The charity in Cardiff is planning to fight against the government’s regulations which destroying the refugee’s human rights.
The asylum seekers’ rights to work and accepting education have been ignored by the UK government, according to campaigner in Cardiff.
There was a meeting which held by Young socialists in The Little Man Coffee company in Cardiff and this meeting aims to discuss main issues of refugee rights crisis including fighting for the minimum payment which is ￡15 per hour for asylum seekers.
Through the meeting, there are more than three main issues which mentioned by campaigners including the UK detention centres, asylum seekers’ working and education.
“The UK is the only country in Europe that locks people up indefinitely,” says Bethan Roper, the chairman of Young Socialists Cardiff, who have worked for this charity five years.
“Detention centres are basically prisons for migrants,” says Beth. “In 2017, 28,000 people were placed in the detention centre in the UK. Sometimes for days, some for weeks, some for years and some with no end in sight……When they go into the detention centre, they don’t know when they will leave.”
Mental health issues are easily generated in the detention centres. Beth gave an example of a family. “There is a girl, I call her Lucy, she came to the UK as a child with her mom and her brother. When I met her was about 19 years old and she has developed pretty bad mental health. She tried to kill herself for a few times,” says Beth.
Also, the refugee rights of work and earning could be ignored in the detention centre. Beth says, “Asylum seekers are not allowed to work in the UK. They were forced to work in detention centre for￡1 an hour.”
According to the regulation of UK, the asylum seekers are not allowed to work in the UK except making an application for work permits, but the jobs what asylum can have come from the UK’s shortage occupation list.
The period of waiting for the permission can be as high as 12 months, the same as Ireland and Denmark. However, this situation is from some EU states. In Germany and Belgium, this period will be decreased to three to six months.
Therefore, the minimum income which Young Socialists fight for is not a large amount of money. “Even being paid the minimum wage in this country is not usually enough to live on liver satisfactory life,” says Beth.
Furthermore, the access to education is one of the significant parts of refugee rights and if asylum seeker wants to study in the UK, it will be difficult.
“Asylum seekers, of course, they are not allowed students to learn and if they want to go to university, they have to pay the international fee which would be difficult for the British person to pay,” says Beth.
Therefore, the campaigners want to help asylum seekers to get the right access to education and people with refugee status who can access to school and university. Also, making sure they’re entitled to student loans.
One of the goals of this meeting is that the Young Socialists want more students to engage in the refugee rights activities and fight for the asylum seekers.
The national chair of Social Students Youth and student organiser for the Socialist Party, Theo Sharieff says, “We’re in a Socialist Party stand for and fighting for a socialist and all anti-racism, internationalist, we need to fight for where the rights of all immigrants, workers and refugees.”
In order to help the asylum seekers, the Young Socialists Cardiff will organize the activity to gather donations, which called ‘Benefit GIG & Art Auction’ on the 10 of February 2018 from 6 pm to 11 pm in the Cathays Community Centre (CF24 4HX, http://refugeerightscampaign.org/ ).