Staff at government-contracted hotels have been accused of treating a migrant person in their care “like a slave” and hitting a child, a dossier of complaints obtained by openDemocracy reveals.
Among 11,800 calls made to a helpline that the charity Migrant Help is contracted by the Home Office to provide were 1,400 complaints relating to hotel accommodation. They included allegations of sexual assault within hotels; workers being racist, sexist, and violent; and a staff member “joking” about the Rwanda deportation scheme. Disease outbreaks, food, and a failure to meet basic needs such as arranging transport for medical appointments were also singled out.
Two-thirds (69%) of complaints were made about hotels managed by Home Office subcontractor Clearsprings Ready Homes, one of the leading providers of asylum accommodation in the UK, which has previously faced criticism for cramming asylum seeking people into tiny hotel rooms in London, and for its management of the controversial asylum accommodation at Napier Barracks in Kent, where evidence of ”appalling treatment and conditions” was found.
