Åsa Wahlström, PhD, IGS and Brunel University, Amcwahlstrom@yahoo.co.uk
Blogger’s Note: This was an unusually difficult lecture in which to take notes. The lecturer remained seated throughout her presentation, read from a script and insisted on speaking in a low voice. Thus, if there are any gaping holes in the preceding notes, all I can say is contact Åsa.
Asylum Seeking Children in the UK
- 12% of all asylum seekers in the UK are children who seek asylum alone.
- Most asylum seeking children as seen as an undesirable burden to British social services.
- The lecturer studied unaccompanied children from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) who were seeking asylum in the UK.
- The lecturer conducted her research in the Hillington area of London.
- The lecturer found the majority of the children in her research group fled to the UK with the assistance of adults who provided false documents and passports.
- The lecturer found that these children constituted an oppressed group with limited choices but within those limited choices they exercised great autonomy.
Legal Conditions Regarding Asylum Seeking Children
- Article 20 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)
- The UK Children Act of 1989 states that all children in the UK are entitled to social services regardless of nationality. According to this act, children are defined as those below the age of 18.
- In 2006, 2,560 unaccompanied asylum seeking children applied for refugee status in the UK.
o 22% were refused.
o 7% were granted asylum.
o 1% was granted humanitarian protection.
o 71% were granted ‘discretionary leave to remain’ until their 18th birthdays.
- In the UK, once a child reaches the age of 17 ½ , they can be deported to their home countries where they often face unsafe conditions.
- Children who are under the age of 16 when they arrive in the UK are put in foster homes.
- Upon turning 16, asylum seeking children become the responsibility of the Local Council.
Institutional Problems
- Asylum seeking children in the UK are often seen and diagnosed by psychiatrists. Under these institutional conditions, 40% of children are found to suffer from depression.
- Institutional problems exist.
o There are not enough case workers.
o The age of children who are ‘mature for their age’ is often disputed.
o Children are not viewed as agents.
Children and Agency
- Children and youth are “active agents in their own right who contribute to, transform and influence the situation and environments in which they find themselves” (Eyber and Ager 2004: 190).
- In the DRC, children are often seen as active/ important social agents.
o This is very different from how they are viewed in the UK.
o Today, anyone who possesses land (money) in Kinshasa, DRC is considered a ‘child with weight’.
o In culture and popular life, children are more visible than ever before.
- “As people bring the concept of youth to bear on situations…they speak directly to the question in their societies of what is power, what is agency and what kind it is, and how rights are to be negotiated” (Durham 2000: 16).
- In the DRC, childhood entails violence and hunger and this often makes children social agents.
- In the UK, social workers do not view children as social agents capable of exercising autonomous choice.
- Social workers often prevent outsiders from gaining access to children asylum seekers.
- The lecturer described the case of a Nigerian child refugee in London.
- Refugee children are deemed the most vulnerable of refugees.
o Policy documents do not reflect agency and knowledge of life-skills.
o Policy documents do not reflect the realities of refugee children.
o Thus, these policies are often debilitating.
- A child “in need” is defined as “a child unlikely to achieve or maintain… a reasonable standard of health or development without the provision of services by local authorities” (Children Act 1989: Part III).
- In the UK, asylum seeking children’s daily lives are dictated by official documents, policies and institutions.
- The asylum seeking process causes much anxiety.
The Role of the Pentecostal Church in the Lives of Asylum Seeking Children
- The Pentecostal Church plays a large role in the lives of asylum seekers in London.
- In the church, young people experience a sense of fulfillment and control.
- The church is viewed by asylum seekers as a sacred space.
- The church helps young people to “survive” the system.
- Prayer becomes a technology of the self.
- Worship enabled participants to experience ecstasy.
- Asylum seekers often pray for success in the asylum process.
o Thus pressing political concerns were addressed in church.
o Many asylum seekers did not believe that public protest would yield results.
o They believe that prayer is more efficacious than public political action.
- The people the lecturer interviewed attended church a lot and could do so every day.
- The difficulties associated with being a refugee and applying for asylum often deepened religious faith.
- In church, people experience a higher level of control than in the political system.
Conclusions
- Refugee children show a high degree of autonomy and personal agency.
o It is important to keep in mind that some anthropologists attribute too much personal agency to children.
o Children are simultaneously being overestimated and underestimated.
- Refugee children practice “agency under constraint”.
o These children only experience a high level of control in church. Otherwise, their fate was subject to the actions and decrees of adults operating with the administrative system.
- Are children victims or autonomous agents?
o Are refugee children empowered?
o Do they exercise an ‘expansion of choice’?
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