Community Action For Young Refugees

The large number of civil service and local government staff dealing with lone refugee children is significant though most of these have broader responsibilities. At the same time various “voluntary” and charitable organisations are offering their services for appropriate fees. These are supplemented by a number of NGOs such as for example the Children’s Society, NSPCC, Refugee Council etc. These latter deal with issues related to all refugee children through the Refugee Children’s Consortium. They declare that making representation collectively in this way increases their influence. Sadly to date, in spite of several requests from CAYR they have refused to either endorse CAYR’s campaign to “Seek alteration to regulation . . .” or to suggest an alternative representation of this goal. This continued effective silence as a response to CAYR’s request needs to be explained.

Some harsher judges may consider that there is significance in some of the contracts and service level agreements assigned to some of these NGO’s. Such critics might suspect that there is fear that the renewal of such arrangements might be jeopardised by a forceful stance on behalf of these children. A more sympathetic interpretation might be to recognise that the Consortium membership is drawn from large organisations with extensive agenda’s. The child welfare groups like the NSPCC, Barnardos and the Children’s Society to name three reach across child welfare issues of every sort which may somehow conflict with the very specific political needs of lone refugee children. The refugee specific organisation such as the Refugee Council may find similar conflict of priority for their more general refugee focused goals. The most generous and in my view most likely explanation for this inaction is that the Refugee Children’s Consortium has simply settled into being a bog standard QUANGO. Conferences, reports, meetings with VIP’s and little else. A group of well intentioned people from well intentioned organisations who ultimately are doing little but talking.

This inaction cannot continue. Member bodies of the RCC (a list is published on this site) must either urge action on the issue of these vulnerable young people through the RCC or they must stand aside from a moribund group and make clear and emphatic decisions as to whether or not to challenge these unfair regulations. This particular abuse of these children must be brought to a stop. A FULL STOP!

Demographic statistics for the UK demonstrate that our population is aging and the pensions we are receiving are having to be paid for. At the same time the government is rightly showing ambition to improve the welfare and education of our children. Trapped in the middle are people of working age who are having to sweat to pay both bills. Noting this the Health and Safety Executive has said “the effect of migration will be to reduce average age slightly, since migrants are predominantly young adults.” Implicit in this is affirmation of the desirability of the right sort of immigration. Logic demonstrates that the maximising the number of adolescents without adult carers included in our population is far and away the best means of taking advantage of the opportunity noted by the HSE.

Looking at the question coldly and pragmatically children who arrive in this country without adult carers are the perfect match. Generally speaking they are at least teenagers and are nearing the end of their time in education. By definition, being without adult carers means they do not have any dependent relatives either younger or older. Finally the circumstances from which they have escaped has motivated these young people to contribute to the community in which they spent their formative years.

The prevailing catch all excuse for irrational government decisions is the buzz phrase “National Security”. Sadly the simple fact is that by abusing these lone refugee children we are risking turning our closest friends into our sworn enemies. How do young people who have grown to love Britain and the communities in which they reside react to being expelled to an unfamiliar war zone where they know no one and go in fear of their lives?

Three, four or more years in the life of a teenager is a long time. It can seem forever. During that time they become comfortable with where they are and who they are and settle in to being teenagers. One cannot underestimate the traumatic impact of being forcefully torn from the familiar and comfortable and sent to a strange and frightening place.

These young people who escaped on their own to this country had moved, while still children, from one value system to a totally different one. In many cases the place they came from had experienced a level of social breakdown that had moved to a point where there was little value system at all. In these circumstances they readily accept and adopted standards of liberty and law which enable them to be comfortable in the UK. Thus our value system has become their value system. In their formative years they have grown to love this country and the people in it whom they view as their friends and their community. They are a rare thing, positive teenagers. CAYR activists are familiar with this affection and are constantly amazed by how it persists after expulsion. In spite of this the options our brutal immigration policy has imposed on these young people, by expelling them to a now unfamiliar and frequently chaotic country, represents a real danger to them and to us.

Their first option is to try and survive and build a life such as it is. This is not easy, given that the reason for most of these young people to come to the UK was an issue of their safety in the region from which they came.

The second option is to engage with strong and apparently reliable people in the new community to which they have been expelled. Sadly in many of these communities the strong and reliable are frequently far from benign. The harsh reality is that fit young people (particularly fit young men) who understand the British way of life and speak English will be seen as a real potential resource for people who feel they have reason to be hostile to this country. Within unstable countries such as the ones these young people are being expelled to groups prepared to act aggressively against British people and interests are frequently led by these sorts of individuals. These Fagans of terror will be licking their lips at the potential activists being created by British expulsion policy. The possibility that two young men, one British born and a soldier and the other a lone refugee who once lived in and loved this country should be involved in each others deaths is quite horrifying. In a sensible world they might have been playing in the same local town football side.

This desperate scenario need not occur if the government views these children as deserving of the same care and affection as British born children.