When I arrived in England in my late teens, I was somewhat bewildered and a little bit afraid, to be honest.
I was also extremely lonely. I didn’t know how to meet people and the culture was very different to what I enjoyed growing up in South Africa.
Yet I had everything going for me. I spoke English as my first language, my skin is white and I had a UK passport thanks to my English-born parents.
Nobody doubted my right to be in England. I was entitled to claim financial support for my housing and living costs, which I did. I hadn’t experience trauma. In fact I had just about everything going for me.
I can’t imagine what it must be like to be an asylum seeker, traumatised by war, murder and rape, traumatised by being separated from one’s family, traumatised by abuse on the journey to the UK.
I can’t imagine what it must be like to fear authority for every good reason, to have people disbelieving you, having to cope with a legal system which is totally alien which uses cultural references that are unfamiliar to you.
You have to rely on charitable giving to eat. You are alone, sad, homesick notwithstanding the horrors you have escaped from.
And then the officials tell you that you are lying, that there is an inconsistency in your story, that you will be deported.
This can be the experience of children going through the UK asylum system.
But a judgment in the Court of Appeal in the case of a 15 year old boy fleeing persecution from the Taliban, in Afghanistan, should mean that children, young people and other vulnerable persons, including those lacking capacity, have an effective right of access to the tribunal and a voice in the proceedings.
The case was brought by BHT’s Immigration Legal Service, and argued by Stephanie Harrison QC and Raza Halim from the Garden Court Chambers.
In a nutshell, the court stated that contradictory statements made by children should not always be fatal to a case and that the child’s history should be taken in the context of the country material and the expert reports which should be given more weight than minor contradictions made by a child.
The case also confirms that the Immigration and Asylum Tribunal have the power to appoint litigation friends in appropriate cases.
This case has established that “a child is foremost a child before he or she is a refugee”.
The court has provided new guidance to tribunals to ensure that children and vulnerable persons have their voices heard in asylum proceedings.
Please take the time to read an account of the case and the ruling on the Garden Court Chambers website.
Andy Winter is the chief executive of Brighton Housing Trust (BHT).
