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Look beyond the label

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June 10, 2009 at 10:58 am

How much do you know about refugees and asylum seekers living in the UK? We ask members of the public five questions and get the answers from our head of refugee services, Nick Scott-Flynn.

Look beyond the label

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Victoria Wood: What do you think you know about refugees living in the UK today? I’m Victoria Wood, one of the communication officers at the British Red Cross, and I’ve gone out on to the street to find out exactly what the members the public really know. I’ve also had a chat with Nick Scott Flynn, head of refugee services at the Red Cross, and I asked him to give his opinions on the five questions I posed to the public.

Here’s the first one: Imagine that you have to evacuate your home and only have time to grab one possession. What would you take with you?

Person 1: Probably my wallet so I had my credit card, so I had means of replacing stuff, you know, that I needed in an emergency.

Person 2: I suppose the sensible thing would be my passport

Person 3: I would take a passport or something like that

Person 4: Providing my family and friends were safe, it would be my cigarettes

Person 5: I think it would probably have to be my wallet

Person 6: I think I would take my photo albums with me

Victoria: There’s no right or wrong answer to this question but Nick explains what people are most likely to take with then if they have to make a quick escape.

Nick Scott-Flynn: When people flee from their country because they are in danger for their lives, they very often don’t have time to plan or put together a lot of things to take. They literally, in many cases, what it is they can carry with them often it is some money maybe or some mementos, sometimes photographs – sometimes it’s nothing, they just really come with what they’re wearing.

Often they have to try and leave their countries in a very irregular way – remember, people are fleeing for their lives. What would you do if you felt you were going to be arrested in the next half an hour or hour, or the police were going to come knocking at your door? You’d try and get out of your house pretty quickly and you’d literally run around trying to grab anything that might be useful to you and, obviously, in that process people forget or might not be able to find particular documents they might need later on.

Victoria: Here’s question two: Approximately how many people do you think apply for asylum in the UK each year?

Person 1: I don’t know..half a million maybe?

Person 2: Twenty thousand?

Person 3: Between twenty and thirty thousand?

Person 4: I don’t really have an idea but I would say between five thousand and ten thousand

Person 5: Probably hundreds of thousands

Victoria: So what’s the answer, Nick – are people way off?

Nick: The numbers of people who come to the UK every year to apply for asylum have gone down in recent years. In 2008 approximately 26,000 people applied for asylum here in the UK – that is, people have come to say they need refuge or sanctuary because they fear persecution at home. Also remember, although a lot of figures and numbers are bandied around, each number is a person and each person is a human being with their own story and their own experience and their own kind of life really. So whatever the numbers are, it’s very important to remember not to lose sight that these are real people that real things are happening to.

Victoria: Here’s the third question. What percentage of the world’s asylum seekers do you think are currently in the UK?

Person 1: Probably more than we think, probably about ten per cent. We seem to be a handy place for people to gravitate to because we’re an island.

Person 2: Probably 60 per cent

Person 3: One or two per cent

Person 4: I wouldn’t say we were high and wouldn’t say we were low. I’ll go middle of the road, four to five per cent?

Person 5: I would probably say 30 to 40 per cent

Person 6: Ermm..I think it’s probably about five per cent

Nick: The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says roughly at any one time in the world there are 20 million people who are in need of protection. That is 20 million people who are in danger of being persecuted because of their beliefs, their political opinion, their religion, their race. Twenty million, so again going back to the UK receives about 26,000 of those people that come every year, in percentage terms that’s a tiny amount – it’s certainly less than sort of three per cent of the complete total.

Victoria: Question 4. What type of jobs, if any, do you think refugees most likely did in their country of origin before coming to the UK?

Person 1: If they had a job, it was probably very menial tasks

Person 2: I think there’s probably a cross section because people flee for all sorts of reasons and therefore there are all sorts of people with all sorts of occupations.

Person 3: If they’re escaping from war, then, you know, they could come from any sort of background, it could be farmers, umm you know or, I’d imagine quite low paid jobs though.

Person 4: I think that could be anything, from street cleaning to solicitor, doctor, right across the board, same as what we are, in England.

Nick: Typically, people would be professors, teachers, doctors, lawyers in their own countries. If you think about some of the reasons people apply for asylum, why they end up being refugees, it’s because they’ve been active and they’ve been active members of their society and community and become a target because of that.

As I said, most are highly educated, many, many to degree level with many skills, some of which are in desperate need in the UK. Very few are from what you think of as an agricultural or farming background, and I think the reason that sometimes people have that impression is because the pictures people are used to seeing of situations in developing countries where people are toiling in the fields in agricultural settings. But that’s not really the picture of the sort of people that come to the UK. Most are highly skilled and highly motivated. They can make an enormous contribution to our society.

Victoria: And the last question, what words do you associate with refugees?

Person 1: The things that just spring to mind when I think of refugees are probably just scared ordinary people

Person 2: Probably, hardworking

Person 3: Certainly brave, courageous individuals that have had to make major decisions about leaving their country of origin

Person 4: I would say, really, a refugee is a person in crisis

Person 5: I think they’re brave

Victoria: Nick, what about you, which words would you choose?

Nick: The words I most associate with refugees are intelligent, friendly, hardworking, motivated. But I think the thing also to stress in that context is that many refugees, they’re simply what we’d call ordinary people, like you or I to which something has happened that has been extraordinary awful. Either they’ve been persecuted for their beliefs or their religion or their race. So they’re people who just want to get on with their normal life, but that’s been disrupted because of the persecution that they’ve faced in their country. And just like you or I would, there are many reactions you would have to that sort of experience.

But I must stress that the vast majority of refugees are survivors. They want to get on, progress in the society that’s given them sanctuary and refuge and we have many, many examples of refugees in the UK from over the centuries who have made significant contributions to British life. Not least of all, we have someone who invented er..designed the Mini; Einstein was a refugee, he wasn’t in the UK. There is a sort of degree of motivation that people bring with them and I think they certainly enrich the societies they come to, including ours.

Victoria: If you’d like to know more about how the Red Cross works with refugees and asylum seekers, or you’d like to volunteer, have a look at www.redcross.org.uk/refugees. To find out how to get involved in Refugee Week 2009, visit www.lookbeyondthelabel.org. Thanks for listening!

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Tags: asylum seekers, nick scott-flynn, public, red cross, refugees

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