Richard Harrington MP hosted a number of Syrian groups on 2 October to discuss issues pertaining to the resettlement of Syrian refugees to the UK after he was appointed as the special minister to oversee this process. We presented MP Harrington with a list of core issues that Syrian refugees face upon resettlement to the UK, and stressed the need for his agency to coordinate its work with Syrian organisations. We further stressed that Syrians should have a role in leading the Government's efforts, for example in helping with the identification of the most vulnerable refugees for resettlement and in being provided with the tools to support refugees both culturally and linguistically. The letter below has been submitted to the minister before the meeting.
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Ministerial workshop with the Syrian Diaspora
Friday 2 October 2015, 11:00 – 12:30
We thank Richard Harrington MP for providing us the opportunity to present to him some of the issues facing Syrian refugees. We propose the following:
Recommendations for resettlement:
- Ensure that the most vulnerable Syrian refugees are resettled to the UK. This entails working with the UNHCR to ensure that it is processing refugees in line with this objective. Syrian organisations within the UK can also help by bringing pertinent and urgent cases to the minister's awareness.
- Support Syrian charitable and non-charitable organisations that support Syrian refugees in the UK. Provide such organisations a priority (for example, in funding) over non-Syrian organisations since they better understand the needs of Syrian refugees and can provide support in culture and language-specific context.
- Create a national help line to help Syrian refugees throughout Britain. This help line can coordinate with the different local Syrian organisations as required.
- Implement effective integration schemes for Syrian refugees. Many Syrian refugees are professionals and are eager to commence work in the UK in line with their professions. However, the process of converting their qualifications is often tedious and thus many Syrians take up unskilled jobs instead. The UK should instate effective integration schemes that allow Syrians to take up professions and careers in line with their skills, thus allowing them to better contribute to wider society.
- Provide priority to existing Syrian families in fostering resettled Syrian orphans and facilitate the required training for them. As and when Syrian children arrive without their families, there are many Syrian families who are willing to foster the children.
Recommendations for Syrians who arrive to the UK outside the resettlement scheme:
- Implement faster processing times for asylum and family reunion claims. Some Syrians face long wait times for their asylum or family reunion claims to be processed. In the meantime, they are unable to work, contribute to their wider society, or file for reunion with their immediate family members, many of whom remain in immediate danger in Syria.
- Apply less stringent requirements for family reunion applications. Syrian refugees often find it difficult to provide official papers proving their relationships with their spouses and/or children, either because they fled their homes without such documents or because they lost them en route to the UK. Additionally, the authenticity of documents presented by Syrians for family reunion purposes is often (unfairly) questioned. With such issues in mind, documentation requirements regarding family reunion applications should be somewhat relaxed when dealing with Syrian cases.
- Allow refugees (especially those under the age of eighteen) to bring their parents to the UK through family reunion.
- Resolve the issue regarding the Form for Affixing the Visa with Turkey. A number of Syrians without passports have been unable to exit Turkey because Turkish authorities do not accept the Form for Affixing the Visa (issued by the British Consulate General in Istanbul) as a valid entry visa to the UK. This leaves many Syrian families stranded in Turkey and unable to join family members here in the UK. We ask that UK officials resolve this issue with Turkey or that the UK issue emergency travel documents instead of the Form for Affixing the Visa to ensure Syrians' exit from Turkey.
Overarching recommendations:
- Reduce the time frame for the announced UK policy of taking in 20,000 Syrian refugees over five years to two years. The resettlement of 20,000 Syrian refugees to the UK is a good start, although a five-year implementation plan is too long especially taking into account the horrible conditions that Syrian refugees face.
- Maintain an open-ended commitment to take in more Syrian refugees following this two-year period which is proportional to the intake of countries such as Germany and Sweden (together, these countries received 47% of the Syrian asylum applications in the EU from April 2011 to July 2015).
- The ultimate solution for solving the refugee crisis is to help stop the Syrian Crisis itself which is driving people away from the country due to indiscriminate bombardment and lack of basic infrastructure including humanitarian and healthcare services. Safe havens for refugees and humanitarian corridors are important.
Signatories:
Hand in Hand for Syria (HiH)
Human Care Syria (HC)
Rethink Rebuild Society (RR)
Syrian Association of Yorkshire (SAY)
Syria Relief (SR)
