Children and families seeking asylum
Barnardo’s is supporting Refugee Action’s call to the government to reconsider the cuts it has made to levels of asylum support for lone parents, because of these cuts children are going without food and adequate clothing.
Ministers are making a decision on this in February – so please send an email now.
Like any other child?
Barnardo’s recognises that children who are from asylum-seeking and refugee families are amongst the most vulnerable in the UK today.
As part of our on-going work to improve the lives of all children in the UK, the Policy and Research Unit recently published a report on children and families in the asylum system. The report, Like Any Other Child?, highlighted the ‘abject poverty, racial harassment and demoralising uncertainty’ faced by children and families in the asylum system. (Martin Narey, Barnardo’s Chief Executive).
The report argues:
- children of asylum seekers should always be treated as children first and asylum seekers second
- in the last 15 years, there have been growing restrictions on the support available to families waiting for decisions about their future
- as a result, asylum seeking families are nearly always very poor, often living close to destitution
- asylum-seeking families with disabled children are not entitled to disability benefits, which is a loss of up to £80 per week
Like Any Other Child? calls on the Home Office to re-address the current UK asylum process, focussing on the needs of the children.
Recommendations in the report include:
- giving asylum seekers who have been in the UK more than six months the right to work - they are often highly skilled, keen to work and contribute to the communities where they are placed
- giving the responsibility for processing the cases of asylum-seeking families with children to specialised case owners, who are trained to address the needs of children throughout the asylum process
- not housing asylum-seeking families in areas where there is a history of harassment or reason to believe their presence will aggravate community tensions
- ensuring that asylum-seeking families with children are allocated to accommodation which they can occupy for the duration of their asylum applications
- not requiring asylum-seeking families to move distances which entail children changing schools
- to house asylum seeking families with children only in conditions which would be acceptable for UK families living in temporary accommodation
