Advocating for change

Arrival in the UK is just one stage in the journey of people escaping persecution. Those fleeing torture arrive only with their personal testimony and the physical and psychological scars of their ordeal but face the burden of proving that they need protection.

The process of claiming asylum is overshadowed by the fear of being detained, reporting at unsympathetic immigration centres, the threat of being electronically 'tagged' and the prospect of being removed from the UK.

Policy agreements between the Home Office and the MF establish that where there is documentary evidence of a client's history as a torture survivor, that person should not be required to report with immigration more than once a month. These agreements are recognised by the UK Border Agency (BA).

However, it frequently falls upon the MF to alert clients' lawyers to such policies, and unless that information is then passed on to the Home Office, torture survivors remain vulnerable to stringent immigration controls from which they should be exempted.

The lack of pro-active mechanisms within Home Office processes to identify torture survivors means that MF lawyers and caseworker-counsellors routinely assess people who have been swallowed by inappropriate systems.

The detained fast track process has led to a number of torture survivors being unlawfully detained. The Home Office has suspended fast track arrangements in cases where the MF has intervened amid concerns that fairness has been sacrificed for speed. However, Government policies driven by immigration targets continue to discourage rather than encourage a more discerning approach.

Reporting procedures that make it conditional on asylum seekers to regularly sign in at immigration centres - part of the Government's 'contact management' policy - have led to several torture survivors being tagged. The MF has successfully intervened to remove tags by pleading with the BA to implement its own policies that exempt torture survivors from the procedure because of its "invasive" and psychologically damaging nature.

Government policies have also seen an increase in the number of people dispersed to areas where there is insufficient support. At the same time, there has been a reduction in the amount of legal aid available to refugee lawyers, resulting in less specialist help for torture surviving asylum seekers.

Consequently, a significant amount of time is now dedicated by MF caseworker-counsellors and lawyers to resolving a client's practical difficulties, by liaising with GPs and health workers to ensure clients' needs do not fall through loopholes in a system geared towards speed rather than the individual's best interests.