UN Asked to Declare ‘Gender Apartheid’ - Against Afghanistan Rulers
United Nations (AP) — The U.N.’s most powerful body must support governments seeking to legally declare the intensifying crackdown by Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on women and girls “Gender Apartheid,” the head of the U.N. agency promoting gender equality said Tuesday.
Sima Bahous, executive director of UN Women, told the Security Council that more than 50 increasingly dire Taliban edicts are being enforced with more severity, including by male family members. That is exacerbating mental health issues and suicidal thoughts especially among young women and is shrinking women’s decision-making even in their own homes.
“They tell us that they are prisoners living in darkness, confined to their homes without hope or future,” she said.
Under international law, apartheid is defined as a system of legalized racial segregation that originated in South Africa. But a growing consensus among international experts, officials and activists says apartheid can also apply to gender in cases like that of Afghanistan, where women and girls face systematic discrimination.
Read more: Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press, https://tinyurl.com/m9ex2p24
Why Are Views About Immigration Different and Better In Scotland?
Public Opinion is Not Formed in a Vacuum
Two recent reports on immigration attitudes have highlighted an interesting divergence - while the most recent IPSOS-MORI tracker of overall British attitudes has shown evidence that voter concerns about immigration are beginning to rise again after a long post-Brexit decline, a new report from Migration Policy Scotland shows that Scottish attitudes about immigration are much more positive.
While around half of British voters overall say they would like immigration levels to fall, the figure in Scotland is just 28%. A quarter of English voters now name immigration as one of the most important problems facing the country, nearly twice the 13% figure in Scotland. What might account for Scotland’s relatively relaxed and positive view about immigration?
The greater opennes of Scots to immigration is not new. Using data from the British Election Study internet panel (BESIP) we can track views about migration over the period from 2016 to 2022 in both England and Scotland.
Rob Ford, Swingometer, 26/09/2023, https://tinyurl.com/3un9xeve
Government Faces Legal Action Over ‘Collapse’ in Immigration Advice
The government is facing legal action over its failure to provide publicly-funded legal advice to asylum seekers and those facing immigration problems and concerns that the sector has ‘collapsed’. In a pre-action letter to the Lord Chancellor, Alex Chalk KC, the Public Law Project has said that the availability of legal aid in immigration and asylum cases is so low that it amounts to people being denied access to justice and a violation of the Lord Chancellor’s duties.
This is supported by a new report issued jointly by the PLP and Haringey Migrant Support Centre, claiming that the advice sector ‘has collapsed’. ‘Immigration and asylum legal aid work is not sustained by legal aid fees,’ it states. Providers are forced to ‘rely on mixed funding; the limited provision that remains is heavily subsidised by providers and grant funders’. ‘Support organisation’s referrals are going unanswered, as provider capacity is saturated. The report shows a system which is largely kept going by a small number of dedicated actors who, in exchange for stagnant pay, regularly work long, additional, unremunerated hours. The system is unequipped to replace such individuals and organisations when they inevitably move on or cease operations.’
The report notes that two thirds 66% of the UK public – 39 million people – do not have access to immigration or asylum legal aid in their local authority area.
Read more: Jack Sheard, Justice Gap, https://tinyurl.com/58ahdbsv
Exclusive: Home Office Stops Feeding Afghans Still Stuck in Hotels
The Home Office has stopped feeding hundreds of Afghan refugees who are still living in hotels, openDemocracy can reveal.
It follows the government’s decision to end the use of hotels to house more than 8,000 Afghans brought to the UK under its resettlement scheme by September.
Despite ministers pledging to “find homes for all of them”, at least 25 local councils have now been left responsible for preventing more than 500 Afghans becoming homeless, including 300 children, according to responses to Freedom of Information requests openDemocracy sent to every council in England.
Some have been allowed to stay in the hotels on a temporary basis but had their meals withdrawn overnight. One man we spoke to in Bradford, Salim*, said there were no fridges or cooking facilities, meaning he and his family have to rely on takeaways for hot food.
Read more: Adam Bychawski, Open Democracy, https://tinyurl.com/ye64cx47
What is the No Recourse to Public Funds Condition?
The “no recourse to public funds” condition is imposed on grants of limited leave to enter or remain with the effect of prohibiting the person holding that leave from accessing certain defined public funds, set out at paragraph 6 of the immigration rules. A person who deliberately claims public funds despite such a condition is committing a criminal offence. There may well be future immigration consequences as well.
Section 115 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 prevents people subject to immigration control from accessing a range of welfare benefits unless they fall into one of the exceptions.
It is possible to ask the Home Office to lift the condition from a person’s grant of leave, following which they can access benefits that they are eligible for.
What is the legal basis for the “no recourse to public funds” condition?
Read more: Freemovement, https://tinyurl.com/3ftjzmpj
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UN Rebukes Suella Braverman Over Her Attack on Refugee Convention
The UN’s refugee agency has rebuked Suella Braverman after she claimed that world leaders had failed to make wholesale reform of human rights laws because of fears of being branded “racist or illiberal”.
The UNHCR issued a highly unusual statement on Tuesday defending the 1951 refugee convention and highlighting the UK’s record asylum claim backlog.
It came after the home secretary refused to rule out leaving the convention and said the international community had “collectively failed” to modernise international laws.
She also claimed that women and gay people must face more than discrimination if they are to qualify as a refugee – a statement that has been challenged by refugee charities.
Speaking to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, Braverman claimed the international community had failed to reform the UN’s refugee convention of 1951 and the European convention on human rights (ECHR).
Read more; Rajeev Syal and Ben Quinn, Guardian, https://tinyurl.com/mwt675s8
UKIP Politician who Campaigned Against Illegal Workers Was One Him Self
A UKIP politician who campaigned against illegal migrant workers has been fined £500 - for working illegally. Former UKIP Parliamentary candidate Paul Dowson, 55, was caught getting paid as a rogue doorman at a seaside nightspot - and subsequently hit with a bill for £2,800 court costs.
A court heard that Dowson was paid "cash in hand" as a security supervisor at the popular Five Arches pub in the seaside town Tenby, Pembrokeshire. Police spotted him dressed in black, with an out-of-date armband licence card holder and a coat with ‘security’ written on it - and realised it was the former UKIP councillor.
Former county councillor Dowson stood as a would-be MP for UKIP speaking against migrant workers. He said at the time: "Politicians branded Wales a ‘Nation of Sanctuary’ and actively encourage illegal migrants to Wales. My local community, Pembrokeshire and wider Wales has suffered greatly at hands of virtue signalling policies." At the time, UKIP's leader Neil Hamilton said: “I am delighted to have Paul as an integral part of UKIP’s election campaign."
Read more: Wales On-Line, https://tinyurl.com/5cj8cutt
Legal Study on the Non-Punishment Principle for Victims of Human Trafficking
The Council of Europe last week published a very interesting legal study examining the principle of non-punishment of victims of trafficking, with a focus on the UK's approach following the European Court of Human Rights judgment in VCL and AN.
The authors commented: "The study considers the operationalisation of the non-punishment principle set out in Article 26 of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (CoE Anti-Trafficking Convention) in the UK following the 2021 judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in the case of V.C.L. and A.N. v. United Kingdom. The ECtHR found the UK in breach of Articles 4 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) for failing to identify and consider the protection needs of two Vietnamese children, despite credible suspicion they were victims of human trafficking, when they were prosecuted and convicted of drug offences in the UK. The study provides a comprehensive analysis of this decision and considers how the UK Government sought to comply with the ruling by making changes in domestic law and policy. It also reflects on recent developments in the UK's immigration law and policy which are critical for an understanding of the operationalisation of the non-punishment principle in the UK. Finally, it considers potential implications of these developments for the interpretation and application of the non-punishment principle in other Council of Europe member States."
Read more: EIN, https://tinyurl.com/2ehxvpz2
Home Office Accounts Show Additional £3 Billion Unbudgeted Asylum Expenditure
The Home Office annual report for 2022 has belatedly been published. It shows an additional £3 billion had to be allocated to pay for unexpected asylum system expenditure. An extra £1.6 billion had to be allocated because of “pressures within the asylum system” — the asylum backlog, basically — and on top of that an extra £0.7 billion was allocated “to implement the measures set out by the former Prime Minister on 14 April 2022 to fix the UK’s asylum system”. A further £0.7 billion was needed to fund the Afghan resettlement schemes, which were unanticipated.
The asylum backlog was self-inflicted by the government. Incompetence comes with a cost.
The report also shows that prosecutions and convictions of modern slavers fell in 2022 compare the previous year. This coincides with the victim-blaming measures introduced in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which led to a massive increase in negative assessments of trafficking claims.
The report is strangely silent on whether customer service standards were met. They weren’t, that’s why. It claims that “The Home Office has delivered the Nationality and Borders Act 2022.” In fact, the Home Office has abandoned the vast majority of that legislation.
Read more: Freemovement, https://tinyurl.com/5bzt3az8
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