Transcript
Wafa Shaheen
The Scottish Refugee Council is a national human rights charity, organisation, that works with asylum seekers and refugees to try to help them understand and access their rights through provisional information and advice, and then we take these issues and try to influence policies and support Scottish politicians to speak on behalf of these issues. We assist people to raise their voice and talk about their issues because it’s more powerful when it comes from the real person. We do briefings all the time. We do conferences. We try to raise these issues locally and at a national level as well.
The whole migration debate does frustrate me personally because, as media, as politicians, we make it bigger than it is, and we focus on people’s vulnerability and people as a burden instead of… For example, in Scotland, we do need people, we need migrants, because you need workforce basically but you don’t see that argument. You see it in other European countries in terms of the rhetoric and the debate on migration. It’s not in the UK.
Fiona Cotterill
Can you give me an example of when somebody comes here, what kind of issues are they facing and what can you help them with?
Wafa Shaheen
People come for different reasons. Some people come just to find out information about available services, either social activities - they want to know where they can access language courses. Are the entitled to work and how can they find a job - or, they are having a specific legal issue that they want help with. So, we are registered with the Office of Immigration Commissioner Services, and our advisors have a level of expertise that they can actually either respond to these issues or refer to specialist immigration lawyer. There are people who come here and say ‘I want to claim asylum’ or ‘I can’t go back home’, so our role is to try to understand their circumstances to see if asylum is their only option, and if asylum is their only option, we try to assess them to access their asylum procedure in the UK. If you are in the country to register your asylum claim, the only place is Croydon in London. So, we have to help people to travel to Croydon. Once people then get their asylum registered with the Home Office, it’s up to the Home Office to send them to a city that has asylum accommodation in the UK. So, the people that we send to Croydon, they might come back, they might go to other city – wherever asylum accommodation is available. To get their accommodation and support from the Home Office, they have to have their asylum claim registered and ongoing, and they have to prove they are destitute – they don’t have other means to support themselves. Then, people will be dispersed by the Home Office to Glasgow – Glasgow is the only dispersal city within Scotland since 2000. Once they get their accommodation here, they get between £35-£36 a week. It’s per person, so if you’re single that’s all what you’re getting. If you are family, then it’s per each member of the family but that will be for your food, for your travel, for anything else that you need to buy.
Fiona Cotterill
So, are asylum seekers eligible for any other benefits other than what they’re given through the NASS system?
Wafa Shaheen
In terms of financial support, the asylum support is only benefit they are entitled to. The main thing that people don’t have is the right to work. They still have the right to education, maybe not to full-time further education. In Scotland, asylum seekers have the right to access English Language provision. They still have the right to health services. If they meet the threshold for vulnerability, not caused by destitution, then they have right to social care as well. Children have the same rights as everybody else in Scotland, so preschool, school, all the grants that other kids get, and the other big difference with England is legal aid, so asylum seekers can access legal aid throughout the whole process.
Fiona Cotterill
Can you tell me a little bit about what the National Asylum Support Service actually involves?
Wafa Shaheen
The National Asylum Support Service is a welfare system for asylum seekers who arrive to the country, have registered their claim, so there is ongoing, live asylum claim, and people are destitute.
The issue is not just about asylum seekers who have access to asylum support, the Home Office asylum support, but it’s also for those who access the asylum system with no rights. So, they will get… their asylum claim will be refused and they will have to stop getting support basically from the Home Office, and they are now part of the group that’s called No Recourse Public Fund. The Scottish Local Authorities are in the process of trying to write guidance on the No Recourse Public Fund because it extends beyond asylum seekers. For those who are in receipt of asylum support, basically they are in poverty. It gets worse if you have children because if your children are in school then they could be excluded from some activities because they have to have money to pay it. It’s a huge issue. There are a few projects and charities that will assist. There are some private investors that are willing to pay towards education. We get small amounts of money for children activities. If you are single, and not vulnerable, then you’re doomed.
Those single people who are destitute because their asylum has been refused, there is the risk of them ending up in the streets. There are limited options in terms of accommodation. There are night shelters but very, very limited, and there are a few people who go into and out of destitution, so if we can help them to explore some options, we have a project called DASS, which is Destitute Asylum Seekers Service. The target group are those who exit the asylum process with negative decisions to sit down with them and see what other options, legal avenues, they can go through, and in the last year we assisted 33% of those people to get back into the asylum system, but the majority will disappear because there is nowhere for people to go.
Fiona Cotterill
Other than the financial pressures, what other difficulties do asylum seekers face?
Wafa Shaheen
There is a negative perception by people. There is the lack of language skills, sometimes there are the lack of social networks for people. So, they have no-one to rely on. However, asylum seekers, because they all go through the same circumstances, they form sometimes friendships, and there are lots of people who sofa-surf, so they sleep on other people’s floors, and it’s not just about isolation but it’s the impact of isolation on people, it’s the impact of their mental wellbeing. You see people and you see young people who spend most of their lives here with no hope.
If we’re talking about children within families, then there is emotional thing that they actually see their parents go through because the asylum process is not an easy process but, because of the limited resources that people have as well, they can’t actually engage in lots of activities, so they can’t go to the cinema for example because it would cost a lot of money, but even in school, and if they are new in the city and their language is not great, other children tend to pick the language and everything quite quickly, they still feel they’re different from their peers.