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Chapter 11 | Outcomes of Asylum Applications ■ 2. Paragraph 83 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General Comment No. 6 (2005) states that whenever family reunification in [an unaccompanied or separated child’s] country of origin is not possible [because of the child’s risk of persecution in that country]...the obligations under article 9 and 10 [of the Convention on the Rights of the Child] come into effect and should govern the host country’s decisions on family reunification there. In this context, state parties are particularly reminded that “applications by a child or his or her parents to enter...a State Party for the purpose of family reunification shall be dealt with by States Parties in a positive, humane and expeditious manner” and “shall entail no adverse consequences for the applicants and for the members of their family.” to join an unaccompanied or separated child as soon as he or she has been granted refugee status and the child should not be required to show that he or she can maintain or accommodate them without recourse to public funds. 11.2 Refusal of Asylum Unaccompanied or separated children are refused asylum on three separate bases. 11.2.1 Non-Compliance Refusals on the basis of non-compliance ■ 2002 11% Refused ■ 2004 9% Refused ■ 2003 10% Refused ■ 2005 8.3% Refused ■ 3. The Final Act of the 1951 UN Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons recommended that governments take the necessary measures for the protection of the refugee’s family, especially with a view to ensuring that the unity of the refugee’s family is maintained. Recommendations ■ 1. The Immigration and Nationality Directorate should (in conjunction with the UNHCR (London), the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, and the Refugee Children’s Consortium) establish an enquiry into the sustainability of the asylum decisions previously made in relation to applications from unaccompanied or separated children. ■ 2. The Immigration Rules HC 395 should be amended to enable the parents or legal and/or customary caregivers and siblings of an unaccompanied or separated child to apply for leave A significant number of unaccompanied or separated children are refused purely on “non compliance” grounds 7 for failing to attend a screening interview or complete or return their Children’s Statement of Evidence Form (SEF) within 28 days. In these cases, the Immigration and Nationality Directorate takes no further steps to investigate the application and refuses them because of insufficient information to make a substantive decision. Once this had happened — even if the child’s failure to provide information was due to the legal representative or relevant local authority’s incompetence — it used to be difficult to persuade the Immigration and Nationality Directorate to organize another screening interview or accept a Children’s SEF out of time. More recently it has been the policy 8 of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate to only refuse applications on non-compliance grounds where an unaccompanied or separated child has “failed, without reasonable explanation, to make a prompt and full disclosure of material facts” and “every effort...to Hosted by www.ijjo.org 129
contact the child via social services or the child’s Guidance 10 given to Immigration and Nationality legal representatives [has failed].” A non-compli- Directorate case workers states that “the younger ance refusal does not prevent an unaccompanied or or less mature the child is, the less he might be separated child from appealing against the refusal expected to know about the situation in his own but it does deprive the child of information about country...the benefit of the doubt should be the arguments the Government will present on applied more liberally than when dealing with an appeal. This makes preparation for the appeal hear- adult.” Yet this extract from a 14-year-old child’s ing and anticipation of likely arguments in cross refusal letter is by no means atypical: examination harder. The Secretary of State for the Home Department 11.2.2 Third Country Refusals is of the view that you were aware of the plot to overthrow the legitimate and democratic gov- Refusals on the basis of involvement ernment of [your] country [and should not have of a Third Country participated in this unlawful activity].... He is ■ 2002 Under 1% (20) ■ 2004 4% Refused ■ 2003 1% Refused ■ 2005 3.9% Refused [also] of the view that you did not stop to think that as a child you should not take part in such activities and neither should you be handling As explained in chapter 1 an unaccompanied or a gun. 11 separated child whose asylum application is deemed to be the responsibility of another country under Dublin II 9 or in rare cases other arrangements is not entitled to have his or her asylum application considered in the U.K. Such a child will be returned Case workers are given training and guidance 12 on how to assess whether an unaccompanied or separated child is entitled to protection under the Refugee Convention. They are also reminded: SEEKING ASYLUM ALONE | UNITED KINGDOM 130 to that third country for the application to be determined there. 11.2.3 Refusals after Substantive Consideration Despite the many improvements in the processing of asylum applications from unaccompanied or separated children, the vast majority of such applications are still refused, with the percentage of refusals increasing between 2002 and 2004. Percentage granted protection under the Refugee Convention ■ 2002 8% Granted ■ 2004 2% Granted ■ 2003 4% Granted ■ 2005 5% Granted Children may suffer different forms of persecution [to adults] or suffer in different ways from adults. It is important to recognise that due to the variations in the psychological make-up of individuals, fear of persecution includes a subjective factor, and so what might not rise to the level of persecution for an adult could amount to persecution in the case of a child due to their lower tolerance to threats of harm and their greater vulnerability to trauma. Yet refusal letters rarely take this into account as the following extract shows: You say that men regularly came to your house before the election and in one case raped your mother. In order to bring yourself within the Hosted by www.ijjo.org
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Unaccompanied and Separated Childre
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS Jacqueline Bhabha
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Manchester City Council; Sue Fisher
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Contents Chapter 1 | 9 Chapter 5 |
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SEEKING ASYLUM ALONE | UNITED KINGD
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Arriving in the U.K. 6 The Immigrat
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ers often believe that although a p
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fear of certain groups in society t
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that unaccompanied minor children f
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It then added that “although chil
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2004 it rose to 8.8%. This was at a
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2.3 Countries of Origin Unaccompani
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Recommendations ■ 1. If the U.K.
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There was no comparable age differe
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2.7 Private Fostering Arrangements
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Endnotes 9 Statistics published by
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unfounded, thus depriving this subs
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Bill in Parliament which would have
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of someone who might be an unaccomp
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It is clear that the Rules are a po
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subsequently abducted by their form
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“G” was a 16-year-old Christian
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■ 4. Article 4 of the European Co
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17 A multi-agency task force establ
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of the asylum determination process
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as a group around the claimant laug
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with as being hostile. Nor did they
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purposes. 38 The Immigration and Na
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or local authority social services
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als from age disputed children deta
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and February 2005 when 75% of those
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accommodation which is separated fr
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e safe to let the child go and live
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Page 79 and 80: case, that adult is advised to info
Page 81 and 82: The official justification for thes
Page 83 and 84: Asylum Support Team has a case load
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Page 91 and 92: who the child must try to relate to
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Page 95 and 96: 8.3 Role of a Legal Guardian rights
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Page 101 and 102: do once I got to London. The pictur
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Page 107 and 108: eturn to a country requiring servic
Page 109 and 110: ■ 6. The syllabus for the Accredi
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Page 115 and 116: A recent White Paper 13 states that
Page 117 and 118: an important and distinct role to p
Page 119 and 120: for Determining Refugee Status. 30
Page 121 and 122: draws on a small number of other re
Page 123 and 124: ■ 3. UNHCR also states that the q
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Page 141 and 142: 5 IND. Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking
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Page 153 and 154: could have been allowed. In one of
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Page 157 and 158: ■ 3. The Law Society and the Lega
Page 159 and 160: determinations we analyzed this did
Page 161 and 162: 42 Interview with Laura Brownlees,
Page 165 and 166: should resolve this difficulty. The
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Page 175 and 176: Recommendations 14 Immigration Rule
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As a consequence of these restricti
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■ ■ accommodate unaccompanied o
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that the vast majority of referrals
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ecause of long waiting lists and be
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which would have provided for a leg
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screening interview and do not real
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■ 9.9 The interviewer should alwa
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excessive delay in reaching a decis
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children, or anyone who had been re
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appeal. The Asylum Policy Unit has
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and adjudicators rarely prevented t
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22 Information provided by Ailish K
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A P P E N D I X 1 Glossary of Terms
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Bibliography Amnesty International.
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Immigration Advisory Service. Submi
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FOR MORE INFORMATION PHOTOGRAPHY CR
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