#and with covid and my health issues I can’t volunteer anymore

[tj-crochets]

Five donation beanies!

[uk-news-talking-politics]

Survey reveals betrayal of migrant women during covid

By Priscilla Dudhia

During the lockdown, Women for Refugee Women partnered with seven other organisations, in the Sisters Not Strangers coalition to find out how asylum-seeking women were surviving the pandemic. Marginalised by deliberately hostile policies, these women were vulnerable to hunger, homelessness and ill health even before the outbreak. As our findings show, they are now struggling more than ever.

Many of the refugee women leaders who coordinated this research felt that the experiences of women like them were not being taken seriously. Indeed, emergency measures have been wholly inadequate in protecting those at the edges of society, exposing gaping holes in the social safety net. "This research is so important because when we speak as individuals it can sound as if we are trying to dramatise the situation," Loraine Mponela, an asylum-seeking woman who chairs the Coventry Asylum and Refugee Action Group, said: "But it's not drama, it's real life."

Everyday life for women within the asylum system means poverty. Women who are still in the asylum process are effectively banned from working, so they must survive on just £5.39 a day - an amount raised by an insulting 29p during the pandemic.

Most of the women that our groups support have fled gender-based violence – such as forced prostitution, domestic assault and female genital mutilation. But racism and sexism in Home Office decision-making means that their stories of persecution are often disbelieved, and it has become harder and harder for them to access quality legal advice.

If they are refused asylum, many of these women, who are still scared of being persecuted in their country of origin, remain in the UK. But they have no access to welfare benefits or asylum support and no right to work. Real life for these women, even before the pandemic, was a state of indefinite destitution.

"I used to eat at a charity," one asylum-seeking woman, called Lora, said. "They have closed. [Another] centre used to give me a voucher twice a week. But I can't have that anymore". When many charities closed at the start of the lockdown, women were often blocked from accessing hot meals and hardship payments. Priti Patel declared that "our measures are working", but in fact three quarters of the women who answered our survey went hungry, including mothers who struggled to feed their families. "At the beginning of the lockdown I had food for just one day for me and my two boys", Grace, another respondent, said. "I did not eat so they could eat."

Only four women who answered the survey were in emergency accommodation provided by councils. More than a fifth of them were homeless and reliant on temporary arrangements with community members. One refused asylum-seeking woman spent two nights sleeping on night buses and in a park at the very start of the lockdown, waiting for the local council in London to accommodate her.

In sharp contrast to provisions made by the Welsh government, funding pledged by Westminster did not extend to people - such as refused asylum seekers – who had no recourse to public funds. Inadequate funding and confusion over how local authorities could legally accommodate people with no recourse to public funds meant that some destitute asylum-seeking women were denied emergency housing and told by councils to approach the Home Office instead. Yet only two women who answered our survey were given emergency accommodation by the Home Office during lockdown.

As part of this research, we also spoke to staff and volunteers at the charities involved. They reported delays in the provision of housing so severe that one vulnerable woman granted asylum support on April 4th was not accommodated until May 22nd. Other women "showed a fear of seeking support from the Home Office… due to mistrust of sharing their information… and what that might mean". For traumatised survivors of sexual violence, the fear of being dispersed to accommodation far from their support networks also acted as a deterrent to seeking help from the Home Office.

A fifth of women were forced to sleep in the same room as a non-family member during the pandemic, despite government insistence on social distancing. One woman, Sarah, has been living destitute since her asylum claim was refused some time ago. She was forced to move several times during the pandemic, at one point sleeping on the floor in the room of a male stranger, cooking and cleaning the house in order to avoid street homelessness. Like many asylum-seeking women we work with, Sarah has complex mental health issues and tried to take her own life after her claim was rejected and support withdrawn.

Unable to access sufficient food and safe housing, the vast majority of women who answered the survey said that their mental health had deteriorated. Almost a quarter of women said that it had become "much worse than before", exacerbated by challenges in accessing NHS care and increased isolation from a lack of phone and internet access.

A fifth of support workers had assisted women who were forced to stay in unwanted or abusive relationships – but with the closure of face-to-face services, the true figure of abuse during lockdown is likely to be much higher than what the survey revealed. Indeed, our previous research highlighted the prevalence of sexual abuse among women who were deprived of secure housing and basic needs - a third of the women we spoke with for that large scale study who had fled sexual violence in their country of origin had been sexually abused again in the UK while living destitute.

We at Sisters Not Strangers believe that no one's ability to survive the outbreak should be determined by their immigration status. We are calling for a grant of leave-to-remain to be given to people awaiting decisions from the Home Office, those who have been refused asylum and those who are undocumented. This would ensure that vulnerable people have access to support, safe housing and NHS care during a public health emergency.

We feel that the pandemic has not only exposed the holes in our current safety nets, but given us an opportunity to look deeply at what we must to do in order to build a more equal society. We need to reform the system that has placed asylum-seeking people in danger during the outbreak and to challenge all those policies that have entrenched poverty, patriarchy and white privilege in British society as a whole. We have seen solidarity and compassion in communities all over the UK since the pandemic began. Let's continue this sense of unity to build an equal and caring society that fully values all of its members.

[kristinhoneywell]

Wednesday April 15 - Day 31

I’m extremely angry today.  I’m angry that my child is missing out on priceless experiences as a high school Senior that he will never get back. I’m angry that I have to make decisions on whether or not to pay our part time employees so that we can save the employees that depend entirely on their income from us rather than those who perhaps don’t.  It’s fucking Sophie’s Choice every day.  I’m angry that my workplace could potentially close to the detriment of the community that we serve. I’m angry that the unemployed are making $1000 a week while people working at McDonald’s or Meijer are making wages they can barely live on.  I’m angry that if this continues I might lose my job and I won’t qualify for unemployment at all.  I’m annoyed that protestors are working to impeach our Governor and rallying today in Lansing to protest her restrictions.  What good will that do?  Go volunteer your time at a shelter or the hospital or get a job at the grocery store if you want to “help”.  I don’t agree with the extra restrictions our Governor imposed either but she is following federal government guidelines for the most part. Why aren’t you angry with Trump?  This is not a political issue.  It’s a human rights issue.  Why are Republicans not angry about the $600 government handout to the unemployed?  I thought they were opposed to government handouts?  I guess it’s OK if Trump authorized it.  And all these Democrats who hate Trump are finding no problems with taking his handouts and cashing his stimulus check.  I guess Trump finally is “your” President.  There is no such thing as a free ride.  We will all pay eventually with cuts in the budget and taxes and everyone will cry about the unfairness of it all. You are all a bunch of whining hypocrites.  Again, this is a human rights issue not an excuse to spout your political party propaganda. I’m angry that my kid at age 18 is considered an adult so I don’t get an extra $500 for him.  He is still my dependent.  I don’t need the money right now because I’m working but what if I wasn’t?  The whole concept that once your kid turns 17 he is an adult in the government’s eyes is pure bullshit.  I don’t know many 17 year olds that are able to support themselves.  My kid deserves the money.  It won’t begin to compensate for what he has lost but it can at least help him out at college. If he even gets to go. This world and our government is completely fucked up.  This entire situation is ridiculous.  Kent County has a population of 650,000 and we have 300 cases and 11 deaths.  This is enough to ruin lives for?  I don’t accept or understand this and I never will.  Shelter the vulnerable population and let the rest of us live our lives, catch this virus, and develop the immunity needed to conquer it.  We have been told time and time again that we can’t prevent this virus we can only flatten the curve.  It’s about flattening the curve.  What bullshit.  We have flattened the curve in Kent County if there ever was a curve in Kent County. What is our master plan?  What is our end game here?  I’m told by the media that this virus hangs in the air for hours.  I can walk through it hours after someone coughed and I will get it.  I can bring it home on my clothes or shoes and it will magically waft into the air and infect my entire family.  If someone even breathes anywhere near me that has it, I will get it. Supposedly it spreads that easily.  If that is true, why doesn’t every health care provider in the country have it?  Medical personnel would have to change their masks every time someone breathes on them even once with this logic.  I don’t believe it.  It’s a scare tactic.  However, I do believe it is more contagious than other viruses and thus it infects more people which is why more people are dying.  I understand that it’s serious. But again, what is the end game?  If all of this is true “flattening curve”right now is only going to prolong the inevitable.  The minute we open up this country the curve will rise within weeks.  So then what?  We close again?  If what we are being told is true, that all of us have zero immunity to this, that it’s so contagious that we ALL will get this, closing the country for one month won’t help nor will closing for 2 months or 6 months.  The minute we re-open this whole process will start all over again.  So let’s assume that we all will become ill with COVID-19 eventually.  Why not let it happen now at least to the capacity that hospitals can handle?  Our hospitals on this side of the state are NOT overrun. In fact, they are under used.  Medical professionals aren’t working and people aren’t getting other medical treatments that they need.  We can handle more cases. If someone isn’t able to battle this virus now they won’t be able to battle it in 6 months either.  They are fated to die.  I don’t want anyone to die but I am being led to believe there is nothing we can do to prevent it this illness, only slow it. So instead we have chosen to prolong it.  For what purpose?  This is all futile unless we have a cure.  There is no logic to this.  We can’t close the country until we find a cure.  If we do that even the government will go bankrupt. We can’t financially support an entire nation on the government.  I know COVID-19 is serious.  I’ve seen all your “factual statistics” and your “science” and your advice from medical professionals.  For every statistic, scientific fact, and piece of medical advice you show me as proof to back you up, I can find something that will show the complete opposite.  So why are you all spouting this nonsense? There are no true statistics and data in this world anymore.  There is no such thing as an impartial news source. The truth is, no one knows the real truth here.   I ask again - what is the end game?  What is the master plan? There is none.  Let us go!  Let the kids go to school and let people work.  Let us get the virus.  We are only prolonging the misery.  Go ahead.  Come at me.