Article text, Part 2 ~ The world is now facing a record number of people displaced by war. We expect to see the number of refugees in need increase dramatically over the coming years. If we care about humanity, this exponential rise needs to be matched with services, media coverage and empathy. Instead we have biased media coverage and a crippled unfair system in the UK, the place I call home.
In the UK, a bill was passed in Government just last week that criminalises those seeking asylum here. It creates two tiers of refugees, a clear and horrific segregation of those desperate people that need our help most. They will now face up to four years in prison, or could be transferred to Rwanda, a country notorious for human rights abuses. These inhumane policies in the UK will devastate the lives of those who have already endured unimaginable suffering. There is a reason why people take these perilous journeys. Governments rightly praise the public support for those fleeing war in Ukraine, yet for children facings bombs in Yemen, or Uyghurs fleeing genocide in China, there are no safe and legal routes for escape, nor a fraction of empathy shown.
People who make it to the UK face a system in which they are not allowed to work and, instead, are expected to live on as little as five pounds a day. Meanwhile, they often have to wait 4 years, or sometimes more, for an answer on their refugee status.
There is a danger that this institutionalised unbalanced approach will become more extreme as the numbers of those seeking sanctuary rise. This will reinforce inconsistencies in the way we treat human beings from different places.
We must extend the same helping hand and mirror the same welcoming reception we have offered to Ukrainians to all those fleeing the hardships of war, famine and oppression. We must treat all those suffering the impacts of war and oppression with dignity and fairness. Our principles must remain consistent, or they are not principles at all.
For Ukraine, Yemen, Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, West Papua and all those suffering the horrors of war and oppression.