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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/20/secret-life-refugee-support-worker-homeless-asylum-seekers
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| The secret life of a refugee support worker: ‘No one’s on their side except us’ | The secret life of a refugee support worker: ‘No one’s on their side except us’ |
| (2 months later) | |
| I hang up, tears stinging my eyes, which I hastily wipe away before going into the meeting room. | I hang up, tears stinging my eyes, which I hastily wipe away before going into the meeting room. |
| A boy looks up nervously. I wish I had better news for him but I have to tell him that social services will not respond to our plea for help because he was age-assessed as 20 – he says he is 17 – when he arrived in the UK, and as a result he cannot access care and protection. This means another night on a bench in the park, and he is already thin, dirty and getting ill with exhaustion. His friend, another asylum seeker, killed himself a week ago, and our fear at the charity where I work is that he will do the same. | A boy looks up nervously. I wish I had better news for him but I have to tell him that social services will not respond to our plea for help because he was age-assessed as 20 – he says he is 17 – when he arrived in the UK, and as a result he cannot access care and protection. This means another night on a bench in the park, and he is already thin, dirty and getting ill with exhaustion. His friend, another asylum seeker, killed himself a week ago, and our fear at the charity where I work is that he will do the same. |
| The thing is that young people look old and weary when they arrive as asylum seekers in the UK because of the things they have done and seen. Risking drowning on shaky sea crossings at night; slipping from the bottom of lorries on to hard, alien roads; perhaps freezing to death inside lorries. So they are often assessed as 20 when they are actually much younger. But they are told that because they have an Adam’s apple or traces of facial hair they are grown-up. They feel their faces in disbelief as their identity is taken away from them and they are pushed out on to the UK’s streets. | The thing is that young people look old and weary when they arrive as asylum seekers in the UK because of the things they have done and seen. Risking drowning on shaky sea crossings at night; slipping from the bottom of lorries on to hard, alien roads; perhaps freezing to death inside lorries. So they are often assessed as 20 when they are actually much younger. But they are told that because they have an Adam’s apple or traces of facial hair they are grown-up. They feel their faces in disbelief as their identity is taken away from them and they are pushed out on to the UK’s streets. |
| We are told that we should not let 'these people' get attached to us and our charity | We are told that we should not let 'these people' get attached to us and our charity |
| “Manipulative” is a word often used in reference to asylum seekers – it is regularly flung at us when we try to access more help. “They all say that,” we are told. “They all say their dads are dead.” “They all say people died on boats and in lorries on the journey here.” I feel ashamed of the UK that was once, not long ago, a better, more welcoming country. The UK’s attitude towards refugees, and indeed most people who were born in other countries, has become, on the whole, bitter and inexplicably nasty. | “Manipulative” is a word often used in reference to asylum seekers – it is regularly flung at us when we try to access more help. “They all say that,” we are told. “They all say their dads are dead.” “They all say people died on boats and in lorries on the journey here.” I feel ashamed of the UK that was once, not long ago, a better, more welcoming country. The UK’s attitude towards refugees, and indeed most people who were born in other countries, has become, on the whole, bitter and inexplicably nasty. |
| The hardest thing about working at a charity for asylum seekers is seeing the increase in numbers of very vulnerable people who are destitute and starving, with no rights to work or claim benefits and nowhere to live, leaving them dependent on charities like ours or vulnerable to being exploited by strangers. | The hardest thing about working at a charity for asylum seekers is seeing the increase in numbers of very vulnerable people who are destitute and starving, with no rights to work or claim benefits and nowhere to live, leaving them dependent on charities like ours or vulnerable to being exploited by strangers. |
| I have worked with a mother who was kept as a domestic slave in exchange for a single bed in a corner for her and her baby; a man in his 20s who was studying to become a surgeon back home who had gangrenous hands through frostbite (and later lost fingers) after a third winter sleeping outside; an old man with heart disease sleeping in a doorway on cardboard boxes night after night. Our job is to help them cope better mentally; what they need is basic acceptable living conditions. | I have worked with a mother who was kept as a domestic slave in exchange for a single bed in a corner for her and her baby; a man in his 20s who was studying to become a surgeon back home who had gangrenous hands through frostbite (and later lost fingers) after a third winter sleeping outside; an old man with heart disease sleeping in a doorway on cardboard boxes night after night. Our job is to help them cope better mentally; what they need is basic acceptable living conditions. |
| Our clients have survived torture, war, and seeing their loved ones blown up. They have hidden under piles of bodies pretending to be dead while their world shattered around them. Their asylum claims often fail because they are overwhelmed by the questioning they receive in court and cannot give a good answer to disbelieving people who ask whether it was Tuesday or Wednesday when they fled into the jungle after watching their mother get raped and then killed, or because their torture scars could have been caused by sports injuries, as was suggested in one case. | Our clients have survived torture, war, and seeing their loved ones blown up. They have hidden under piles of bodies pretending to be dead while their world shattered around them. Their asylum claims often fail because they are overwhelmed by the questioning they receive in court and cannot give a good answer to disbelieving people who ask whether it was Tuesday or Wednesday when they fled into the jungle after watching their mother get raped and then killed, or because their torture scars could have been caused by sports injuries, as was suggested in one case. |
| My colleagues and I work in this field because we are passionate about justice and we want human beings to feel equal. Often that is all we can give people: a warm welcome when all other doors are shut, a listening ear and a hot drink. The difference is we listen and we believe what we are told. | My colleagues and I work in this field because we are passionate about justice and we want human beings to feel equal. Often that is all we can give people: a warm welcome when all other doors are shut, a listening ear and a hot drink. The difference is we listen and we believe what we are told. |
| Overworked and not particularly well paid, we are a closely knit team who have worked together for over a decade, in an increasingly hostile environment. We find friends and support in some places, such as the Red Cross, in solicitors who work pro bono, in GPs who can only offer strong drugs to help people sleep because they have no right to public funds and cannot access the psychological help they need. We are friends as well as co-workers, because we share beliefs. We grow to feel love for our clients as we get to know them and their struggle for dignity. | Overworked and not particularly well paid, we are a closely knit team who have worked together for over a decade, in an increasingly hostile environment. We find friends and support in some places, such as the Red Cross, in solicitors who work pro bono, in GPs who can only offer strong drugs to help people sleep because they have no right to public funds and cannot access the psychological help they need. We are friends as well as co-workers, because we share beliefs. We grow to feel love for our clients as we get to know them and their struggle for dignity. |
| We try to get help for the people we work with, but often come up against rules designed not to help them but rather to deter them in the hope that they will go somewhere else. We are told that we should not let “these people” get attached to us and our charity, that they should apply for the right to be dispersed to a room in a hostel without support, to live on the national asylum seeker support rate of £34 a week and go mad with loneliness, boredom and fear. | We try to get help for the people we work with, but often come up against rules designed not to help them but rather to deter them in the hope that they will go somewhere else. We are told that we should not let “these people” get attached to us and our charity, that they should apply for the right to be dispersed to a room in a hostel without support, to live on the national asylum seeker support rate of £34 a week and go mad with loneliness, boredom and fear. |
| There are so many hurdles to being granted asylum. They have to go to appointments in London at the Home Office and if they have no money to get there they risk being detained in a prison without a sentence or a time limit. If they want to avoid this and hide in a train toilet but are caught, they are fined impossible amounts then deported because they committed a crime. I come from a background of working with homeless people, but British homeless people have rights – to education, shelter and support – that asylum seekers do not have. | There are so many hurdles to being granted asylum. They have to go to appointments in London at the Home Office and if they have no money to get there they risk being detained in a prison without a sentence or a time limit. If they want to avoid this and hide in a train toilet but are caught, they are fined impossible amounts then deported because they committed a crime. I come from a background of working with homeless people, but British homeless people have rights – to education, shelter and support – that asylum seekers do not have. |
| My work haunts me at night and sometimes ruins my weekends. We see what happens when people who are desperate and tormented by terrible memories are not believed. But we also see survival and resilience. We meet people who for the most part want to contribute to our country and live a useful life. When they work, our clients continue to go without to send money home to their mothers or the children they had to leave behind and cannot bring to safety. For many, their journey never ends. | My work haunts me at night and sometimes ruins my weekends. We see what happens when people who are desperate and tormented by terrible memories are not believed. But we also see survival and resilience. We meet people who for the most part want to contribute to our country and live a useful life. When they work, our clients continue to go without to send money home to their mothers or the children they had to leave behind and cannot bring to safety. For many, their journey never ends. |