Mothers' Campaign of the All African Women's Group

Crossroads Women’s Centre, 230a Kentish Town Rd

London NW5 2AB, Tel: 020 7482 2496

We have launched a petition with our demands for family reunion and invite you to sign it at http://www.PetitionOnline.com/MumsKids/petition.html .

The Mothers’ Campaign of the All African Women’s Group n Mothers & children seeking asylum We are mothers who have had to flee to the UK leaving our children behind in our home country. Our lives were at risk – most of us have been through rape and other torture; some of us have seen family members killed. We left our children when we saw they would be safer without us. We didn’t know where we were going, or how, or if we would survive. When we claim asylum we are not recognised as mothers who are suffering separation from their children. Even when we win the right to stay, we still face the pain of being prevented from reuniting our family. "We are consumed by guilt and worry. Every meal we eat we think of whether our children have food. But our love for them is also what keeps us going. Sometimes you feel so hopeless, you want to end your life but knowing your children need you is what makes you keep fighting.” n We sometimes lose contact with children back home. Or we hear of them suffering without our protection – living on the streets after caring relatives have died; taken by the military; or even turning to pick-pocketing and prostitution to survive and feed the younger ones. We have hardly enough to feed ourselves but we do all we can to send money home for them. And if we don’t know where they are, we raise money to search for them. We do low-paid, illegal work or even sleep with men for money for them. But if our kids turn 18 while we wait – often for years – for an asylum claim to be settled, we lose the right for them to join us. This government talks so much about the importance of families and claims that “Every child matters”, yet our children are denied their mothers’ love and protection. None of the media stories about missing children which highlight the parents’ distress, even mention what we and our children are going through. We demand that: We are recognised as mothers, with dependent children When the government grants amnesty (the right to stay without having to establish a fear of persecution) to families with children here, that we, together with our children back home, must also have a right to family amnesty. Though we are divided, we are a family. Everyone who wins the right to stay in the UK, no matter under which law or convention, must have the unconditional right to family reunion. Children should have the right to join their mother or father even if they turned 18 before their parents’ asylum claim was settled. We urge British embassies/high commissions in our home countries to show their commitment to families by helping to find our missing children and reunite them with their mothers. "Mummy, you are the only person I have to save me from everything I’m going through. Thomas screams every night. . . . I don’t even know what to say about Michael but he’s a baby boy who needs his mummy right now.” Letter from a teenage girl whose mother was forced to leave her four children behind. For more information, including how you can help, contact All African Women’s Group, aawg02@gmail.com Crossroads Women’s Centre, 230a Kentish Town Rd London NW5 2AB, Tel: 020 7482 2496

Dawn Raid Across the Hall

This morning there were noises in the close. I was lying in bed just waking up thinking that maybe there were workmen coming in to do work in one of the flats. For a moment there flickered the thought of secret police coming and taking families in another place at a different time. Then my boyfriend raised his head of the pillow and listened harder. “Shhhh”, I said. “Relax, it’s workmen, they’re at a different flat, not ours.” He said “have the neighbours got status? (meaning permission to stay in the country)” I don’t know. Shit! I jumped up and looked out of the front window. Shit, shit shit, 2 big vans, one silver people carrier and one of the big blue vans that I had seen parked outside the Home Office the week before whlst showing new Unity volunteers around. They were just pulling away.

I quickly got dressed and knocked on the door across the landing. Noises inside, phew, they are still there. Father comes to the door, child holding baby stand behind him. “Are you okay”. “Yeah, but my wife”. The family all have permission to stay in this country but the mother’s visa expired. They don’t have a lawyer. There were 7 booted armoured up officers – some immigration some police – to take this one woman away from her husband and children. Her baby is only 6 months old. We exchanged phone numbers and I got on with my morning.

After lunch I went to the Unity office and my neighbour arrived there soon after me – I’d given him the address that morning. He was carrying the baby and I was about to fly into a rage at them taking the mother when she walked in behind him. Hooray! They had only detained her for a short time. All of that show of strength and time and money to give her one piece of paper! We organised a lawyer for them. Thank yous and hugs. I burst into tears when they walked out the door. The strain and relief all at the same time.

Later I am walking back home in the rain. I turn the corner to my street and lift my head and see my neighbour walking towards me, smiling and getting on with his day. "That's more like it!" He punches me gently on the shoulder as we pass each other not slackening pace in the cold and he says "god bless."

Campaign Emails

The sky is blue today. I walk to the Unity centre early expecting to open up and am surprised to find someone already there. I sit and have some tea, chat, and do some tidying and cleaning. The people start coming in to sign the book, go to the home office, then come back and cross their names from the book.

There is a family in detention. Their flight back to where they fled from is scheduled for tomorrow. Someone is talking to them and their lawyer on the phone. Sending out emails asking people to fax the home office and fax the airline to try and get it stopped. There are 3 children in the family. The have been in detention for 6 weeks since their last flight was stopped at the last minute. Now they are booked on another one tomorrow.

There are some people new to unity today who I register. One man lead strikes as a member of the opposition party in his country and there was a government crackdown making it dangerous for him to stay. He had just arrived in the UK. Another man has been here for 8 years. He gets no financial help and has nowhere to live. He also has no right to work and must report at the Home Office every day until his paperwork is sorted out. He is completely reliant on friends. When I suggest that he needs a lawyer because he hasn't had one for a while he just shakes his head and says, it's no use, it's no use. I try to argue with him, that if he is signing at the home office and he wants us to help him if he is detained it would be better to have a lawyer who already knows his case. He takes the list of lawyers and says he will come back.

A woman comes in explaining it is her first time here too. She has been here for 4 years and for the last 3 also has had no home, no financial support and no right to work making her dependent on friends. The friends that she is staying with are thinking of moving and she is scared. She goes and sees her lawyer, comes back and just starts crying. "I don't know where my family is, all in my country is killing and it is just getting worse, I belong to Scotland, I don't want to be sent to London, I can't go back to my country, I am doing well in college, where am I going to live, how am I going to live? Whenever I come to the home office I am so scared." I don't have any answers for her questions.

A man comes in who is a friend, he's helped me out in the past. His friend was dawn raided. This means that 6 men came to his door at 6.30am on Sunday morning, handcuffed him, didn't give him time to collect any belongings and took him to Dungavel detention centre. His flight is scheduled for Thursday. I talk to the lawyer and he doesn't seem to think that anything can be done. My friend talks to his friend and translates. He faces religious persecution if he returns to his country. I send out a campaign email to get support for his case but time is short.

2 older girls sit on the sofa playing noughts and crosses waiting for their parents to come back from the home office. I teach them how to play dots and squares as well and they pick it up quickly.

2 people haven't crossed their names off at the end of the day. I call them up and both are fine, they just forgot to come back after the long wait in the home office.

I call up the family in detention whose flight is scheduled for tomorrow. I speak to one of the children. Good news! They won't be removed tomorrow. I put a line through their removal date on the office board and write "cancelled".

Have you seen the paper today?

As I walk towards the Unity Office in the spring sunshine I see my friend waiting for her husband to return from reporting in at the Home Office as he must do every week. I stop and we chat about the meal we shared last week – delicious. She is waiting outside the Unity office because inside it is busy. There is a new man from Eritrea registering, two children running in and out playing and one woman is back again so we can help chase up her landlord, Angel (a private company which charges large rents to the Home Office making a profit from people seeking asylum who have no choice but to live in the flats offerred). Her washing machine still isn’t plumbed in and she has to share the flat with people she doesn’t know and she doesn’t have a lock on her room. Can we help get it sorted?

Someone passes me the paper. A picture from the protest outside the Home Office yesterday is on the front page. Someone else calls. Can I phone the police and arrange to go and collect the banners that they confiscated at the protest.

My friend’s husband, also my friend returns. He waves at a man across the road, says , “he’s from Chad, he’s been here 9 years. Last year he started having to report at the home office every week.”

Someone full of vigour comes in, puts on music and starts tidying up and cleaning.

I go outside and a man in the street shouts to me “Your protests won’t come to anything you know. Send the blacks back.” I feel cold and hope that my new friend inside hasn’t heard.

A man comes in asking if there is any news. He has a strong Glasawegian accent. He starts chatting. He has been here ten years. Last year he had to start reporting at the Home Office and he had his right to work taken away from him.

|A woman comes in a lot calmer than usual. She explains, she has started taking a tranquiliser before she comes to the Home Office to settle her nerves because she can’t take the stress of it.

There is a name that isn’t crossed off the list meaning that he hasn’t returned from the Home Office and has possibly been detained. I phone his friend. At first he doesn’t understand what I am staying, then he gets it. “I’ll contact him and get straight back to you”. He calls back in seconds, the man is safe, just didn’t put a line through his name when he returned. My embarassment at having needlessly called evaporates when he says “thank you, thank you for all your help.”

A woman leaves her little girl who plays silently on the plastic rocking horse and with the red toy bus. Everyone who comes in smiles at her but she hardly acknowledges them and just carries on playing.

Unity t-shirts for sale

I walk into Unity in the cold and think about one of my friends who must report at the Home Office today. I think that maybe I am too late to see him but as I near the door to the Unity centre he turns the corner. He says he was thinking of me too, wondering if we would meet today. Then he asks me if I have seen the paper. The man who set himself alight in the court died in hospital. He was claiming asylum here but it looked likely he would be forced to reeturn from where he fled. Yes, I had seen it. Terrible.

I ask him where his wife is. She comes and waits in the Unity office every week when he comes to sign. She sits and waits for him to come back. She told me once of a time he took 3 hours to come back and how frantic she was. He turns and points to where she is waiting with friends. I turn and wave and they come over. We hug and chat and just stand still.

In the office, someone is designing a Unity t-shirt. There is a lot of communication with the press about a dawn raid that happenned this week. A family lots of people know, it sparked an angry protest at the home office building. The man handcuffed in front of his children, the youngest child, born here. They are now in a detention centre fighting being taken from this country back to from where they fled.

A woman comes in and crosses her name off the list marking her safe return from the Home Office. She makes the mark so heavily she makes a hole in the paper.

Families come and leave their children at Unity while they go to sign. For a while there are bus races up and down the floor and a smell of lollipops. One girl sits quietly in her pushchair looking around.

A woman comes back from the home office and stands, asking about the news, commenting on the situations, looking sad and proud and serious and gentle. She touches my arm and leaves.

I make phonecalls chasing up house repairs and lost parcels for people. A man comes in and asks what’s going on. He only met people from his country in the home office today, where are all the people from the other countries? He is panicing, thinks there is a big round up going on. I know of no such thing, we have had the usual mix of people in the office. I try to reassure him.

Another man is anxious because it was quicker than usual to sign. The queue wasn’t so big. What does this mean? Does this mean there is more danger, less. Every small thing has huge weight.

A woman upset because some of the officials she has to deal with were saying they had to look at he case again and she may lose her apartment. She is breathing so fast she can hardly speak. It turns out the people that spokke to her have no power in this area and were just frightening her. We try to refocus her mind on preparing for her birthday party.

There is an email printout in the office that the home Office gave one family by mistake. It detailed when they were to be detained, needless to say they didn’t turn up that day.

3 women come in. The brother of one of them was due to be flown back yesterday. The removal officers tried to sedate him with drugs but he wouldn’t drink the juice they had hidden it in. He got on the plane and stood up and told the other people on the plane what was going on. He made such a fus that the pilot wouldn’t fly with him and he was taken off the plane, hit by the guards and literally thrown back in the van.

My friend and her 4 children have to sign this afternoon and I am waiting for them. She is very nervous because before she only had to sign by herself and now they have asked her to bring all her children. It is a rush after school. She appears with her eldest son. I am relieved. She is too. Her daughter has exams and so she is excused from signing for a few months but the others still have to go. It takes the pressure off a little as it is less likely she will be detained without all her children. But she’s still not sleeping. Her son tells me some of the things that are wrong while she quietly cries and worries about all the people seeking asylum who have killed themselves rather than face return. Then she pulls herself in, tells another woman, we give each other hope, and leaves the office.

He's not saying what I said

A man comes in distraught. He is being evicted from his flat, he has a teenage daughter and he is ill, he has visible marks of torture. He rants, "I had a truck and a car burned out for these people. I risked my life transporting white, British people across the border to South Africa so they would be safe, and now I am treated like this."

He talks of his interview with the home office. His English is perfect but according to the rules there must be an interpreter, the interpreter is from his country but a different tribe, they have no real common language although he can understand what the interpreter says. During the interview when the interpreter is speaking to the person from the home office and got it wrong the man spoke up to say no, that's not what I said. But the official said, "I have to take what the interpreter says".

There is another man with us in the office who now starts to speak too. "That happenned with me too. The interpreter they brought spoke one of my languages but was from a country far away so the dialect was completely different and she often didn't understand what I said. They wouldn't let me just talk to them in my English."

What about if you can't go home?

I overhear a conversation in the office.

The man who has just come in is looking for some advice. He is originally from Palestine but was a refugee in Iraq for a time. He claimed asylum in Britain and was refused so he went for voluntary return (whereby people are offerred £3,000 to leave the country). He said, okay, fair enough, I'll go back. But... Iraq wouldm't take him - he's not a citizen there, and he was refused entry to Palestine by Israel ( a relative had once been a member of a Palestinian political organisation) and was put on a flight back to Britain.

So here he is in the office, officially stateless, no right to work, no right to benefit or housing and nowhere to go. He tried to go back! Where to from here?

Bail Hearing

Today I go to court to be surety for a bail hearing. There is a family. A man and a woman and their 11 year old son and their 2 year old daughter. They have been in the UK since 2000. The boy speaks fluent English with a Scottish accent. The man was taken in May last year and put in detention. He was taken to England and put in a centre there. His wife and children remained in Glasgow. After some months he was brought to Dungavel and held there. He had committed no crime for this detention. Today's hearing is not to do with their claim for asylum, it is to ask for bail so that while their asylum claim is being processed the man can live with his wife and children.

I arrive at 10am to the 4th floor of a big office block in Glasgow city centre. I walk in to a busy waiting area and sit with the people I know. The wife of the man in detention, their children and friends. The woman hands me a small box and a card. The box contains jewellery her husband has made while in detention and the card has a message of thanks. I am touched, it is unexpected.

We sit, the lawyer calls me to explain the procedure, we sit some more. There has been a mix-up with ordering the interpreter. One is on her way but will be about an hour and a half, we will have to wait. I go out to a cafe to get breakfast. I come back and we sit. The boy says to me, "It's my birthday soon, I'm going to be 12. I hope my dad will be there for my birthday." His little sister walks around the room making friends with everyone.

Just before 1pm we are called into court. We stand for the judge as he enters to take his seat on the raised platform opposite the man and his interpreter. Completing the square are a home office official onthe left and the man's lawyer on the right. There is a piece of paper missing and it is lunchtime. Court is adjourned until 2pm. We all stand again fro the judge leaving and go back to the waiting area. The home office official is a big burly older man. He comes to speak to the family. The girl is asleep in her pram, "oh, she's beautiful". He talks to the boy, "What school are you at? What's your favourite subject? You work hard now so you do well in school. You know your Dad hasn't done anything wrong, you should know that." A friend of the man says, "You know he has been in detention for 9 months." The Home Office official says defensively, "I can't do anything about that, I'm just doing my job, I'm not making the decision today, we have to see what the judge says."

We go out for a coffee, come back and are called in again. The little girl in the pram gently snores, the interpreter turns to admire her. The judge enters and we all stand again, the judge speaks.

The man is from country A but fled to country B as a teenager, met his wife there and lived there for a long time. When they arrived in the UK as a family they said they were from country B, then later when asked about his birth details he talked of country A. The judge says, "you are untrustworthy, we can not even be sure of your nationality." The home office official speaks briefly. There is a continuous murmur as the interpreter relays it all to the man.

The judge sums up, he notes that the man's wife and children are in Glasgow and that during previous times he has shown no sign of absconding. With his untrustworthiness and only £800 of bail money offerred (borrowed from friends), in a case like this he would expect a lot more, he refuses the application for bail.

The wife goes pale and quiet. We all stand as the judge leaves, she bursts into tears. Her son looks on and walks around her. The guards lead the man away. The home office official comes across. He says, 'oh, that's a shame." Then he turns to the 11 year old boy (nearly 12) and says "you look after your mum now."

Burns Night 2007

I get a phonecall as I am walking in to open the Unity office. There is a blue sky and bright sunshine. A woman in Dungavel has a flight booked for her tomorrow, we need to get it stopped. I open up the office find her file and start learning about her story, Because her father was Christian and her mother Muslim the family had to leave their country for a neighbouring one but the authorities came and found them and shot her parents. She found her way to Britain and now has a 2 year old child born here who has no malaria protection and also is ill. I call the lawyer, I call Medical Justice people, I receive faxes.

There is a young man who is registering for the first time. His father has been here for 20 years is disabled, is a British Citizen and owns a house here. The man came here to care for his father as there is no other family. He still has to sign in at the Home Office every week.

A woman comes in with news. Her son who was being held in a local Glasgow police station has been released. He tried to go to Canada on false documents but was refused and returned. They wanted to charge him with a criminal offense but he said that it was an immigration case and he is not a criminal and he was only going there because he had been refused here and was just trying to find a place of safety.

A man comes in to register and mentions that he is a musician. He has a band called the Electric Chicken Feathers – you can check it out on his my space page.

I read a transcript of a Home Office interview with a friend. They asked him question after question. Why did you leave Sudan? My family were killed by Janjaweed, I would have been too. Why did you choose to come to Britain? I didn’t choose to come to Britain, I gave all my money to a man who said he could take me away to a safe place where I would find my wife and children. I spent a long time in a boat, I’m not a traveller kind of man. I found myself here. What happenned? I’m tired now, why do you ask me all these questions? Are you telling the truth? I don’t know how to lie, my soul is hurting. What is the name of the districts of Khartoum? When is the rainy season? That’s my job to know that, I’m a farmer. 3 hours worth. The painful bits were pushed, he didn’t want to talk about it.

A man talks about a friend also here from Sudan her husband a journalist disappeared.

A couple and their son bring in some delicious chapatis I devour.

The woman in Dungavel isn’t going tomorrow, there is a doctor’s appointment next week, here, that she can attend. After that is still very uncertain but relief for today.

Every few minutes somebody else comes in. Some just sign their names, nod and leave. Some hand over keys or bags to be looked after. Some stop to chat, some have questions. There is a board in the office with a list of names of the people who are being detained and information about them. People stand and look at the board, reading, asking if there is any more news.

Still January

When I arrive at the Unity office, my coat wet from the snow there are already a few people there. They have been there since 6am outside the Home Office protesting against dawn raids. I am brought up to date, make myself a drink and check the emails. Yesterday a woman and her 5 children were detained when they went to sign. She had fled her husband who tried to kill her and one of her sons. They have been here for 5 years and the children have been in the Scottish school system all this time. They are all in Dungavel detention centre.

It is quieter than usual but there is still a steady stream of people coming in to check in at Unity before signing at the Home Office.

A man comes in. His friend has been in Dungavel since early December. His wife and three children were too but they have been released. They paid a lawyer in London £2 500 to deal with the case and have had no receipt and little contact. I call the lawyer who says that he has faxed a barrister 2 days ago with the refusal notice and he is waiting to hear back from him and once he has he can put in for a judicial review and after that apply for bail. That's the procedure he says. Oh, and he has sent one other fax to a doctor to get some evidence about the man in detention's wife's depression. The friend stood wondering what to do next for a time and I wondered too, not knowing. He shakes my hand, says thank you and leaves.

A woman leaves her baby asleep in his pram while she goes to sign.

A photographer calls asking me if I know if it is possible to take photographs in Dungavel, I'm not sure.

I really need to pee but the toilet is in a separate entrance to the building and I can't leave the baby. A tall man with jeans on comes in, he is familiar to me. Is there anything you need, I ask. He says, I need to go to the toilet. I snap back, me too. He says, you first, I grab the keys and go.

A man comes in for a letter of support but the printer is broken so he waits while I try to email the letter to other places to print so he can pick it up and send it away today, it's urgent.

The baby is starting to get restless. Everybody returning from the Home Office is complaining about how busy it is, how long they have to wait in line to sign their name to say they are still here where they want to be.

A family comes in and they are anxious. It is the first time that they have all been called to sign together. They ask questions, is this normal, what will happen? They set off, I look at their file and panic because the lawyer's phone number isn't there. I call them on their mobile and get the number before they get to the Home Office.

The woman whose daughter was in Britain and then sent back to Africa without them seeing each other comes in. There has been a lot of hope with her situation the last few months because she has telephone contact with her daughter for the first time in years but there have been legal difficulties this week, set backs. "One day I'll live a happy life", she says and cries quietly.

The wife and children of the man in Dungavel come in. Her English is not good enough to fully understand what I can pass on about my phonecall with the lawyer. She calls the friend who explains. She nods and leaves.

The baby starts crying and I go and sit by him. Not long after his mother bursts in. I'm so sorry, so sorry, I'm grateful, she says to me. I'm so sorry, you must be hungry, to her son. Her anxiety is heightened, disproportionate to her baby's distress.

The tall man wearing jeans comes rushing back. It's taking too, too long today, forty people in front of me, can I call my wife I was supposed to meet her, she'll be worried. I am worried too, about the family who went together. It is well after five o'clock and it is only them and one other person due back. They arrive with smiles and cross their names off the list.

mid - January 2007

It's a cold windy day. I walk past the Home Office building to get to the Unity Centre and on the street between the two I see several solitary figures walking head down. Some I recognise, some I don't but they are unmistakably going to sign in, faces hardened and resigned, worried.

I arrive in the office and it is crowded. A couple are sitting on the sofa, a volunteer beside them writing on a form. Two people are standing in front of the desk writing their names down, two people are behind the desk talking. Two men are huddled over a form in the other corner. I climb over, move past and round the people and put my jacket on a chair at the back.

One of the men greets me with a hug, happy new year, it's been too long. It is the man from Sudan who is translating for a new arrival, a young man from Palestine. We take his details and then those of a man from Iraq who has also recently arrived. The three of them share a joke in Arabic, I look up with questioning eyes looking for a translation and am given some word of reassurance.

Meanwhile the couple have left. Their country of origin will not take them back, their claim for asylum here has been refused and they have no travel documents. A Scottish woman who lives besidet the centre is being helped to sort out a problem with the electricity in her flat.

The man from Sudan tells me about his week. The Home Office officials came to get him and took him in a van to Liverpool. He says that he made trouble. He asked to stop the van so he could pee. When they asked him his religion he said he has none. He refused translators because he didn't trust them. They did a medical exam in Liverpool asked him more questions and then brought him back to Glasgow. He was pissed off about it, anxiously telling and retelling the story until I understood what had happenned.

People come and go, can you look after these keys, this phone, this bag. The office is constantly busy. People who are early for their signing time at the Home Office sit and wait. New arrivals rummage in the back room and take clothes that have been donated to us. The landlord comes in for the overdue rent. A man tells me his story to write up to increase publicity about his case.

Today I spoke with a civil engineer, a nurse, the captain of a boat and many more whose profession I didn't ask. I saw their registration cards with their photographs and "employment prohibited" typed on them.

Early December 2006

I walk into the Unity office and am struck by the new furniture arrangement. Because of the leaking roof the desks and computers have been moved to the back and the sofa is now by the door leaving empty floor under the missing roof tiles. I walk in and I go onto the computer. I want to email someone I met about an organisation that supports refugee academcs. I want to see if they can campaign or be beneficiaries for young people who are seeking asylum and have places at university that they are not permitted to take up.

A man comes in to pick up some leaflets for a meeting that has been called for people to organise to prevent dawn raids. We are chatting about how many leaflets he needs when the door bursts open and two women and a baby in a pushchair come flying in. One woman throws herself on the sofa weeping and the other woman stands over her talking.

“Don’t give in to this, stay strong, don’t cry in front of your child, don’t let him see you like this, don’t make room for sadness.”

She continues crying.

“I’m tired of this life, so tired.”

“Don’t use your mouth to say those words, come through this so your son won’t have to.”

“I worked so hard to come here, so hard to get away, the things I did. I’m so tired, so tired. I take the money they give me but a strong girl like me, I could work, I could contribute to this country but no. All the things I left, I pray my daughters can find food. I never saw the inside of a police station until I came here, I’d only seen a judge on tv. And now, here, for my case I see all these things. I can’t take it anymore.”

“You’re not the only one, don’t give in, me I have asthma, I’ve been here 5 years too, they say I am liable for detention too, you are not the only one, don’t give way to tears.”

The baby has started to cry, the woman on the sofa pulls him to her and gives him her breast. She quietens for a while. She passes me the papers she was given. The judge didn’t believe her story.

“You want I take these people and I take them there and I show them the people, I show them.”

She will go and see her lawyer again, to see what to do next. The tears subside to rage.

“If they come to get me I swear to god they need to bring a hearse too cos I not going with them alive, I fight and fight, I’ll pull my clothes off, I’ll bite them, I’ll do anything, they’ll regret the day they came to get me.”

She starts to cry again, she talks some more, she gets up to leave, I give her a hug, she starts crying again. She gets her baby’s clothes together and puts him in the buggy. With humour she talks to her child as if they are on holiday.

“This is our time in the UK.” She smiles and laughs with a raw edge.

“You didn’t see me like this”, she says to us as she leaves.

People come and go, sign in and sign out again. A woman comes up to me.

“I’m worried, it’s been an hour and my husband hasn’t come out yet.”

I reassure her. Tell her it is very rare for them to detain people while they are signing. It hasn’t happenned in a while.

“Is there anything that we can do?”, she says.

I say just to wait and it may be they are just taking their time. She asks for his reference number from our records because he has all their documentation and when she asks for him at the home office they won’t do anything without the number. I give her the reference number and she leaves her child with us while she goes to check.

Some new people come. A woman on her own, she has been here for one month, she has no family and no friends. She is young and she has fled a war. I take her details and tell her about a meeting she can go to to meet other people.

A man on his own who has been her since 1997 and is now being told he is liable for detention.

A journalist from the BBC calls. They are doing a programme, is there anyone who can help, are there any families who would be willing to talk, someone who could give her background information? I take her number so someone can call her back. She calls back 2 more times before I have the chance to ask anyone about it. Can they come and film at a meeting? Probably not, we’d have to ask the people at the meeting.

I go to take a walk and buy some lunch. When I get back there are more new people in the office. There has been a detention. The woman who was worried. Her husband has been taken to Dungavel and is booked on a flight in 6 days time. Friends have come to look after her, make sure that she doesn’t go home incase they come to get her and her son too. Before she was animated and active, worried, wondering what action to take. Now she is just silent with a blank face. We discuss the action we can take and her friends take her to their home.

“Do you think it is safe to go back to her house to collect some things?”

More people, I check that we have all the right details for them. Phone numbers, lawyer’s details.

Two women each with a young child come in for the first time. They go to the home office to sign together and then they fill out the contact details sheet and put each other’s names in the friends section.

End of November 2006

End of November 2006

It is a windy, rainy day. Every time the door opens it blows back and a huddled figure, hood pulled tight around the face shuffles in with a windswept look of surprise.

What is there to follow up? A pregnant woman just arrived in the country was transferred from Dungavel to Yarlswood, a detention centre in England. She has been called to give her names of lawyers to try. Did we manage to get in touch with the woman who didn’t cross her name off the list yesterday? How do we know she wasn’t detained and is out safe from signing at the Home Office?

A man comes in wearing only denems, he is soaked. I switch the heater on and turn it towards him. He huddles up close to it. The door blows open, the door is pushed shut.

One woman is more anxious than usual.

“I went to the post office to get my money and I had signed as usual but there was no money. This isn’t my signing day, I’ve come to see what’s happenning. I’m scared, I’m shaking.”

She writes her name down and goes to the Home Office.

I sit and alphabetise some of the files. People come and go. A family who are early to sign come and sit on the sofa to wait. They have received a letter saying they must report to the consulate of another country. Probably to force them to get travel documents, but the wording is vague. There is no appointment time stated, only the opening hours and strong wording and a threatening tone. The mother of the family walks up to each of us in turn and offers a spicy fried patty which we each take from her hand and put in our mouths. A copy of the letter is faxed to the lawyer for advice on how to respond.

The woman who didn’t cross her name off yesterday is reached, she’s fine. She was in a rush to pick her children up from school and forgot to come back.

The roof starts leaking, we move the fax machine over and get a bucket to catch the drips.

The woman who was shaking comes back.

“How did it go?”

“There was a problem with my card but it should be fixed now. It is my baby’s birthday today and I have no money.”

I give her a bag and point to the back room where we keep the toys and clothes people donate. She leaves with a full bag and a smile.

Mid - November 2006

I arrive at the Unity office a little later than I planned. It is quiet. I tidy up the toys lying on the floor and organise the leaflet rack. It is a cold rainy day.

A man and a woman come in, it is their first time here, their faces show anxiety. They are given the forms to put their contact details on but are uncomfortable writing. I fill the forms out form them. They hand me their most recent letter from the home office. “Liable for detention” it says. They have been here 3 years. They don’t go into details as to why they came. “Politics”. I don’t press to know. I lift my head from looking at the form I am writing on and past the couple I see a smiling face I recognise. It’s the man I took to the hospital. I smile back. The couple have to go, it is their time to sign in at the home office.

I talk with the man. He has somewhere to stay but he still hasn’t been able to see a doctor. The only place he is told to go is Accident and Emergency and we already tried that and it isn’t an accident or an emergency although it could become an emergency if it is not dealt with. Someone makes a few phonecalls. He is not entitled to see a doctor. It is at the discretion of the practices. We find him some addresses to try and he heads off.

People come and sign their name. Men on their own, women on their own, families, women with push chairs. They go to the home office and then come back and cross their names off the list so we know that they are out.

“Safe for now”, says a woman with 2 children on her return.

Another woman with 2 children about 3 years and 18 months comes in. She starts talking to me very quickly. Her English is perfect but I am still finding it hard to understand her. Slow down. Her lawyer will phone. She isn’t going to sign she is going for a special interview and she wants to leave her children at Unity. Fine. The younger one is asleep in the push chair. The older girl is quiet with cheeky eyes.

Another woman this time with 3 kids. Another pushchair. She is early for signing so they come in to wait for their time. The children start playing. The office is small and there is a lot of walking around and over toys, kids and pushchairs. She says “I’ve been here 3 years if I couldn’t stay why they no tell me this when I arrive? Why?” The baby starts crying and then the girl starts crying. I hold the baby while his mother sorts out the bags and the other kids and then after a bit of backing the pushchairs in and out of the door into the rain they are off with a nod and a thank you. I sit on the sofa beside the litle girl who is still crying, put some dolls around her and ask her if she wants a biscuit. She says no but takes it.

It is quiet for a moment. I go and wash the mugs and the thermos flasks that had hot coffee in them, drunk at a vigil outside the home office.

The girl starts playing with her little sister’s balloon. She throws it at me with a naughty grin, she throws it in the air, her arms up high. She chases it around the office. Her little sister has woken up, I take her out of the pushchair, she reaches over me for some toys. Their mother comes back. I breathe a small sigh of relief. She was gone quite a while, and I wasn’t sure what to do with the kids next if she didn’t come back! They get ready and go to leave. The woman says, “When I was in Dungavel you at Unity helped me so much, thank you, thank you.”

The steady flow of people coming and going doesn’t stop. Sometimes they stop to talk. Often they put some coins in the collecting tin by the door, sometimes it is just a nod in and a nod out.

One woman asks a question. “How can I get permission to work? I have been volunteering as a receptionist and they are turning it into a job in January and they want me to apply for the job. I was told that I am eligible to apply for the right to work and my lawyer applied in April but still I haven’t heard anything.” I have no advice to give her.

The lawyer of the woman who left her kids with us while she went for her interview called. “Is she out safe? How long was she in there? I couldn’t reach her on her mobile so I was concerned. Okay they’re out, that’s good.”

A man comes in for the first time. He has been in the country for four years. The letter he shows me from the home office again says that he is liable to be detained. There is someone else there who speaks his language. Translating back and forth to find out his details, a bit of his story. Darfur again.

I update a woman’s details. Get the names of her 3 children. Why is she here, why has she been here for the last 4 years and now has to register at the home office every week? There was family pressure to perform female genital mutilation on her daughters. She took them away.

A middle aged couple come in with warm homemade bhajis and pakora. They are welcome and delicious.

A worried family. The girl who looks about 12 does the translating for her mother. “Has there been a fax?” No. I’m handed a phone to speak to a man, I call the lawyer, they’ll send the fax. The woman paces as we wait for the fax. She looks in pain, she walks like her hips are painful. The papers arrive, they take them to the home office.

While this is going on there is competition for the phone line. A teenager is calling for a friend who is in detention but they are not sure where. When she isn’t on the phone she is chatting about her Highers. “Have you done higher maths?”, she asks someone else, “ How did you find it?”

The man who went looking for a doctor comes back. He has not managed to find one. He said, they said that he had somewhere to stay and was not going hungry and not to worry. He said, he said, “I’m worried, money means nothing to me, I need my health.” And they said that they couldn’t help him and he talked some more to them with philosophy. “I think I made trouble there, Anna.” I laugh, make him a coffee, he huddles himself besidet the heater with paper and pen.

I get on the phone. I try another practice. Do you take asylum seekers? “Oh yes.” Can you help? He is registered but his identity card hasn’t come through yet and he is in temporary accommodation. “Oh, we only take asylum seekers housed in our area.” I press the point. She is fractious.

“It’s not our responsibility!”

“Well, whose responsibility is it?”

She switches to being gracious and polite and there is a lot of rustling. I am given a name and a number. I call. What is the situation? She doesn’t know anything about him. He is not officially entitled to anything but she could get him a temporary GP as long as she has the induction papers. Induction papers? I find out where these are and phone.

“We’ve already dealt with this man. We sent his papers to the woman last Tuesday.”

But I just spoke to the very same woman and she knows nothing about him.

“We’ll fax the papers again today.”

All this time the man is sitting and drawing. He is an embroiderer. Used sewing machines at home. He comes and shows us his work pen on paper. Beautiful, intricate, symmetrical patterns. He has written under it, “Man is not God, Life is War, Good Luck Unity, One Love.”

www.unitycentreglasgow.org

Early November 2006

It’s cold outside. I tuck my head down, walk into the Unity office, straight past the man sitting on the corner of the sofa and dump my bag in the corner.

“She doesn’t recognise me”, the man says. I spin around to look and I do remember him. It is the man from Sudan that I took to the hospital last week.

“What’s my name?” he says. I call him by his name and he is satisfied that I do remember.

He went to Liverpool on the bus as instructed by the immigration officials via the Scottish Refugee Council but once at the gates there he was refused entry. They said that he didn’t have the right papers and that they had to know that he was coming to let him in. He slept in the bus station in Liverpool that night and then made his way back to Glasgow with help from charity organisations.

Back at square one he was given another appointment at the refugee council and set off on his own this time. He had been trying to do the right thing. He is not inside the system nor outside it. He still must report to the Home Office to say that he is in the country but he is not entitled to any support or accommodation nor does he have the right to work. He said that he would come back with any papers he was given to show us.

There is a new volunteer at Unity today. I listen while things are explained, some I know, some I don’t. There is a flurry of activity when someone doesn’t come back from signing at the Home Office. Has she been detained or has she just forgotten to come back and sign out at Unity?

There is a woman sitting at the desk thinking and writing. I am asked to work with her and write her story for a potential press release. I am handed her file and I read it as she sits opposite me. She used to live in Nigeria. Her sister was subject to extreme violence and she went to help her leaving her 2 year old daughter with her father. When she got back from her sister the house had been ransacked and her family had disappeared. She escaped with her sister and claimed asylum in the UK. She has been living in Glasgow since 2002. Her sister was granted asylum and can stay but she wasn’t.

In April of this year she got a phonecall that she didn’t believe saying that her daughter was in the country. She still thought that it was a sick joke until the immigration officials visited her and started asking her questions about her daughter. She started believing then that her daughter was in the country. She asked and asked to be put in touch with her. Friends, the local MP, lawyers pushed to find out where the daughter was but received no answers. 9 months later she received a letter to say that her daughter was in the care of social services in England and was with a foster family. As soon as she opened the letter she phoned the social services department mentioned to be told that her daughter had been flown back to Nigeria the day before. She still has had no contact with her daughter and doesn’t know into whose care she was placed in Nigeria.

I look at the woman and I am lost for words. I ask her to show me what she has written to add to this information. She starts to read it out. Her voice soon breaks and her eyes fill with tears. I take the paper from her. It’s okay, I can read it.

I draft a press release and we wait for her lawyer to fax papers she needs to sign. There are children playing in the small office. I watch the woman watching them.

www.unitycentreglasgow.org

End of October 2006

End of October 2006

I arrive in the morning for a full day at Unity. I am given a file to look at. It is the file of a family who were taken from their home yesterday morning at dawn. They were taken in a van to Dungavel detention centre. I phone Dungavel to find out the name and number of their lawyer. We want to find out what the lawyer is doing to stop them being put on the flight they are registered for on Friday. Is there anything we can do to help keep them here?

It is the day that an old friend of mine comes to sign. I have known him for more than 3 years. We chat and laugh about good times past. We sit in silence thinking about the hard times. Once he left I looked through the filing cabinets and got to know the paper work of the office a bit better.

A lady comes and stands for a while. “She always looks upset but she never wants to talk”, says another.

A man comes in obviously in pain. He perches on the arm of the sofa, he’s been to the refugee council and the home office already today. Now he is with us. He wants to go to the hospital. I will take him. While waiting for the taxi someone else fills me in a bit – he’s not been here very long, maybe a month, he is destitute, he has no family.

He struggles to the car and we get to accident and emergency. He slumps on the chairs, lying down as soon as we get there. I prise the piece of paper out from his hand. It is a letter which is the only documentation he has. I go the counter and wait for the boy in front of me to reschedule his appointment for the check up on his broken arm. Accident and emergency, shares a reception with orthopaedic outpatients.

Once alerted to his presence a nurse comes out immediately and takes him through a set of double doors. When roused he can walk but as soon as he is left alone he slumps, eyes closed. I wait behind and give what details I know, his name , the date of birth given on the piece of paper I took. Then I am soon called through as well. They ask me if I know what is wrong, I say I don’t know. He only has a little English and they are having trouble communicating, they call for an interpreter. The nurse says there is nothing immediate and urgent, his heart and blood pressure and whatever else they are able to check are fine. He complains of pain down his right side. But that’s not what I notice most. I notice just how tired he is. On the bed he is slightly curled. There is a blanket folded loosely over his legs. I unfold it and tuck it round him placing some under his head which is resting on the metal side to the bed. And he is shivering. His whole body is shivering, spasming, quaking. Waves and waves of it coming and going. I stand with him, I put my hand on his head. He doesn’t even seem to notice me. I sit beside him for a time. The tremors, on and on. I witness and I am with.

A doctor comes in, introduces himself and goes to examine the man. Every time he pokes at the man’s right side, the man curls up and pushes the doctor away. This annoys the doctor. I had moved the back of the bed down so that the man could be more comfortable and rest but for examination the doctor needed it back up. He asks the man quickly in loud English to move up the bed. Then he says,

“Are you gonna behave? Are ye gonnae act proper? Sit up on the bed! I can’t examine you properly like that!”

I immediately feel my feet sink into the ground to give me the strength to stay tall. How dare he talk to this man like that. He knows nothing about him. The doctor asks him again more slowly. I help the man move up the bed.

“You see he’s doing it now”, he says as an aside to me, colluding in our knowingness about the uncooperative patient. I’m having none of it. I continue to make the man as comfortable as I can.

A second doctor comes in. They are both bemused. As the man lies between us trembling they tell me how nothing medical is wrong with him. Oh but something is so wrong. They ask me what I know. I suspect he has been through trauma, to me what he is going through looks like the release of shock. I know he has been sleeping in the station too, has nowhere to go.

The interpreter joins us in the cublicle, a stocky man with grey hair. We learn some more. The man is from Darfur in Sudan. His parents were murdered before his eyes, he has been beaten (mainly on his right side and about the head). He wants to get well. He is not htinking of doing himself harm.

“There is nothing wrong with him that would cause him pain”, the second doctor says, “unless it is in his head.”

Or in his heart I think. The pain of it. The second doctor is trying to help.

“Surely the organisation that deals with asylum matters has a responsibility to....”

I just look straight at him.

“Surely they do,” I say.

The man is back up , the doctors give him a box of paracetemol.

And as we are leaving the second doctor says,

“isn’t there somewhere you could take him to, where he could maybe get some counselling or something.”

I think down the line of priorities and that step seems a long way off even if it were available. I don’t answer and just look at him again. As we are walking away the first doctor, the one who asked him to move up the bed catches my arm so that I am spun round to face him.

“Thank you”, he says with a sincerety that shocks me. I am not sure what I have done. Taken a difficult situation off their hands? I know there is nothing they can do for the man.

We go to the city centre by taxi, under the clyde and along the expressway. At the refugee council the man goes to take the five pounds he has from his pocket to pay for theh taxi. No. I cover it. The waiting room is full of toys on the floor. And the cheery radio station is on loud. Happy pop tunes. Some other people waiting. One woman comes to see us, she takes us down a corridor to the interview rooms. They are all full. We stand in the corridor for a while and then we are shown back to the waiting area. The man has stopped shivering, he complains about his back. He crouches in on himself whenever he is left.

This time a man with a shirt and tie takes us through to another room. He talks quickly, he has an accent my ears are not tuned to. I am having difficulty keeping up with what he is saying. I know there is no hope for the man to be catching it all. Have you applied for asylum, which forms have you filled in, have you been screened, what did the police say, when was that? A colleague is called for interpretation over the phone.

This goes on for a while. I am bored, I don’t like small offices. I am wondering what is going to happen. I want to make sure the man has somewhere to go, at least for tonight but what if we can’t sort it out, what will I do? I have planned to see friends tonight, would I just leave him to go back to sleep in the station nothing resolved, but I said I’d cook for my friends and that is... I can see the refugee council worker looking at the clock a lot too. Wondering when he can get home. It’s not that we don’t care, it’s just that, well, you know, we have our lives to life. I couldn’t take him home, I don’t know him, he might be dangerous. I want to get away, to leave this situation, the care of the man, in somebody else’s hands.

What has been established is that the man has been in the country for a couple of months and he is known to the immigration authorities. He has the piece of paper that he was clutching with his registration number. And he had to report to the Home Office building in Brand Street today, which he did. But despite all that he is not fully in the system. He needs to be “screened”. This doesn’t happen in Glasgow except in exceptional circumstances (8 month pregnant women for example) because the staff in Glasgow are trained more for removals. There are more screening staff based in Liverpool. The man will have to go to Liverpool, but he is reluctant. He doesn’t want to but he is not given a choice about it. We leave the refugee council. The man has been given £15 cash for food and a ticket for the 11pm bus to Liverpool. He didn’t want to go tonight, he wanted to leave it a day to go and see the people he had met at the mosque. But the ticket had already been printed, he has 6 hours more in Glasgow. He accepts.

As we leave the office he turns to me and speaks directly for the first time.

“Anna, why they go send me away.”

My heart melts, I feel like for the first time I know who he is and that he is communicating with me. He says,

“Thank you, thank you so much, God bless you.”

I am moved. I deeply regret the thoughts of flight that I had had in the office and am so glad that I have seen this through. The man has come alive for me. He tells me how he hasn’t seen his wife and 2 children for 2 years and he is looking for them. He thinks they are in Glasgow, “How do you know?” he just taps his head. Hence the reluctance to go to Liverpool. And the fear, the strongest words yet,

“They no send me back to Sudan, I will be killed, I no go back.”

He says he will come back to Glasgow the next day, I know that this is deeply unlikely if not impossible but say nothing. I take the name of his wife and children and promise to keep a record of this at Unity. I give him the phone number and tell him to call. Keep in touch, let us know how he is getting on.

We walk into town together. He is going to the mosque to say goodbye to the people he has met there. I am going to the train station to catch a train and go and see my friends. I wonder how we will part. He breaks away first, he has things to do. We take each others right hand. We touch right cheek to right cheek. We touch left cheek to left cheek. We let go our hands. I watch him walk under the arch of central station.

Anna’s Unity Diary

Start of October 2006


My first day at Unity. The office is small and it smells of hard work. There are toys on the floor, a battered sofa in the corner, cups of tea on the filing cabinet. On the desk by the door is a little notebook. This is the focus of the days events. People come and people go. They sign their name in the book, they leave and usually they come back and cross their names off the list. Their names in the book isn’t all they leave. There is a heartwarming display of trust. People I have never met, give me their handbags, their mobile phones, their children to look after for the time that it takes them to go to the home office to sign in. They are scared. Scared these things will be taken from them there– their phones, their belongings, theit children. Scared too that they might be taken. That is why they sign in the Unity book first. If they don’t come back we will know. Someone will know they are in trouble. If you are in trouble, you really want a friend to know about it. That’s what friends are for. That’s when you know who your friends are.

One woman came in distressed. On the edge of tears, her voice failing her. She sat down and brought out the letters she had been sent. One was a normal routine letter – routine, like having the ability to work taken away and being made to cross the city every week to enter a heavily guarded building to sign your name on a piece of paper to prove that you haven’t run away is normal. But in this twisted state of affairs hope means that today nothing dramatic will happen and the status quo will be prolonged a little longer.

So, she has this one normal letter which noted that she signed in last week, which she did, and another letter which arrived at the same time telling her that she didn’t sign in (but she did) and saying that she was now liable for immediate detention. They were telling her that at any moment she may be picked up and taken to prison. Can I just restate her position. No crime has been committed. She asked if she could seek refuge in this country, years have passed of her living here with her family and now she is sitting in front of me breathing fast and shallow in a state of pure panic because she has a letter telling her that her and her whole family may well be taken to prison at any moment. For asking for a place of safety because they had none.

So I go with the woman and her 2 letters to the Home Office building on Brand Street and there are 2 men at the gate. The gates are shut, locked. With each person who comes to the gate it is open they are let through and then it is shut behind them. We go through the gates and I explain the situation. The first man is friendly, he has a smile on his face, is he trying to be helpful? How does he view his job? We are not allowed ins but he takes the letters inside to find out what’s going on. I wait with the woman. She doesn’t stop talking, do you think it will be alright? Where has he gone? What does it mean? The man left by the gate asserts his authority.

“Can you move over please?”

There is nobody else there in a wide courtyard space. We meaninglessly shuffle a bit to the side and continue talking ignoring his presence.

The other man comes back with the letters. He confirms that she was there the time before to sign (she knew that) and that the other letter was a mistake (she didn’t know that) and she was in no immediate danger of going to prison (for the crime of asking for a place of safety) and that was that. She wouldn’t quite believe him. Asked him again. He told her again. Her face pleaded with his, reassure me. He put his hand on his heart and said I promise you that this letter wa sa mistake, just come as normal next week. Normal.

Walking back she talks of the fear. She talks of moving the kids around friends and families so that nobody is sleeping in their own home just incase the immigration officials come in the night. Nightly uprooting after the big uprooting.

At last she smiles and I breathe a sigh of relief. She thanks us and leaves.

In comes another woman with her husband. She is wound up and in full flow. Why, why, why do I have to go the post office to get hand outs of money, I hate it I hate it, I don’t need this money, I am a french teacher I can work (but she can’t) my husband is an engineer, we could do things but this, this...

And the people keep coming, kids arrive, play with the toys then are picked up again when their parents are finished. The sign in at Unity, they sign in at the Home Office, they sign out of Unity. He signs in at Unity, he signs at the Home Office, he signs out at Unity. She signs in at Unity, she signs at the Home Office, she signs out at Unity. All day. Every day.