Jan Shaw (London, Amnesty International UK): There's a moment in Amnesty's new film, Still Human, Still Here: The Destitution of Refused Asylum Seekers, when a Zimbabwean woman picks up a photo of her son, whom she left behind five years ago, and starts to weep. "When I left Zimbabwe he was nine years old," she says, "Now he's 14."
Lynn had been a teacher in Zimbabwe, and a supporter of the opposition MDC, before she fled for the UK. She told us about the guilt she feels whenever she looks at her son's picture. Leaving family behind, especially to the uncertain and impoverished future facing Zimbabweans, can't ever be an easy choice. The film, produced for Amnesty by Nick Broomfield, tells the stories of people who have had their asylum claims refused but cannot return home. And it tells a sorry tale about the system that condemns them to a life of abject poverty.
Refused asylum seekers aren't a group that get a good press - they are frequently portrayed as a ‘problem' that needs ‘tough action' to deal with and as people who came to the UK for an easy life or a fast buck. All we found when making the film, though, was desperation. We interviewed people who were so desperate to flee their country that they had left their families, jobs and possessions behind. And we heard of the desperate poverty that these people are enduring in the UK.
When someone reaches the end of the UK asylum process, their support is cut off and they are denied the right to work, access to benefits and the right to NHS hospital treatment except in an emergency. They are forced into destitution. Some get "hard case support" but many fear that signing up for this will lead to their forced removal - and when this is to countries like Iraq, Zimbabwe and Somalia, it could mean that their lives would be in danger.
These people, who we interviewed for our film, are sleeping in parks and doorways, scavenging in bins for food or relying on charities for clothing and something to eat. One man who'd fled Iran told us how he would sleep in all-night laundrettes. Many are reliant on charity from churches and religious orders - which struck me as a strangely outdated kind of alms to the poor. Others are driven towards begging, prostitution or illegal labour to survive.
The argument of the Still Human film is not against removing refused asylum seekers if their claim has been dealt with fairly and if they can be returned safely. But this isn't always possible and many people can't be removed. Some countries are simply too dangerous to go back to; in some parts of the world there may even be no safe airport to fly to; and many people don't have valid travel documents as they were confiscated in their home country or they were told to destroy them by the agent that brought them here. Condemning these people to destitution, as happens at the moment, should not be a policy that is acceptable to the government or the public. A humane response has got to be found that allows people to live with some sense of basic dignity. As the title states, they are still human.
For more information and to watch the film, go to amnesty.org.uk/asylum. To order a FREE DVD copy, call 01788 545 553 and quote REF013
