK. We think that real numbers are likely to be much higher as data was not received from all local authorities.
This data paints a bleak picture of separated children‘s experiences on arrival in the UK. Behind each case there is a child who has been failed by the system, experienced abuse, exploitation, distress, or harm. All of these traumas are entirely preventable, children are subjected to these harms as a direct result of being wrongly placed in adult accommodation due to the Home Office age assessment policy at the point of entry.
This is a safeguarding crisis on an unprecedented scale which we like to bring to your attention in the hope it will be possible for us to work together to address system failures and ensure that all children are protected from the moment they arrive in the UK.
Continue reading “Children and the Hostile Environment”Profiting from Misery: Disability and Migrant justice campaigners protest at the companies profiting from depriving people of essential needs.
At 4pm on December 1st (two days before international day of disabled people) a coalition of disability and migrant justice organisations, including a group of disabled refugees will meet outside the Home Office to call for a stop to the obscene profits made by private corporations depriving people of human needs. Clearsprings and Serco are among the private corporations profiting from the government’s outsourcing of asylum accommodation to private corporations.
Continue reading “Protest on 1 December 2023: Profiting from Misery”We Dare to Dream is the story of refugee athletes from Iran, Syria, South Sudan and Cameroon who swim, run and fight their way to opportunity and safety in host nations across the world. Spanning a breadth of backgrounds, personal stories and Olympic sports, the film reveals their lives and hopes as they train to compete on the world stage, showing the fire and the drive of young people forced to leave their families, homes and countries of birth to build new lives out of nothing.
You can see the trailer here: https://youtu.be/-KvH55DDNzQ
The film We Dare to Dream is coming to Birmingham on Sunday 10 December 2023:
2: 40pm at Mockingbird Cinema, B9 4AA, with Director Q&A. Book your ticket here https://www.mockingbirdcinema.com/production/we-dare-to-dream/
Continue reading “We Dare to Dream – film”
Opposition to the new detention centre is growing locally, as more people recognise the tremendous danger, misery, and harm caused by immigration detention. We aim to gather as many voices as possible to show the government that we will not tolerate their dangerous mistreatment of vulnerable asylum seekers and survivors of torture and trafficking.
Read more: https://keepcampsfieldclosed.uk/
See also updates about the tireless campaigning of Daisy and family here: https://statusnow4all.org/enabling-nurse-daisy/
See posts regarding contingency accommodation which is sometimes quasi-detention
The report on Brook House mirrors concerns I raised as chief inspector, but Suella Braverman’s Home Office lacks the will to address them
On 19 September 2023, Kate Eves, the Chair of The Brook House Inquiry, published her report into the mistreatment of individuals who were detained at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre. You can download the Report or view it online on the website.
Inquiry’s report reveals “toxic” culture at Brook House IRC
The Brook House Inquiry, established to investigate the mistreatment of individuals detained at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre (IRC), published its report on the 19 September 2023. The Chair, Kate Eves, makes 33 important recommendations which she said, “need to be implemented to ensure that other detained people do not suffer in the same way as those at Brook House did.”
ROAR is developing out of the actions taken by hotel residents whose bravery has brought some of the human rights violations in asylum hotels to national media attention. Beginning with our first public meeting on 7th September, ROAR wants to make information-sharing and organising spaces where people seeking asylum, supported by allies from trades unions and civil society, safely expose human rights violations, participate in constructing alternative solutions, and openly campaign for those solutions (event flyer).
ACCESS THE EVENT FLYER FOR DISTRIBUTION ROAR: RAISING OUR ASYLUM RIGHTS
RESISTING RACISM IN HOTELS
PUBLIC MEETING, 6.30PM, 7th SEPTEMBER 2023: FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE, 6 MOUNT STREET, MANCHESTER M2 5NS
Continue reading “ROAR PUBLIC MEETING: 7th Sept. at 6.30pm”Read more here: https://refugeeweek.org.uk/events
19 June 2023 6-8pm London: Migrant Voice: London film screening: “MATAR” and “AYMAN”
To mark Refugee Week, Migrant Voice and the University of Westminster are hosting an evening of award-winning film and discussion on 19 June at the University’s Regent Street campus. We will screen two powerful short films, MATAR and AYMAN, followed by a panel discussion and Q&A.
Continue reading “Some Refugee Week events 2023”Civil society action in solidarity with migrants in the Maghreb (North Africa) region has increased over the last year, with activity in Tunisia and Morocco in particular strengthening in response to negative developments on the part of the respective national governments.
The development of this work will take a big step forward over the coming week as representatives of migrant and North African diaspora associations convene in the Moroccan city of Nador for the fifth Maghreb Social Forum on Migration. Gathering under the slogan: “Never again “Bario Chino”, the Forum will coincide with the first anniversary of the massacre at the border crossing between Morocco and Spanish enclave city of Melilla in which at least 37 migrants died in a crush resulting from an attach of the Moroccan police.
Calling for a Maghreb “free of hatred, xenophobia and racism” this Forum follows similar events mobilising migrant and antiracist activists in North Africa and across the European diaspora. Previous sessions took place in Brussels (2010), Oujda (2012), Monastir (2014) and Tangiers (2016).
Three main themes have been selected for the Forum. These are:
Continue reading “North African migrant solidarity organisations convene in Morocco to mark the anniversary of the Melillia-Nador massacre”The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has today announced more than £750,000 additional funding to boost support for migrants in London and tackle the exploitation of migrant workers following a ‘shocking’ report which uncovered widespread abuse.
The new report, commissioned by City Hall, uncovers shocking levels of bullying, racially motivated harassment, and the exploitation of migrants in the workplace consistent with modern slavery.
This investment by the Mayor will support migrants in London with independent immigration advice and support services to help ensure they can access their rights, including protection from employment rights violation and exploitation.
Continue reading “Rights and risks: migrant worker exploitation and the barriers to support”Updated 19 March 2023 with photos from the day:
Thousands attended march through capital to condemn home secretary’s legislation, say organisers
Protesters have marched against the government’s illegal migration bill in cities across the UK on Saturday, with organisers claiming thousands had attended.
Demonstrators carried signs and banners, some reading “no human is illegal”, as they matched towards Downing Street in central London.
Organisers Stand Up To Racism and the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) also held protests in Glasgow and Cardiff against racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, fascism and the far right.
The legislation introduced by the home secretary, Suella Braverman, means that refugees who arrive in the UK through unauthorised means, such as crossing the Channel in a boat, will have their asylum claims deemed inadmissible.
Continue reading “Support all Asylum Seekers/Migrants: Resist Racism March and Rally London 18th March”Online: Tue, 21 March 2023, 19:00 – 21:30 GMT
RACISM and inequality have never been starker in Britain and abroad.
Government hostile environment policies continue to scapegoat migrants, refugees, and the Muslim community.
The Liberation Movement (TLM) believes the fightback must be led by people of colour, who are at the sharp end of such hatred.
Unity with allies in organisations, including trade unions, community, and faith groups, is essential.
Continue reading “UN Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination”| Welcome to this edition of SNN newsletter where we are covering a number of items that will be of interest to everyone involved in migrant and refugee solidarity work. The first article comments Sunak’s ‘stop small boats’ plan with the ‘illegal migration bill’. The second highlights how the government’s aim is not to ‘stop the small boats’, but to stop people asking for refugee status in the UK and invite the workers’ and antiracist movements to further mobilize together against the government’s cruel antirefugee policy. Our third article reports the result of a recent research that shows how the 10-year route is a ‘punishing process’ that reduces immigrants in misery. Children and the hostile environment is the topic of our fourth article that invite to a webinar organized by our signatory Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment. Finally, we publish a call from our signatory Migrant Voice to contribute to their forthcoming report on the conditions of asylum seekers in London hotels. |
As many asylum seekers say they have been placed in unsuitable properties littered with tripping hazards, an expert blamed the system which she says ‘creates a hostile environment’
Alimony Bangura, a disabled asylum seeker from Sierra Leone, is living in Manchester (
Disabled asylum seekers who fled war zones for the safety of Britain say they have been left as prisoners in their own homes.
Many claim they have been placed in unsuitable properties that are littered with tripping hazards and have broken lifts.
One disabled man told how he fell while trying to reach his upstairs bathroom.
And a blind refugee said he could only go out once a week with the aid of carers.
Their misery continues despite a 2020 court case which found the Government failed to provide disabled-friendly digs.
Campaigners say they have warned Home Secretary Suella Braverman of a string of cases across the country.
Worryingly, there is no official record of how many asylum seekers are disabled.
Continue reading “Barriers and Bridges to Wellbeing”