Are family reunion rules protecting or endangering refugee youth?
The British Red Cross calls for Home Office to guarantee that young people will not be left alone in the world’s most dangerous places.
More than 90 per cent of British people say family would be what they’d miss most if they were forced to leave the UK. Fortunately, the principle of family reunion is recognised in the UK’s rules for refugees. This is because our government, and many around the world, recognises the importance and value of family in helping people rebuild their lives.
Why then are some refugees’ children barred from entering the UK? Because the rules state that children aged 18 and over are not entitled to refugee family reunion, even if they were living with their parents when they were forced to flee.
This implies that the day a person turns 18 years old, they no longer need their parents – and vice versa. Neither of which are true. Eighty-nine per cent of those who responded to a poll we commissioned said they didn’t think their own 18 year-old son or daughter would be able to face life alone without parental support. And for those that have fled war and persecution, lost their homes, friends and everything else they once knew, life alone would be even harder.
Yet the Red Cross often learns of young people forced to fend for themselves in the very places from which the rest of their family has been protected. Research shows that many family members of refugees are living in danger.
Of the 91 cases the Red Cross examined in 2014, over half of the family members left abroad (112) were exposed to security risks. These risks included abduction, arrest or imprisonment, domestic violence, forced recruitment and violence. In this regard, refugee family reunion is more closely aligned with asylum than immigration.
Faced by these dangers and unable to reunite through the formal family reunion routes, people as young as 18 are forced to embark on dangerous journeys just to try to be with their parents. More than 3000 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean this year alone– something we should be trying to prevent with both search and rescue and safe and legal routes to safety. Allowing young people in this situation to reunite with their parents would be one of the safest and simplest ways the UK could do more to help the refugee crisis.
The British Red Cross has been calling for the UK’s refugee family reunion rules to be more inclusive and, thankfully, the Home Office has responded. Their family reunion guidance now explicitly refers to children aged 18 years and over. It says that children aged 18 and over who are left in danger and are not leading independent lives qualify for exceptional and compassionate circumstance in which visas should be granted outside the rules.
This is an important step forward. But we want to be sure that this change in guidance results in fewer families being torn apart. The Government should publish how many children are now able to reunite with their families as a result of this new guidance.
We remain of the view that, while a change in guidance is very welcome, a change in the rules would provide more certainty for refugee families. Without such a change, these life-changing decisions will ultimately be left at the discretion of Home Office staff. The Red Cross wants to guarantee young people are not faced with the prospect of being left alone in some of the world’s most dangerous places.
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