Amnesty International Campaign: Refugees and Asylum

Amnesty's goal is to bring about a fair and effective asylum system. We attempt to achieve that goal in a number of ways - carrying out research into aspects of asylum policy and practice, developing proposals for improving those policies and practices, and then promoting our proposals with the government, members of parliament and other influential audiences.

Background

People across the world are forced to abandon their homes, their families and their livelihoods in order to escape persecution and conflict in their own countries.

The majority of the 17 million refugees, asylum seekers and others of concern to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), cross a border to flee to a neighbouring country to reach safety. Others risk hazardous journeys to reach the UK, a country where they may already have a link through the Commonwealth, language, relatives or an existing community.

HOW WIDESPREAD IS THE PROBLEM?

Governments and the media portray people on the move as a problem rather than people fleeing human rights abuses. Sophisticated immigration controls attest to governments' determination to prevent refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants from setting foot on their territories.

In many countries a growing number of people who have sought asylum are being detained. In the UK, in spite of the decline in the numbers seeking asylum in recent years, the number of those detained solely under Immigration Act powers, including families with children, has increased.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

The 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (the Refugee Convention) and other international human rights treaties include the rights to:

Protection from discrimination
Freedom of religion
Identity and travel documents
Work, housing education and relief
Protection from penalties for illegal entry
Freedom of movement

Every refugee is the result of a government's failure to protect human rights. Like anyone else, refugees have human rights. They also have rights because they are refugees and are therefore entitled to international protection.

UK REPORTS

Down and Out in London: The road to destitution for rejected asylum seekers(November 2006) In this report, Amnesty International has criticised the UK government's policy on rejected asylum seekers, which is forcing thousands into abject poverty. Amnesty believes that rejected asylum seekers are made destitute to force them to go home. More

Seeking Asylum is not a Crime (June 2005) Amnesty International challenged the government to reveal how many people who have sought asylum are detained each year and for how long. The organisation believes that many thousand people who sought asylum in the UK were detained solely under Immigration Act powers in 2004. More

Get It Right (February 2004) Amnesty International reveals Home Office asylum decisions are based on inaccurate and out-of-date country information, unreasoned decisions about people's credibility and a failure to properly consider complex torture cases. More

VIDEO: THE REMOVED

Watch a short film documenting the experiences of a family being taken into detention. The clip is produced by Camcorder Guerillas, a Glasgow-based collective of independent filmmakers.