The British Government is housing children and asylum seekers in temporary accommodation in inadequate living conditions, the organizations Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Just Fair denounced in a report released this Thursday.
The 100-page report, titled “Inadequate accommodation and social support for families seeking asylum in the UK,” exposes issues such as rat and mold infestations.
In addition to poor housing conditions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) report that immigrant families have difficulty obtaining food, suffer serious physical and mental health problems, and encounter obstacles to their children’s education.
“Government policy is directly harming the health and well-being of vulnerable children and their families who have come to the UK in search of safety,” says Jess McQuail, director of the human rights NGO Just Fair, mentioned in the document.
The organization criticizes British politicians for failings in the system of assessing asylum applications due to a lack of resources over the years, particularly through cuts to legal aid and other funds, which have contributed to a delay in cases and an increase in waiting times.
To develop this report, HRW and Just Fair interviewed more than 50 asylum seekers, including 27 children, who were living in or had recently left temporary accommodation in cities and towns across England.
What they discovered is that many families spent months, and in some cases more than a year, in temporary accommodation, contrary to Home Office guidelines which state that asylum seekers should spend no more than 19 days in hotels or other types of temporary accommodation. .before being installed in long-term homes.
This situation leads to malnutrition and other health problems, and many parents report that their children lost weight while in temporary accommodation, which is often located far from schools, doctors, shops or parks.
Families also highlighted the deterioration of mental health while they remained in temporary accommodation, with many of the minors being away from classrooms for months.
One of the cases reported in the first person in the document is that of a 36-year-old woman from Libya.
She told NGOs that while the family was temporarily staying in Scarborough, northeast England, her 14-year-old son “was always crying; sometimes he wouldn’t come out of his room for two days.”
“The UK Government’s overall approach to asylum raises serious human rights concerns,” the organizations warned.
As an example, the NGO gave the example of the use in August 2023 of a barge to house adult men seeking asylum, even after firefighters warned of “serious safety and fire risks” that turned the boat into a ” potential death trap.”
Days later, the Home Office was forced to close the barge and relocate the migrants after legionella bacteria was found in the water system.
“Barges, barracks and similar large-scale institutionalized settings suffer from the serious problems of repurposed hotels and should not be used as asylum accommodation in the UK,” HR and Just Fair argued.
Instead, they argue, asylum seekers should be supported to find housing in places of their choice and allowed to work while their claims are assessed, an approach used in the UK until 1999.
“Rather than recklessly wasting resources on rudimentary, poor and short-sighted responses, the UK Government should redirect its funding towards adequate long-term housing and social support,” urged HRW UK director Yasmine Ahmed, quoted in the same report.
Source: TSF
