I’m writing this from the third floor of a hotel just outside London. Next to me are my husband, my five-year old daughter and my new baby son, who is two months old. We are asylum seekers and I’ve just given birth during the coronavirus pandemic.
We are all together living in one room, in one of the many hotels and hostels the Home Office has placed us in this year. On the floor below, sex workers and their clients come in and out of the rooms, day and night.
Long before the pandemic started, I was living a life in lockdown. We arrived in Britain in 2018 and have been waiting for our asylum application to be processed ever since then. Up until a few months ago, we were living on our own savings and were renting a private apartment, paying for my daughter’s nursery fees, paying our own bills and council tax.
