The modern protection regime for refugees has its origins in the response of the international community to the horrors of World War Two. In 1945 the United Nations (UN) was established with respect for human rights as one of its four founding purposes. Three years later it adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which described the fundamental rights of all human beings. One of the rights set out in the Declaration is the right to claim asylum.
In 1951 a special UN conference approved a convention relating to the status of refugees, often called the Refugee Convention. The Refugee Convention defines who is a refugee in international law. It sets out the rights owed to recognised refugees as well as the responsibilities of nations towards these individuals.
The Refugee Convention is a product of its time and was initially limited to protect only those refugees in Europe as a result of World War Two. It was not drafted with the refugee flows of the 21st century in mind and does not, for example, specifically mention people fearing persecution on the grounds of gender or sexual orientation. Despite these limitations it does contain the cornerstone of refugee protection – a commitment by countries not to return a refugee to a situation where they would be at serious risk of harm. In 1967 an additional law removed the Convention’s geographic and timebound limitations so that it now applies to people forced to flee persecution in any country.
More than 140 countries have agreed to respect the protections offered by the Convention. The Refugee Convention is not the only source of protection available to asylum seekers in the UK. Asylum seekers may also be able to access protection through:
- the obligations of the UK government under the Human Rights Act 1998, particularly the prohibition against torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
- the minimum standards agreed upon by European Union members in the development of a common asylum policy
- ad hoc government policy announcements giving concessions to claimants with certain profiles
- the discretion of the Home Office to grant permission to stay in the UK, for example to separated children until their 18th birthday
The definition of a refugee
Article 1 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees defines a refugee in international law as a person who “owing to 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, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country”. |
Assumptions and stereotypes
Since it signed up to the Refugee Convention in 1951 the UK has provided many refugees with a place of safety and the chance to rebuild broken lives. This is something the British public should be enormously proud of. Amongst those granted sanctuary in the UK there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ refugee. Some may be from rural farming backgrounds, others are highly educated, urban professionals such as doctors, lawyers, business owners and engineers. Many are well integrated into British society and making an active economic, social and cultural contribution to life in the UK.
However in recent years the issue of asylum has increasingly generated a negative reaction. Polls have suggested public concern that the government’s policies on asylum are not firm enough and that too many asylum seekers are coming to the UK. Asylum has also been the subject of more and more newspaper headlines. A disproportionate amount of the coverage is negative and asylum seekers are commonly portrayed as ‘spongers’, here only to abuse the asylum process and take advantage of the UK’s welfare system. Politically, asylum has also been a key election topic and prior to the 2005 general elections both major political parties seemed in competition to show they were the toughest on the issue.
It is difficult to measure the relationship between attitudes to asylum in the media, public opinion and government policy. Do negative headlines about queue jumping, eating swans or stealing jobs inform public opinion towards asylum seekers? Or do newspapers respond to hostile public opinion towards newcomers in deciding which headlines to run? What is the role of the government in the debate? In focusing on asylum and making massive changes to asylum law, have successive governments simply reacted to a legitimate public concern? Or have they fuelled a more negative public perception precisely because they have given the issue so much attention?
The negative debates about asylum and immigration (which are often treated as one in the same) are frequently misinformed and based on assumption rather than fact. This has fuelled resentment towards asylum seekers and hindered community relations, making life more difficult for asylum seekers and refugees alike. The term ‘asylum seeker’ has become so derogatory that even some members of the refugee community do not want to be associated with this group. Many asylum seekers are very aware of the stigma they carry because of their status and this only adds to their stress, making them feel more insecure and impeding the integration process.
Case studies
Pride ‘When I came I did not claim any benefits for nine months. I was living on my savings. But you find that you cannot exist without benefits. For 50 years I had survived on my own earnings. I was very proud. When I came here I could not find a job and had to rely on benefits. This made me feel verysmall. This affected me very badly, psychologically”.
K, a Tamil from Sri Lanka Keen to start a new life? It is not reasonable to assume that a refugee will be keen to start a new life in the UK for economic reasons. Many certainly had a higher standard of living at home than they do here. Selim and Selma both came to England after being injured in Bosnia in the mid-1990s. Before the war, she was an agricultural engineer and he worked as quality control manager at a Mercedes factory. They had a good standard of living and both travelled a lot around the world. He says: “I have been here four years and I have no career. It’s as if you are retired. You have no social life. Just occasionally I would like to take my wife to the cinema or my daughter to the zoo, but it is not possible.” Assumptions “I was told by a woman that she’d never dreamed of seeing an Ethiopian so big. Afterwards I was reluctant to talk to people because when I told them I was from Ethiopia, they would say how lucky I was to be here. I lived a very good life in Ethiopia, I wish I could show people where I used to live.” Yohannes, an Ethiopian journalist. Yohannes came to England after his father and uncles had been killed, and his cousin raped and tortured. In Yohannes’ English class, the teacher asked everyone about food in their own countries except him. He was angry and asked why. She said she didn’t want to embarrass him because she thought that he wouldn’t have had much to eat there. The teacher later apologised. Achievement Victoria came here from Sierra Leone in 1997, after her son was killed and she was shot by rebel soldiers. Like many refugees, Victoria has struggled to overcome extremely traumatic events and to rebuild a new life in the UK. On a business administration course, she learned new computer skills and completed a successful work placement. Her achievements on the course were so impressive that in May 1998, Victoria was presented with the Adult Learner of the Year award for Southeast England. She now has a full-time job in London. |
