Migrants are often in the news now – but the Rye Club in Market Road seemed an unlikely place to learn all about them – and 21st century slaves.
However not many people seem to know that the club is available to rent for all sorts of community events and has quite a diverse usage.
Last week, for example, after having fun upstairs trying to beat my snooker buddy, until she suddenly “got her eye in” and we drew, I joined a presentation downstairs to the Rye British Legion by Colonel John Powell, OBE.
He is Director of National Operations for “Migrant Help” (MH) a charity which is based in Dover and the attendance was small – but it was a select and interested group.
John Powell told us that MH was founded in 1963, has supported migrants since then, and most of their income is raised from contracts and grants from the Home Office and other government departments.
Its objectives are to relieve sickness and financial hardship amongst beneficiaries by providing advice and information; to provide education and training which helps beneficiaries adapt to their new community; provide advocacy services, and educate the public.
They do that with asylum advice from nine offices (a Home Office contract); support to potential victims of trafficking (PVoTs) at three offices; along with Community Engagement Services, a Telephone and Compliance Centre, an Education Project and Commercial Trading (Clearvoice). The latter offers 86 languages and the week before had handled successfully 1,260 requests for translators.
Nine of the 24 centres are in the South East between London and the coast at Dover.
It is important here to mention the clear definitions of the three titles that media and people, generally, bandy around for those coming to this country, without really knowing the difference. As John explained:
- Migrant – Any person not living in their own country of birth.
- Asylum Seeker – A person who has fled their country, crossed an international border and is asking the authorities in the new country to recognise them as a refugee.
- Refugee – Someone whose claim for asylum has been accepted and they have been given permission to stay in the country where they claimed asylum. (In the UK refugee status is granted for a period of five years.)
Under the 1951 Geneva Convention asylum seekers must show they have a well-founded fear of persecution and are unable to seek protection from the authorities in their own country. Under the 1950 Convention on Human Rights they can claim protection on grounds of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, or the right to respect for family and private life.
John also wanted to dispel some of the myths about entitlement for Asylum Seekers. Apparently they are: “provided subsistence support (£35 per person per week). They are not allowed to work or claim mainstream welfare benefits. If they are destitute they are dependent on this provision.”
Recent figures he quoted showed the largest group (15% of the total) of asylum seekers came from Iran followed by Pakistan with 32 (11%) and two thirds were aged between 18 and 35
MH is able to give advice in the areas of finance, finding legal representation, the asylum process, accessing healthcare, accommodation support and any other asylum issues. In March about 3,000 clients were being helped daily (and the average stay in initial accommodation was 30 days). The Telephone And Compliance Centre dealt with 1,388 calls in the last week of March – an extraordinary operational achievement, he said.
We were also shown a graph that told us the percentage of asylum applications refused at the initial decision between 1984-2015. As one might guess it was only 25% in 1986, climbing to 90% by 2004, but dropping slightly by 2014.
Another big part of their work is providing support to, as well as delivering awareness training about, trafficking and providing support services to victims of slavery. We were told that there are approximately 12 – 13,000 potential victims of trafficking, and around 2 – 3,000 are migrants – but the rest are UK citizens.
Trafficking is second only to drug smuggling in terms of internationally organised crime and in Europe the victims are often found in farm labouring, domestic slavery, hotels and catering, car washes, and other unskilled work.
For more information visit http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01403/SN01403.pdf