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7th
February 2005
UNHCR
concerned about state of asylum debate in the UK
In response to the Government’s five year strategy on immigration
and asylum, the United Nations refugee agency has welcomed the international
leadership the Government of the United Kingdom has shown in reaffirming
its commitment to the 1951 Refugee Convention, but has expressed
concern about the state of the debate on asylum in the UK.
“The
international partnership reflected in the 1951 Convention is absolutely
essential to addressing today’s asylum issues,” said
Anne Dawson-Shepherd, the UN Refugee Agency’s Representative
to the United Kingdom, “An estimated 87 per cent of the people
of concern to UNHCR are looked after by some of the poorest countries
in Africa and Asia.”
“As well as talking about moral obligations and international
co-operation, we need to talk reality too”, added Dawson-Shepherd,
expressing the agency’s concerns. “The public continues
to be confused by the mixing of immigration and asylum and by the
myths that have seeped into the public debate in the UK.”
World-wide, the number of asylum applications has continued to fall
and is at its lowest for 17 years. The UK is not the top receiving
country. Pakistan is the most generous host – looking after
over 1.1 million refugees – and has been for years. The UK
ranks just 74th world-wide in terms of refugees per GDP per capita.
Greater cooperation between countries to address some of the root
causes that force people to flee combined with efforts to harmonize
protection for refugees within the European Union are some of the
significant steps taken by the international community to improve
the way asylum systems work. The positive results of some of these
actions are reflected in the dramatic 41 per cent fall in the number
of asylum applicants in the UK since 2002.
“Now is the time to focus on improvement in the quality of
decision making and to ensure that asylum seekers have good legal
advice,” declared Dawson-Shepherd.
With regard to the Government’s plan to review grants of refugee
status after an initial five-year period, Dawson-Shepherd reiterated
the importance of abiding by the terms set out in the 1951 Refugee
Convention in order to determine whether circumstances have changed
in the refugee’s country of origin: “The change which
has taken place in the country must be fundamental - not a mere
transitory change in the facts surrounding the individual refugee’s
fear.”
ENDS
Note
to Editor
By the end of 2004, 145 States had signed either the 1951 Convention
Relating to the Status of Refugees, its 1967 Protocol or both.
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