Exploring Sexual Health Needs Amongst Unaccompanied Asylum Seekers is available online at www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/RS00018

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asylum watch

Everychild matters, says thegovernment’s flagship programmeforchildren. Butsomematter less than others. DRSHAMSERSINHAreports Save the children

Look on the website for the government’s Every Child Matters programme and hidden away under ‘Research and practice’ you’ll read children’s descriptions of dealings with the state in which they are rebuffed and ignored. The children are asylum seekers who were interviewed by myself and others for a report on Exploring Sexual Health Needs Amongst Unaccompanied Asylum Seekers . We found that many young asylum seekers find it almost impossible to access healthcare. One teenager couldn’t access a GP because all those she tried told her their lists were full or they didn’t accept her ID. ‘I had to cry because it’s too difficult for me and I think I have some infection,’ she told me. Another young woman said: ‘I’ve been to eight GPs but nobody takes me. They say to me, “We’re not registering any more.”’ We came across numerous instances where medical facilities and GP surgeries refused to accept official identity cards and documents issued by social services for registration; we found lack of provision of interpreting services; and we were told of young people repeatedly being redirected to alternative GPs. As one young woman put it, ‘Paper is more important than humans.’ Another young man told me: ‘If you don’t speak English in the hospital you have problems. Nobody interprets for you.’ The findings of this research are reinforced in a wider context by my experiences working with teenagers at Trinity House, a community centre in east London. One 17-year-old I worked with has lived in the UK since he was 10 and knows of no family or relatives here or in his country of origin. His mother died soon after arrival: ‘I lost my mum early so everything was so hard for me.’ He is in constant fear of removal and finds it difficult to follow the legal arguments of his case. Young people constantly talk about their fear of removal. One young woman told me: ‘You’re waiting day after day. Today they come and they gonna say to me, “Go to your country”. And it’s not good.” Another young woman, who was trafficked into the country and sexually exploited, has stopped going to school: ‘Sometimes I don’t want to go to school because there’s no point.’

Constant fear of deportation damages mental health. As one young mother, facing removal with her UK born baby, put it, ‘It makes crazy.’ Some run away as a result, so they have no access to official support and become vulnerable to exploitation. If they are put in detention they sometimes lose touch with their adult advocates – individuals who look out for their interests. It is not unusual for an advocate to have difficulty locating a detention centre in which a young asylum seeker has been placed. Since 1997 the government has implemented policies to guarantee universal entitlements for under-18s. Its flagship programme, Every Child Matters, declares that it aims for ‘every child, whatever their background or their circumstances, to have the support they need to be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution [and] achieve economic well-being.’ The problem for child asylum seekers is that at the same time, the government has instituted a legislative and institutional framework that reduces access to benefits and healthcare, and makes their position increasingly insecure. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) establishes the rights of children globally. But the UK signed up to this with

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the exception that it wouldn’t apply to non-British citizens in respect of migration and deportation rights. This directly affects the young asylum seekers I work with, who have been separated from their families. The vast majority are only given leave to remain until age 18. The possibility of eventual removal disrupts supportive relationships and, for young parents, their attempts to bring up their children. The 2004 amendments to NHS regulations on charges to overseas visitors also removed entitlements to free healthcare, other than for accident and emergency, from persons with insecure immigration status. These obstacles facing asylum seekers are increasingly well known but their impact on young people is less familiar. This October the Commission for Equality and Human Rights is launched with the brief ‘to reduce inequality, eliminate discrimination, strengthen good relations between people and protect human rights’. We must use this occasion to sharpen our focus on the multiple ways young asylum seekers are excluded from universal rights.

DrShamserSinha is a sociologistat London South BankUniversityand a youth workerattheDostChildren and Young People’s Servicein eastLondon

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