Article 14 University of Leicester Refugee Week Magazine
Some Definitions... Refugee
A refugee is a person who ‘owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country…’ (Definition quoted from the 1951 Refugee Convention)
Asylum Seeker
An asylum seeker is someone who has fled persecution and who has applied for protection as a refugee and is awaiting the determination of his or her status.
Editor’s Note Matthew Burnett-Stuart We all hear about horrific human rights violations, conflicts and oppression in developing countries, some of us choose to read about it and some just skip to the next page. However, what we don’t hear are the personal stories, the desperate plight of these victims that lead them to seek refuge in other countries, and furthermore what happens when they flee their country; their struggle to seek asylum. This is what Article 14 is all about; to focus on the people and go beyond mere statistics and numbers. Moreover, we have tried to dispel some of the myths that surround asylum seekers, such as the idea that they are scroungers of the benefit system or that it is easy to acquire asylum.The interviews that appear in this magazine were shaped by volunteering with City of Sanctuary, something that I advise everyone to do. Unfortunately our very own student union was unwilling to financially support this endeavour, stating that students would not be interested, and that the campaign lacked relevance. These sentiments are political jargon and ill-informed. Awareness campaigns do not need 1000 participants to be effective, as it was argued – if only one person reads this magazine our efforts will not have been in vain. UoL Refugee Week Organiser’s note
Economic migrant
Gabrielle Couchman
Illegal immigrant
Our events shall encompass a film showing, an insight into refugees in Leicester, a fourpanel discussion made up of experts in their field on the issue of refugees and their Human Rights and finally a promotion of ‘simple acts’ a campaign headed by Refugee Week asking people to do small actions to help change the perception of refugees in the UK.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the term migrant refers to someone who makes a conscious, voluntary choice to leave their country of origin. Contrary to popular belief there is no legal definition for an illegal immigrant. The closest official term is “illegal entrant”, which mainly covers people allowed into the UK without documents. However, illegal immigrant is also used for people who have overstayed their visa.
Refugee Week is organised by students for students and the community at large. This awareness week seeks to promote the Human Rights of refugees and asylum seekers, to bring this minority to the forefront and give them the voice they so deserve.
Every year the University of Leicester United Nations Society host an awareness week and this year our theme happened to be Refugees. However, after attending an inspirational Refugee Week conference with Matthew in January we decided to make our awareness week that much bigger and try to educate as many people as possible. It just goes to show that with a little dedication, passion and vision you too could help make a difference. And, as Antonio Gutteres has said “While every refugee’s story is
University of Leicester Refugee Week, 5-9 March 2012
different and their anguish personal, they all share a common thread of uncommon courage: the courage not only to survive, but to persevere and rebuild their shattered lives.”
Pam Inder City of Sanctuary
T
Why are we so against asylum seekers?
hese are people who have suffered persecution at home – imprisonment, torture, death threats – simply for supporting the ‘wrong’ political party or speaking out against corruption, for being gay or marrying the ‘wrong’ person, for belonging to the ‘wrong’ ethnic group or practising the ‘wrong’ religion. Part of the problem is that the term ‘asylum seeker’ is so often misused by the popular press - and even by politicians who should know better. In fact it has a specific legal meaning. An asylum seeker is someone who has applied to the UK Border Agency for leave to live in this country as a refugee. Until that leave is granted – and it can take ten years or more – the asylum seeker has to report to the Agency at regular intervals, is forbidden to work, has to live where they are sent and receives minimal benefits which are often not paid in cash. Yes, that’s right. People live for years on end with no access to cash – unable to catch a bus, shop in the market or buy a cup of tea. People grumble - ‘They’re flooding into the country’ ‘They’re scroungers!’ ‘They only come for the benefits!’ ‘They’re taking our jobs.’ ‘They jump the queue for housing.’ But they’re wrong. Just 18,000 people a year now come to Britain seeking
asylum – barely 3% of all immigrants. Most asylum seekers would love the chance to work and many are well educated and could make a significant contribution to our economy. They are not housed in council accommodation. They didn’t come for the benefits - do you seriously think that in the villages of Helmand or the suburbs of Mogadishu people know about our benefit system? Leicester City of Sanctuary aims to create a climate of welcome for asylum seekers in our city and county. We try to educate the host community about the realities of life as an asylum seeker – by giving talks, writing articles and appearing on radio and television whenever possible. We run a drop-in centre for asylum seekers on Thursday afternoons. We take people on outings, run English classes and offer a hosting scheme to help people in temporary need of accommodation. We organise Appealing4, a scheme which matches items our supporters have to give away with asylum seekers who need them – anything from a television set to a bicycle repair kit. We have recently established NEST, the New Evidence Search Team, which helps asylum seekers find evidence to support their asylum claims. It’s not enough – but it’s a start.
Stella Ngorima is from Zimbabwbe. She has been in Leicester since 1998.
Fleeing from persecution, conflict and violence more than 40 milion people were displaced by the end of 2010, the highest number in 15 years. Zimbabwe
There were an estimated 238,100 refugees in the UK in 2010 – about 0.4% of the population Pakistan Pakistan currently has the largest number of citizens fleeing its borders. Religious persecution, political instability, gender based discrimination and terrorist attacks have led it to become the country with the second most asylum seekers to the United Kingdom.
Under a dictatorship-like regime, political repression, inflation rates exceeding 500%, and jail time and torture for dissent – Zimbabweans are seeking asylum for the large part in South Africa. Leicester is fortunate to have its very own thriving Zimbabwean community.
People’s Republic of China Despite its booming economy, government censorship of the media, legislated one-child policy, arrest for criticism of the state, religious persecution and discrimination against ethnic minorities has created an environment for many that is untenable and unsafe.
Henria Stephens and Mazda Hassanzadeh
Afghanistan Decades of armed conflict, recurrent natural disasters and extreme poverty have forced thousands of Afghans to flee, making it the second largest refugee population in the world. Continued political unrest has heightened an already volatile situation and hampered attempts by some Afghans to return home.
Sri Lanka The Sri Lankan Civil War 1976-2009 was a long standing conflict between the Sri Lankan Army and the separatist Tamil Tigers that is said to have claimed the lives of over 80 000 ethnic Tamil Minorities. Many asylum seekers flee restrictions on human rights, jail time for dissent, and continuous displacement.
More than half of the British public believes the UK hosts 23% of the world’s refugees and asylum seekers while in truth we host just over 2%. Most refugees flee to their neighbouring country, only a small proportion travel to developed countries in Europe and elsewhere.
Interview with Mohammed by Ash Davis
Where are you from? I am originally from the Darfur region in western Sudan. What was your life like in Darfur? Since I was fourteen I worked for my family’s carpentry business. We specialized in making beds for the communities nearby and I really enjoyed it. What were your reasons for leaving Sudan? The government forces from the north of Sudan began attacking my village. This was the result of rebel groups who were opposed to the dictatorial regime. Were you politically active in Sudan? I was part of the rebel fighters who tried to protest against the government. As I was an enemy to the president it was not safe for me to stay in Sudan. Also, my business was destroyed by the government; it was a really, really difficult choice to leave because I left all my family behind. Tell me about your asylum process I left Sudan on my own. I arrived in Libya in 2004, where I stayed for six months. I then paid 1,000 dollars to travel to Italy.
Our journey by boat took about 20 hours; you cwin Palermo and Rome. In 2005, I arrived in the UK. I stayed in various different cities including Manchester. Living in the UK has been a big challenge. My first claim for asylum was fully rejected in 2010. Do you think the UK government should change their asylum process? Yes. I am very grateful for City of Sanctuary and other charities that have helped me, but I think the UK government needs to change the asylum process: I hope that it will be sped up so that they remove the long, stressful wait for applicants before they find out if they have been given asylum.
Has Leicester been a good place to live so far? I love Leicester. I have made some very good friends here. I totally relied on my friends for support and a place to live until I found City of Sanctuary, as the government did not offer any support. How is your life now you are more settled? It is now much better. I am currently studying at college, which has been the first proper education in my life. Although my spoken English is good, I’m having extra tuition for my reading, writing and spelling. I have never been properly taught these skills before. I also want to start my carpentry again, and I am training in college so that I can work in a carpenter’s workshop.
Are you still in contact with anyone from Sudan? I am occasionally in contact with my family, but this does not happen often as it is hard to communicate. I have found many friends in Britain from Sudan. I am a member of societies campaigning for human rights in Darfur within the UK. What do you miss most from Sudan? I miss my family most, but also the equality and human rights that I hope my country will get in the future. I really hope that the United Nations does more to prevent violence in my home country. What’s your message to Leicester’s students? I would say that my message is simple education is very important, and more education can help solve the world’s problems.
The Darfur conflict has claimed over 200,000 lives since 2003. Though the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes, and Genocide related to abuses in Darfur, widespread, systematic, and grave abuses persist.
When did you come to Leicester? I arrived here in 2010. My six years as an asylum seeker before Leicester were very isolated and difficult times. I have now reapplied [for asylum] and I’m hopeful of success this time. A man looks at what remains of his house, burned down by a band of Janjaweed. ©Benjamin Lowy-Corbis
APPLICATION FOR ASYLUM
The Politics of Asylum
SCREENING INTERVIEW
Gabrielle Couchman
Today we live in a country rife with fears of terrorism, distrust of immigrants and ultimately breakdowns in society. Sadly this is reflected in our politics with the ever
increasing influence of the far right: perhaps Nick Griffin best encapsulated this extremist outlook in 2004 when he compared asylum seekers to ‘cockroaches’, effectively opposing the subjection of British citizens and ultimately our welfare system to such unsightly vermin. But of course this is not only the view of the BNP party: worryingly such sentiments are commonly shared by the wider public. So much for our so called model industrialised democracy and our defiant pride in safeguarding Human Rights. Are we not under a duty to take in those who are oppressed, who face almost certain death if they remain in their native countries?! Nick Clegg certainly thinks so; However in May 2011 the UK would not allow asylum seekers from Libya and Syria to enter, for the sake of ‘burden-sharing’ with other EU members, they recommended that those who manage to cross the infamously deathly journey across the Mediterranean should stay in Italy.
Restricted employment
Granted leave to enter
Granted limited leave to enter
A single adult asylum seeker receives only £36.62 a week
Granted asylum if:
This process can take up to 3 years
No housing benefits Arrived at a UK port
Protected under the Geneva Convention
Poses no threat to national security
If refused asylum:
Interview
Yet the fact of the matter is that the UK takes in less than 4% of refugees in Europe, and our asylum system is so notoriously complex and rigorous that in the last five years over 80,000 applications have been rejected. Today, asylum seekers remain in a state of limbo, caught up in the lacuna that is our asylum process; whereby many face an indeterminate number of home office interviews and live in a state of poverty surviving off as little as £5 a day. This process, as in the case of Ambrose Musiyiwa, can continue for close to ten years, one can only imagine how vulnerable and isolated they feel, let alone to be faced with the possibility of being deported. Nevertheless the Home Office still maintains that the asylum process is supportive, efficient, and in fact quicker than previous years.
Refugee status for 5 years
INDEFINITE LEAVE TO REMAIN
Appeal
DEPORTATION It costs up to £17,000 to deport a single adult after their asylum claim has been refused (NAO, 2009)
Maya and Zafar Mazhitova are from Osh, in Kyrgyzstan. They have been in the UK for 15 months and are still awaiting refugee status.
Violence erupted in the southern province of Kyrgyzstan in June 2010, a response to ethnic conflicts between the Kyrgyz and the Uzbek communities . The city of Osh was the worst affected. The violence has created 300,000 internally displaced people.
Detained and Denied Matthew Burnett-Stuart
I
magine the uproar if a British citizen was detained in a foreign country for an undetermined length of time without having committed a crime. How would you feel if you were running away from torture and violence only to be locked up with no idea of what could happen to you the next day, month or year? It was with these thoughts in mind that at the beginning of this year I went to visit my friend Zulfiqar at the all-male Harmondsworth immigration removal centre, the biggest of its kind in Europe and situated just next to Heathrow airport. I first met Zulfiqar while volunteering with City of Sanctuary in Leicester, and his story is certainly a striking one. A Pakistani secularist and a supporter of Kashmir selfdetermination, Zulfiqar had a fatwa issued against him for selling some land to a Shia community and was consequently tortured and beaten by the Pakistani security forces. The result was that Zulfiqar arrived in Britain with a wooden leg and applied for asylum. After three months in Leicester gathering all the evidence he needed for his case, he was taken, somewhat arbitrarily and unexpectedly, to Harmondsworth, where I went to visit him. There are currently 11 removal centres in the UK and most of them are run by private companies contracted to the UK border Agency. While they are defined as ‘holding centres’ for people awaiting decisions on their asylum claims they are effectively prison facilities, where the detainees
have no freedom of movement whatsoever. Just spending a couple of hours at Harmondsworth was an emotionally demanding experience. After giving my fingerprints to a rather insensitive and arrogant security guard, I had to go through a further screening process where I was told to empty all my pockets and to spit out my chewing gum. At that point I was shown into quite a spacious visitor’s room, where I was allocated a specific table and told to wait for Zulfiqar. I was faced with a stained yellow paper taped to the table’s surface demanding physical contact with the detainee to be restricted to the beginning and/or at the end of the encounter. A brief glance around the room made me realize how unfair this could be. There were women, some even with children, who had come to visit their partners. To do so with guards and other visitors watching you left no space for even a moment of intimacy. Faces in the room were tired, sad and defeated. A sense of angst pervaded the whole building. A security guard finally brought Zulfiqar to the room and we were both happy to finally meet again after two months. We talked for more than an hour, Zulfiqar’s longing for freedom evident from the first minute. We joked that as soon as he was out I would help him look for a wife. However, our conversation was over- shadowed by the fact that Zulfiqar should not have been detained in the first place. The home office has set out categories of people who are ‘normally considered suitable for detention only in very exceptional cases’.
These include pregnant women, those suffering from serious medical conditions, the mentally ill and those who have been subjected to torture. Why then was Zulfiqar, who shows evident signs of his torture back in Pakistan, sent to Harmondsworth? Moreover he complained to me that he was only receiving paracetamol for his leg pains, while he needed more specific medical treatment. Zulfiqar, with the help of City of Sanctuary, was bailed out shortly after my visit. He is now staying in East London waiting
©Joarez Filho
for his asylum claim to be considered and hoping to come back to Leicester one day. He has also expressed his intention to raise awareness about the use of immigrant detention. Much needs to change. The psychological effects of being treated as a criminal when you have not committed any crime can be imagined. Amnesty International have published several reports with disconcerting statistics about the number of people who have committed self-harm while in detention. BID (Bail for Immigration Detainees), winner of the Human Rights Justice Award in 2010, has campaigned for over a decade against the detention of children in removal centres. In 2009 Adeoti Ogunsola, a 10 year old Nigerian, tried to commit suicide at Tinsley House immigration centre. Adeoti was reported to have told the guards that she would have rather died in England than in Nigeria, where she believed her life was at risk. In May 2010 the Coalition government announced that they would end the immigration detention of children, but went on to say shortly after that children will continue to be detained in some centres. As this magazine highlights, asylum seekers are escaping violence and persecution at the hands of some of the most brutal regimes in the world. They are not criminals- the act of claiming asylum is assured by international law- they are people. People like Adeoti, people like Zulfiqar, and those countless others detained in a state of limbo; for that is what these detention centres represent- a state of limbo, or perhaps more, a state between states.
Interview with Ambrose Musiyiwa by Matthew Burnett- Stuart and Gabrielle Couchman
Where are you from? I was born in 1973 in Chitungwiza, a high population density town, about 30 kilometres from Harare in Zimbabwe. What did you do before coming to the UK? I trained as a teacher at Belvedere Technical Teachers' College in Harare. I taught for a year in a high school and then for about six months in a primary school. I was also a freelance journalist and, from time to time, I wrote short stories. Have you got a favourite writer? Ah! I have so many! But if I had to pick three, I guess I would pick the Zimbabwean writers: Charles Mungoshi, Dambudzo Marechera and Chenjerai Hove. They are exceptionally talented writers. They do shocking things with the English language. They show how Literature in English, more than just English Literature, can bring out the infinite possibilities inherent in the English language.
Why did you leave Zimbabwe? I had to leave. The headmaster at the last school I taught at received a letter from local ZANU PF officials which identified me as an opposition political party activist who was tarnishing the image of the party and the country. They said if the headmaster didn't deal with me, they would. At around the same time, I got a visit from Central Intelligence Office operatives. I'd seen all this before. I'd seen people close to me... people I'd gone to college with... end up dead because they were teachers and because they were suspected of being opposition political party supporters or activists. I was no longer safe in that country. Were you politically active in Zimbabwe? I found party politics terribly boring. I was more interested in finding solutions to challenges the communities I lived and worked in faced. This, inevitably, led to conflict with local ZANU PF officials because, in some cases, the problems were
there because the officials were benefiting from the way things were at the expense of the wider community. Tell me about your asylum process. I arrived in England in May 2002 and submitted a claim for asylum in September. The claim was refused as was the appeal. I made further submissions which were accepted as amounting to a fresh claim but I did not get a decision on that fresh claim for several years. In all, it was about six years before I was granted leave to remain. It was like being in prison. You lived in a state of constant fear. You didn't know what was going to happen. You couldn't go back, forward or sideways. You felt trapped. What did you feel when you got leave to remain? You'd expect to feel relieved. Instead, for quite a long time, I could only think about what I'd lost. Tell me about your life in Leicester. I met a lot of brilliant people in Leicester. One of them encouraged me to start writing again. Which I did, mainly as a way of staying sane. I started working on ‘Diary of an Asylum Seeker’ in 2004 or thereabouts and submitted part of it as a short story to the 1st Leicester and Leicestershire Short Story Writing Contest. I then moved away from short stories and spent several years writing newspaper articles on human rights issues. After I'd been granted leave to remain, I studied Law at De Montfort University.
I'm hoping that come this September I'll be working towards an LLM in Legal Research at the University of Leicester. We'll see how that goes. In the meantime, I am exploring how video can be used as a tool for advocacy. I've had stories published in anthologies that include Writing Now (2005) and Writing Free (2011), both published by Weaver Press Zimbabwe. And I continue to meet more brilliant people in Leicester. Would you ever go back to Zimbabwe if it was safe to do so? Do I have to? [Laughs]. Why can’t I go to India? Or China? Or maybe New York? I’d really love to visit New York and maybe work for the UN for a few years. What’s your message to students? We need to question the way we are governed and we need to question the way our neighbors are treated and where we see things that we do not agree with, we need to do all we can to try an put things right.
I think everyone has a responsibility to be the best they can be.
Nasvullah Abdurahman
province of Khost, in the south of Afghanistan.
is 52, from the
He worked for Medecins Sans Frontieres when the Americans invaded. He then worked as an intelligence commander with the American Special Force for 10 years. When his contract was over Nasvullah was threatened and later arrested by the Taliban. Fearing for his life, Nasvullah fled to England. He has been in Leicester since summer 2011. He left his wife and 9 children behind. Nasvullah is awaiting refugee status. He has had a preliminary meeting with the Home Office and the Red Cross are assisting Nazvullah to try and bring his family to England. He has little contact with his family back home and only speaks to them once a week. Nasvullah seeks solace in the fact that he is now safe and has removed the threat against his family. However, Nasvullah will not be content until he is reunited with his family.
Fish and Chips: Quintessentially British?
ated Unions and organised within their communities for wider social justice. This considered, the myth that asylum seekers offer nothing to Britain, or equally, that they corrode a British identity becomes farcically false on only a brief reading of refugee heritage. What is mentioned above is only a portion of this rich history, and leaves out the further influx of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism (of whom Sigmund Freud, Karl Popper and Arthur Koestler are part), or individuals such as Wole Soyinka, the Nobel prize winning writer from Nigeria. Regardless of this, the statistics surrounding refugees in popular consciousness are somewhat startling. The UK hosts less than 2% of the world’s refugees, yet an opinion poll in 2002 showed the public thought this figure was closer to 26%.
John Paul O’Brien
Y
ou shouldn't believe everything you read, or so the saying goes. It's a valid point, but as with anything, valid more in certain contexts than it is in others. One such context is the reporting on refugees by the most esteemed of all our tabloids, the Daily Mail. You need only search 'refugee' on the Mail's website to bring up a horde of second-rate journalism. Ingratitude and benefit scams feature highly, only second to asylum seekers who are rapists, murderers, and the favourite Mail motif, liars. Frequently these supposed benefit scams by refugees aren't substantiated by hard evidence, or evidence at all, and if anyone protests the apology is nestled between adverts on page fifty-six, not two. What's interesting, however, is that more often than not the journalists of these articles attempt to link these supposed crimes by refugees to a general cultural, and indirectly, moral decline. But if a moral decline in Britain exists, then surely its signifier is the millions of tax evaded by the super-rich, a great deal larger in quantity than any bogus benefit claims.
‘refugees have played an important role in Britain historically, so much so that they’ve shaped our cultural identity. ‘
What the Daily Mail doesn’t report on, and what is a lot closer to the truth, is that refugees have played an important role in Britain historically, so much so that they’ve shaped our cultural identity. Take Fish and Chips: though hailed as the quintessential British dish, its origins are a lot closer to the continent than they are this side of the channel. In 1665, Jewish refugees from the Netherlands (though originally from Spain, where they fled from further discrimination) arrived on the English mainland. Their settling was accepted on the prerequisite that they converted to Christianity – many of them did – and it was this group who pioneered the idea of frying fish, and thus the base origins of the contemporary British dish. The UK mainland has also played host to a number of cultural and political pioneers: Karl Marx, now buried in Highgate cemetery in London, fled Germany from charges of high treason to England, so too did Victor Hugo, author of Les Misèrables, who fled France after Napoleon III’s coup in 1851. Later, from 1880-1914, Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Russia and wider east Europe were to play a further integral part in the English economy. By the end of the nineteenth century, more than 200,000 eastern European Jews had ar-
rived in the UK and settled in towns such as London, Leeds and Manchester. The influx led to the first attempts by the state to limit the ability of exiles arriving on the mainland, and in 1905 an Aliens Act was passed, ending the liberal attitude towards refugees. Regardless of this the contribution made by the influx of refugees to the economy still retains. Both retail outlets Marks & Spencer’s and Burtons were the products of Russian Jews, Michael Marks and Montague Burton. Furthermore, arriving from eastern Europe, the hotbed of Jewish leftist ideology, as well as having experienced appalling working conditions in their native lands, many of these Jewish migrants cre-
Tabloids like the Daily Mail fuel this misrepresentation of refugees, and though it’s important to guard against an idea of just supporting qualified refugees, the fact remains that throughout both history and contemporary times refugees have been keen contributors to the UK both economically and culturally. According to a Home Office study in 2001 people born outside of the UK (including asylum seekers and refugees) are significant contributors to the economy. It’s estimated that they pay 10% more to treasury coffers than they take out: 2.6 billion in 2000. Why then does this demonization of refugees continue? Isn’t it time to drop the dogma surrounding refugees and wider immigration? For clichéd as it does sound; we’re all citizens of the world, after all.
Displaced Goods R
Henria Stephens
efugee Awareness Week is a novel idea. For five days out of a year we can positively focus on people who, for the rest of their time in limbo fight to be heard. I would argue that that “fight” can be likened to ancient gladiators… standing before us – battle-hardened and scarred, having faced unknown barbarities to reach this glorious arena that is the United Kingdom. As they prepare for future bouts asylum seekers are fingerprinted, photographed, and forced to report weekly to police stations or immigration centres. In the UK competition for refugee status is fierce: journalist wrangle with ethnic minorities while political activist spar with homosexuals - all in the attempt at jockeying favour amongst dispassionate and clinical Home Office staff. They are all desperately motivated, but the odds are against them. And what of the female combatants? One third of asylum applicants are women, of those applicants over 50 percent are victims of sexual abuse. In most cases they are fleeing sexual and physical persecution as a result of their; gender; social activism; religion; and ethnicity – only to relive the horrors time and time again as they try to satisfy the United Kingdom Border Agency’s (UKBA) and Asylum and Immigration Tribunal’s need for tales of conflict, and an excuse to deny them refuge. Statistical figures from 2009 indicate that only 23% of female applicants were granted asylum based on 8225 applications – that’s over 5800 campaigns for freedom lost.
It’s a concrete jungle!
With Thanks To:
The UKBA arena is fraught with booby traps: restrictions on financial aid and access to legal advice, coupled with the lack of female interpreters makes disclosure of personal experiences arduous and rightly so given that many women’s asylum claims are based on terrorization meted out by spouses and family members. Maybe we don’t want to hear their stories? Perhaps it would shame us to know that many of these female gladiators are detained for indefinite periods of time in jail-like environments that re-awaken past traumas and hinder their recovery. Or that for the destitute whose applications are denied they live as nomads – cut off from the Home Office pittance and the right to housing and employment. Though the outlook is grim at times, all is not lost. Communities and civil society have mobilized into organizations such as Refugee Action, Women For Refugee Women and Leicester’s own City of Sanctuary movement to nurse the wounds and empower this misunderstood group. Events such as Refugee Awareness Week highlight the realities and dispel the myths. These woman gladiators are so dignified. In an alien landscape, encountering prejudice, resentment and complete uncertainty they face tribunal and immigration court emperors. Mothers, sisters, wives – all in need of acknowledgement, not by relishing in the details of their saga, but by applauding their efforts. By no means is it a small feat to get here. Even if it is for this week only, let us honour the warriors in our midst.
Editorial Team: Chistopher Everett, Gabrielle Couchman, Henria Stephens, Matthew Burnett-Stuart, Mazda Hassanzadeh. Contributors: John Paul O’Brien, Ash Davis, Pam Inder, City of Sanctuary, Maximilian Beck, Karen Couchman, Refugee Week, Zimbabwe Leicester Association. This magazine is dedicated to the memory of Jakub Sedivy whose company is missed every single day.
Useful Contacts:
City of Sanctuary: http://www.cityofsanctuary.org/
STAR: http://www.star-network.org.uk/
Refugee Week: http://www.refugeeweek.org.uk/
‘Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.’
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 14