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Hi,
This is Tessa, Lieke, Lotte and Lilia's Padlet, welcome!
This particular Padlet is about an English assignment we got in our English lesson. All of these articles are about asylum seekers and their quest to find a stable home. The happy moments and problems they face

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Where do asylum seekers come from and why do they flee?

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Where do asylum seekers come from and why do they flee?

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by Lotte

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My opinion and experience about Asylum seekers.

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My opinion and experience about Asylum seekers.

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By Tessa

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My opinion and experience asylum seekers.odt

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By Lilia

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By Lieke

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someone who leaves their own country, often for political reasons or because of war, and who travels to another country hoping that the government will protect them and allow them to live there

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Life in an immigration centre through the eyes of an asylum seeker.

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Life in an immigration centre through the eyes of an asylum seeker.

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No one listened to them and now 4 people have died. They were all victims of depression and commited suicide. People warned staff, no one listened

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(Image: Roland Leon/Sunday Mirror)

Staff at an immigration centre where four men died warned bosses lives were at risk a YEAR before the first death, explosive new
evidence reveals.

As an official investigation into the scandal is set to begin, whistleblowers today claim the mental health of detainees has been seriously neglected.

They say refugee asylum seekers at Morton Hall in Lincolnshire are driven to self-harm and the brink of suicide as
they are bullied by convicted criminals awaiting deportation - and even used to smuggle drugs around "no-go areas" in the centre.

And they tell how a cost-cutting staff shake-up a month before the first death in 2016 saw the axing of a string of mental health experts keeping watch on vulnerable detainees.

Worried Amelia Bailey, who was Morton's Hall clinical lead for suicide and self-harm services, even wrote to her bosses about the likely result as she claims she was left to keep the dangerous ship afloat on her own.

She told us: "In my opinion my warnings fell on deaf ears - a view which was supported by the findings of the whistleblowing report."

One former mental health worker at the compound emailed management telling how she warned that if nothing was done urgently someone would die. The worker also claimed patients' needs were being wrongly assessed

Another whistleblower claims conditions at the centre descended into chaos in March 2015 after NHS Nottinghamshire Healthcare took over running its medical team from G4S and cut costs.

She claimed: "The NHS allowed it's best staff to walk out the door. What was left behind was a mess. There became a culture of over-medicating detainees to keep them calm."

Morton Hall is in the spotlight after Home Affairs Select Committee chair Yvette Cooper called for an inquiry earlier this month into the 'removal centre' - run by the Prison Service on behalf of the UK Borders Agency - after four men died within 11 months.

The Labour MP said: "I think we need to know what is going on and also what the Home Office is doing about it."

In December 2016, Bal Ahmed Kabia, 49, from Sierra Leone, died at the centre. A month later Polish national Lukasz Debowski, 27, is believed to have killed himself after being refused bail. Last October Jamaican Carlington Spencer, 38, died after being taken to hospital and a 27-year-old Iraqi died in November.

Last night Amelia told how she wrote to bosses in November 2015 warning of the dangers of axing the centre's mental health experts.

They included ex-head of healthcare Ryk Izycki, an expert in transcultural psychiatry, and wife Kate, one of the UK's only specialists in the psychological impact of torture.

A close friend of the couple has claimed both were replaced by staff less qualified, including a learning disabilities nurse.

Amelia, 48, said her warnings to bosses "fell on deaf ears. I told them detainees were at risk but, in my opinion, they refused to listen.

"I told them the quality of mental health care had fallen since the takeover and that detainees were no longer being cared for properly.

"I was having to delay seeing people because the workload was unbelievable. Yet when I raised this in a meeting I was told I must prioritise my patients."

The departures left Amelia struggling to cope with a huge workload in a centre which has 392 rooms spread across six residential units.

She said: "I had three men threatening suicide or seriously self-harming in one day. Many of the patients were torture victims who need specialist psychiatric care, yet I was one person trying to juggle it all."

Amelia went sick with stress and left in May the following year. Her claims have been backed by other former clinical staff, including a GP.

The doctor claimed: "Before NHS Nottinghamshire took over we were never left alone with patients. But we were told this would no longer happen. Many people we dealt with had serious mental health issues, with some known to be violent. I expressed concern, but nobody listened."

Another ex-staff member confirmed the GP's fears of violence - and even alleged innocent asylum seekers are used as drug mules by criminals awaiting deportation after serving prison time.

The source, who asked not to be named, claimed: "There are real problems. Drugs are rife at Morton Hall. Searches of visitors are only carried out on a spot-check basis because it's not a prison - it's a detainee centre.

"Drugs are brought in during visits. At least half the detainees are awaiting deportation after serving sentences, many for violence and dangerous offences. A core are known to bully the more vulnerable residents who are sometimes forced to carry and deliver drugs around the centre."

The ex-staffer, who had a high profile job within the removal centre, added: "There are ghetto-type areas run by different ethnic minorities and officers are scared to go and see what they are doing as they are known to be aggressive. Fights are commonplace and a lot of vulnerable detainees live in fear. They already have mental health issues. Many were tortured in the country they fled."

The same concerns were highlighted in a Prison Inspection report in November 2016 which said almost four in 10 detainees felt "unsafe" amid rising violence and drug use. It also noted a "significant decline" in safety since an inspection three years earlier as "levels of violence" had increased.

Incidents of self-harm had also risen threefold and "four detainees had narrowly escaped fatal or serious injuries".

The report also recorded that "some risk information had been overlooked." It added that Morton Hall had "suffered the impact of new psychoactive substances becoming available for detainees."

A separate inquiry by the NHS in March 2016 found "no evidence of any actions deliberately intended to impact on staff and patient safety and wellbeing".

But it found concerns "over the delay in recruiting to mental health services and the lack of understanding apparent from managers in respect of low staffing levels."

After Carlington Spencer's death last October, detainees wrote to a campaign group complaining about the lack of medical help on site.

They told the South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group, which has staged protests against centres: "Here detainees are 16 hours without a doctor. We only have nurses that do not meet the standards of a medical professional."

Morton Hall is part of a wider problem. There were 10 deaths recorded in UK detention centres last year.

The probe into Morton Hall, near Swinderby, will be included in a Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry looking at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre, near Gatwick Airport.Last September private security contractor G4S suspended nine staff there after claims of abuse and assaults.

A Home Office spokesman said: "Detention and removal are essential parts of effective immigration controls. It is vital these controls are carried out with dignity and respect.

"The provision of 24-hour healthcare in all removal centres ensures individuals have ready access to medical professionals. Last year, the Independent Monitoring Board recognised Morton Hall is well run. However more must be done. We have put in place new strategies to reduce violence, self-harm, and the use of psychoactive substances."

An inspection by the Care Quality Commission in March 2013 commended the healthcare provided by G4S. Its report said: "Staff received appropriate professional development."

A spokesman for Notts Healthcare last night defended itself over the claims and said a recent inspection had found no wrong doing.

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Whistleblowers claim four who died at refugee centre were neglected by bosses

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Staff at an immigration centre where four men died warned bosses lives were at risk a YEAR before the first death, explosive new evidence reveals. As an official investigation into the scandal is set to begin, whistleblowers today claim the mental health of detainees has been seriously neglected.

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We all have to do our part in the refrugee crisis but according to Welsh leaders Britain has reached its limit. They are now "swamped" by asylum seekers.

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The Conservatives' Welsh leader today claimed Britain was being "swamped" by asylum-seekers.

Nick Bourne said people felt overwhelmed by the "massive number" of migrants seeking asylum in Britain.

"It is an issue of great concern for those of us who feel there is a part to play for genuine asylum-seekers. But we don't want to be swamped by the massive numbers we have seen coming in so far," he told BBC Radio Wales.

Mr Bourne later told the Press Association: "I don't think it is a pejorative term.

"That is how people see it. I was very careful in my choice of language. People do feel swamped. It is a very real concern. Obviously genuine asylum-seekers are welcome. But a great many are not genuine. They are economic migrants.

"I am proud of being British as are most people including asylum-seekers. But it does not assist good race relations by not talking about it and saying there was not a problem. People are rightly concerned about it."

The number of asylum-seekers arriving in Britain reached record levels of almost 111,000 during 2002.

Meanwhile figures across the EU as a whole fell by 1% during the year compared with a 20% rise in the UK.

A record number of 8,900 people claimed asylum last October. That figure will form the basis for Tony Blair's pledge to halve the number of asylum-seekers by September.

A Labour Party spokesman said: "This kind of language is not helpful."

He added: "In practical terms Britain was mid-table in the European league in terms of the number of asylum-seekers."

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The Conservatives' Welsh leader today claimed Britain was being "swamped" by asylum-seekers. Nick Bourne said people felt overwhelmed by the "massive number" of migrants seeking asylum in Britain. "It is an issue of great concern for those of us who feel there is a part to play for genuine asylum-seekers.

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by Lilia

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Article regarding the stigma's around asylum seekers and why the press plays such a big rol in it.

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Article regarding the stigma's around asylum seekers and why the press plays such a big rol in it.

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In this article, the British press is called out for stigmatising asylum seekers. According to the author, the press keeps mentioning them in outrages headlines which is "both irrelevant to the story and discriminatory towards the group"

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Adrian Thomas

" Soft-touch Britain: the asylum capital of Europe"; " Refugees made our lives hell too, say neighbours"; and " DNA test for bogus refugees scrapped as expensive flop". All are headlines that have appeared recently in the UK press, despite it now being almost a decade since the Press Complaints Commission first heard from charities on why coverage like this should stop. And despite it now being almost a decade since the PCC issued guidance to address what it agreed was widespread inaccurate reporting.

These headlines and others like them fail a simple test - substitute a reference to asylum status for the words "black" or "Jewish" and you begin to see why it is both irrelevant to the story and discriminatory towards the group if not the individual portrayed.

But why does this matter? And why does it matter so much right now?

On 6 July 2011, David Cameron, facing widespread public revulsion over the extent and depth of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, announced the public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press.

Few could have predicted quite what Lord Justice Leveson's investigations would unleash over the following months; neither the political and personal dramas played out for the world to see, nor the stream of revelations seeming to lead inevitably to the conclusion that something, somewhere, in the way our newspapers are regulated is broken and must be fixed.

The British Red Cross is not an organisation you might expect to be following these developments closely. We work on a daily basis with reporters that refuse to ignore the plight of people in crisis - in our own country and overseas - raising awareness of important issues and the work that we do.

But while it may not be our place to take a view on what kind of regulatory framework should supplant the PCC in the coming months, we will be awaiting the publication of Leveson's findings - expected in the next few weeks - with great interest.

The 2003 PCC guidance ruled that the phrase "illegal asylum seeker" is inaccurate. The guidance also addressed the confusion between asylum and immigration and explains why it is not appropriate to describe asylum seekers as "illegal immigrants".

Yet in an independent poll commissioned last month by the British Red Cross, 72% of respondents said newspaper reporting about asylum seekers and refugees is negative. The poll also revealed widespread confusion between the terms "refugees", "asylum seekers" and "illegal immigrants" and suggests what the public most readily associate with media coverage of refugees are words such as "scroungers".

The sort of coverage we regularly see unfairly stigmatises individuals and undermines the very institution of asylum. We hear from politicians willing in principle to support our calls for an end to the vagaries of a system that leaves many destitute - but feel unable to do so for fear of a media backlash and a loss of public face.

We also see the effect of associations made in print between those that seek asylum and criminality, and a tainted public perception of the many very decent people we encounter in our work.

Clearly the PCC guidance hasn't worked. What we would like to see is a number of small but important measures that address accuracy and fairness of reporting; with protection against discriminatory and immaterial references to asylum status in much the same way that the current code ensures reporting that is blind to race and religion.

Instead of a regulatory code that depends upon those personally and individually slighted making a complaint, we would like to see more proactive monitoring of standards. And we feel it only right that unfair representation of groups of people can be adequately challenged.

The Red Cross movement's unique position under the Geneva Convention means we have a duty to support those fleeing persecution. In 2010, just under 18,000 asylum applications were made in the UK and 3,480 were eventually accepted as refugees under what are relatively narrow and often hard to prove legal criteria. Not exactly the cascade suggested by much of the coverage we have seen.

Many of the 10,000 refugees and asylum seekers we work with on an annual basis have incredible stories of tragedy and heroism to tell. Often those finally granted indefinite leave to remain can be among the most patriotic and loyal British citizens it is possible to find.

Most individual journalists fight to tell stories that are factually and ethically robust in the face of significant pressures. But at the same time as enshrining press freedom and the upholding of the public interest, it should be possible for whatever Leveson's report ushers in to raise everyone's game on an issue of basic humanitarianism.
Adrian Thomas is the British Red Cross head of external relations Topics

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Asylum seekers continue to be stigmatised by the British press

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Adrian Thomas " Soft-touch Britain: the asylum capital of Europe"; " Refugees made our lives hell too, say neighbours"; and " DNA test for bogus refugees scrapped as expensive flop". All are headlines that have appeared recently in the UK press, despite it now being almost a decade since the Press Complaints Commission first heard from charities on why coverage like this should stop.

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By Lotte, Lieke, Tessa and Lilia

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People flee for the living conditions in their home countries but when they arrive in Britain they arent treated better. Yes, they are save but the living conditions are inhumane.

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Charities issue urgent call for reform of housing arrangements as £600m government contract goes to tender

Asylum seekers arriving in the UK are forced to live in "squalid, unsafe, slum housing conditions" and the public is largely unaware of the conditions into which "traumatised people are routinely dumped", charities have said.

The £600m government contract to provide shelter for those seeking sanctuary in the UK goes up for tender next month as calls mount for for urgent reforms.

Testimonies from asylum seekers and frontline workers detail accommodation that is infested with vermin, insecure, damp and dirty. One woman in Greater Manchester described how she was forced to stay in the same house even after her newborn baby was covered with bites from bed bugs.

Another asylum seeker in Greater Manchester told of a sink pedestal that crashed though the ceiling into the area where she was living with her three children. Another in Merseyside shared images of her bedroom after the ceiling had collapsed for the second time in six months.

Charities also told the Guardian that women who had been trafficked had been put in housing with internal and external doors that did not lock securely. "You're talking about people who have potentially been raped, sexually assaulted, tortured, not being able to lock their front door," said Christina Bodenes from MRANG, a Merseyside charity that provides support to women their children seeking asylum. "It's just a completely unacceptable situation."

Responsibility for housing people seeking asylum in the UK was taken away from local authorities in 2012 and given to the companies Serco, G4S and Clearsprings, through contracts known as Compass.

The vast majority of asylum seekers are housed by G4S and Serco in the poorest parts of the country where housing is comparatively cheap. G4S holds Compass contracts for the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber, the Midlands and the east of England, where 45% of the UK's asylum seekers live.

Serco holds contracts for Scotland, Northern Ireland and the north-west, where just over a third of the asylum seekers live. Clearsprings had contracts for Wales, the south-west, and London and the south-east.

Maurice Wren, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: "All too often, people seeking asylum in the UK are forced to live in squalid, unsafe, slum housing conditions, at exorbitant cost to the public purse.

"Though the general public is largely unaware of the appalling conditions into which traumatised people are routinely dumped, ministers and officials are not, yet this scandal continues unchecked. The time has come to end this shameful practice and allow people seeking asylum to live in dignity."

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Mice and rats near children's toys.

David Simmonds, the chair of the Local Government Association's asylum, refugee and migration taskforce, said councils regularly complained that they had little power to tackle the "generally unacceptable" standard of accommodation for asylum seekers in their areas, because the private contractors' contracts are with the Home Office.

"The accommodation will always be at the lowest end of the market, because to win the contract the providers bid at the lowest possible price," he said. "But vermin infestations and damp are things that would stop a local authority from considering that accommodation for placing UK homeless families. That same minimum standard should apply consistently."

Graham O'Neill of the Scottish Refugee Council said asylum-seeker housing was a vital public service, "housing for a group of people who really need the stability and the privacy that a safe home and a safe space can bring". It is "publicly funded and yet local authorities and devolved governments have no ability to hold these providers to account", he said.

Asylum seekers do not have permission to work while awaiting a decision on their claim. Under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 they are able to apply for accommodation and financial help from the Home Office if they have no other means of supporting themselves.

Armed conflict and political instability in the Middle East and Africa have caused the number of people housed under the act to jump sharply during the life of the Compass contracts, from about 25,000 to 40,000 at the end of last year.

MPs on the home affairs select committee heard evidence last year that G4S and Serco were losing money on the Compass contracts, in part because of the increase in the number of asylum seekers and the rising cost of rents. Serco's average monthly income per service user was about £300 in February 2016, compared with an average cost of around £450.

An asylum seeker's room in Greater Manchester where a sink pedestal fell through the ceiling.

The committee published a report in January that said the government should act immediately to improve conditions. Ten months later, charities say there has been little improvement and the government is yet to respond to the findings.

It has said the previous month that the current Compass contracts would be extended for two years until August 2019. Contracts to provide asylum seeker accommodation from September 2019 until 2024 will be put out to tender in November.

A Home Office spokesperson said the ministry worked closely with contractors to ensure they provided accommodation that was "safe, habitable, fit for purpose and adequately equipped", and that it investigated all complaints relating to sub-standard accommodation.

John Whitwam, G4S's head of immigration and borders, said the standard of accommodation provided to asylum seekers was "subject to prescriptive criteria", and that any failure to meet those criteria would result in a contract penalty.

"Since November 2013, we have not been subject to any performance penalties on the basis that we rectify many tens of thousands of defects each year to meet the required standard," he said. "We continue to invest in our provision, despite heavy commercial losses."

Scott Ross, Serco's operations director, said the company was committed to ensuring they provided "decent and safe accommodation" for the 16,000 asylum seekers in its care, and that they met all of their contractual obligations.

"We are absolutely confident that the asylum seekers we look after are in housing of a decent standard, and where repairs are required to the 5,000 properties that we manage, these are completed in accordance with the strict timescales of our contract with the Home Office," he said.

'This house is awful'

When Maria - not her real name - fled her home in South America because she faced imprisonment without trial for protesting against the government, she was pregnant and homeless. Now her daughter is eight and they have been living in her current home for five years, but the property is still is barely habitable.

Maria says the accommodation in Leeds has got worse since G4S took over the contract. Her house is so riddled with mice that she and her daughter are forced to sleep with the lights on to stop them coming into their bedrooms.

"It's not just the quality of the house I'm in, but the service has got worse," she says. "I'm excited to move out of this house, but I already feel so sorry for the next family they are going to bring here. This house is awful."

Another asylum seeker living in Greater Manchester said she was scared for the safety of her children, all under ten, after a sink pedestal fell through the ceiling of her living room in mid-July. "My daughter and son played in the same place [where the pedestal fell]. I was really scared," she said. "When I go to sleep I think what could have happened."
Topics

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UK asylum seekers living in 'squalid, unsafe slum conditions'

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Charities issue urgent call for reform of housing arrangements as £600m government contract goes to tender Asylum seekers arriving in the UK are forced to live in "squalid, unsafe, slum housing conditions" and the public is largely unaware of the conditions into which "traumatised people are routinely dumped", charities have said.

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1. Asylum seeker

2. Refugee

3. Homeless

4. Gouverment

5. Criminal

6. Protest

7. Racism
8. Immigration

9. Community

10. Violence

11. Assault

12. Department of Justice

13.Procedures

14. International

15. Policy

16. Processed

17. Political party

18. Accommodation

19. Backlash

20. Asylum centers

21. Applications

22. Traditionally

23. Welfare system
24. Protection
25. Concerns
26. Vetting procedure
27. Cramped
28. Housing
29. healthcare
30. inadequate

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A lot of refugees are going to Australia. Australia accepts more ayslum seekers every year. Most of the aysum seekers are coming by boat from Indonesia. The police can't stop them anymore and Australia is overflowing.

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Australia's policy on asylum seekers has come under intense scrutiny. The BBC explains why.

Does Australia get a lot of asylum seekers?

Australia's humanitarian intake has remained relatively steady over the last 20 years, with around 12,000 to 13,000 people typically accepted every year.

In 2015-16, Australia accepted 13,750 people through its humanitarian programme and committed to a one-time acceptance of an additional 12,000 refugees fleeing Syria and Iraq.

Asylum seekers have attempted to reach Australia on boats from Indonesia, often paying large sums of money to people smugglers. Hundreds have died making the dangerous journey.

At its peak, 18,000 people arrived in Australia illegally by sea. However the numbers plummeted after the government introduced tough new policies to "stop the boats".

So why does Australia have tough asylum policies?

Australia's two leading political parties, the ruling Liberal-National coalition and the Labor opposition, both support tough asylum policies.

They say the journey the asylum seekers make is dangerous and controlled by criminal gangs, and they have a duty to stop it.

The coalition government made Australia's asylum policy even tougher when it took power in 2013, introducing Operation Sovereign Borders, which put the military in control of asylum operations.

Under this policy military vessels patrol Australian waters and intercept migrant boats, towing them back to Indonesia or sending asylum seekers back in inflatable dinghies or lifeboats.

The government says its policies have restored the integrity of its borders, and helped prevent deaths at sea.

However, critics say opposition to asylum is often racially motivated and is damaging Australia's reputation.

What's the deal with offshore processing?

When asylum seekers reach Australia by boat, they are not held in Australia while their claims are processed.

Instead, they are sent to an offshore processing centre. Currently Australia has one such centre on the Pacific island nation of Nauru and another on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.

Even if these asylum seekers are found to be refugees, they are not allowed to be settled in Australia. They may be settled in Nauru or Papua New Guinea, and four were settled in Cambodia at a reported cost of A$55m (£28m, $42m).

Rights groups say conditions in the PNG and Nauru camps are totally inadequate, citing poor hygiene, cramped conditions, unrelenting heat and a lack of facilities.

Holding asylum seekers in indefinite detention has caused widespread psychological harm, and exposed them to dangers including physical and sexual assaults, the critics say.

Manus Island closure: What happens next?

Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court ruled last year that restricting the movement of asylum seekers who have committed no crime was unconstitutional. Australia responded by confirming it would shut down the centre by 31 October.

Canberra has set up transit centres elsewhere on Manus Island. But many refugees and asylum seekers are resisting efforts to be moved there, saying they do not feel safe in the local community.

Australia is not prepared to accept the more than 700 men still on the island.

Up to 1,250 refugees in PNG and Nauru could be accepted by the US under a resettlement deal, but America is not obliged to take them all.

First refugees leave Manus camp for US

In October, the UNHCR said 1,700 detainees in the two centres had either been granted refugee status or were awaiting a determination. The claims of a further 400 had been rejected, it said.

It remains unclear whether the men on Manus Island will stay there, be relocated to Nauru, or go to a new location.

However, Australia's hard line on immigration is unlikely to change.

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Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies

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Australia asylum: Why is it controversial?

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Australia's policy on asylum seekers has come under intense scrutiny. The BBC explains why. Australia's humanitarian intake has remained relatively steady over the last 20 years, with around 12,000 to 13,000 people typically accepted every year. In 2015-16, Australia accepted 13,750 people through its humanitarian programme and committed to a one-time acceptance of an additional 12,000 refugees fleeing Syria and Iraq.