Human Rights Day – Refugees and Asylum Seekers and Human Rights
Who is a refugee?
A refugee is a person who has fled their own country because they are at risk of serious human rights violations and persecution there. The risks to their safety and life were so great that they had no choice but to leave and seek safety outside their country because their own government cannot or will not protect them from those dangers. Refugees have rights to international protection.
Who is an Asylum seeker?
An asylum seeker is a person who has left their country and is seeking protection from persecution and serious human rights violation in another country, but who hasn't yet been legally recognized as a refugee and is waiting to receive a decision on their asylum claim.
According to UNHCR statistics, at the end of 2019 there were 133,094 refugees, 61,968 pending asylum cases and 161 stateless persons in the UK.
Why do people leave their home Country?
There are many reasons why people leave their Countries - to rebuild their lives after escaping persecution or human rights violations such as torture, to flee from armed conflicts or other crises or violence, while others flee because they no longer feel safe and are targeted just because of who they are, what they do or what they believe in.
Hear from an Asylum Seeker in Glasgow:
During this campaign, we had the opportunity to speak with an asylum seeker in Glasgow. She came to the UK from Nigeria to study and had intended to return home to pass on her knowledge and pursue her career, however she is a lesbian and her sexuality became known to her family and friends.
She can no longer go back to her home country now, not only have her family rejected her, she has also received a number of threats to her life from people she knows and people she doesn’t know. Being a lesbian in her country is illegal and she can be jailed for up to 14 years or be killed by homophobes and religious people who believe being gay is a sin.
She said ‘some people end up feeling alone and isolated because they have lost the support networks they get from their own country, families, colleagues, and friends. But being in a country where my sexuality is accepted by all and having legal protection, I have no fear of any one because of who I am, it has really changed my life’.
We hope our blogs have shown a world where human rights can be enjoyed by everyone, however there are also still, in 2020, serious violations to Human Rights which we all have a responsibility to highlight, fight against and change.
To find out more about Human Rights across the world, here are a few sites we found useful
Reference
Amnesty International: https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/refugees-asylum-seekers-and-migrants
UN Refugee Agency: https://www.unhcr.org/uk/asylum-in-the-uk.html#:~:text=According%20to%20UNHCR%20statistics%2C%20at,are%20hosted%20by%20developing%20countries