08 March 2023 , 21:28
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Take two 16-year-olds fleeing war and persecution.
Teen A, let’s call her Daryna, was living in Ukraine until war broke out with Russia on February 24, 2022.
Within just eight days of the invasion on March 4, Daryna and family were able to apply to come to Britain thanks to schemes set up by the Government.
She is now living safely in Surrey, attending school and making new friends. In addition, she is greeted almost everywhere with kindness, flags of support, and her family is entitled to apply for benefits and have access to free health care on the NHS.
Now take teen B, let’s call her Ariam, who is from a war-torn country in East Africa. The conflict has meant she has lost family members, can’t go to school, and lives under the constant threat of persecution by a regime targeting innocent citizens.
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Ariam has only two choices – stay where she is, or try and make it to the UK where she has family members. Unlike Daryna, there are no safe and legal routes for her to do so.
Last year, the Home Secretary Suella Braverman said of someone in Ariam’s position: “If you are able to get to the UK you can put in an application for asylum”.
When Conservative MP Tim Loughton asked how could that happen if the only way to enter was illegal, she turned to flustered aides who mumbled something about “engaging with the UNHCR” before admitting there were cases that would not be possible.
Loughton concluded there was a shortage of safe and legal routes other than for specific groups of people.
Since then the Government has doubled down. This week it announced a new asylum plan which means that even if Ariam was able to survive a perilous journey from East Africa to Britain, she would, under new laws, be blocked from making an asylum claim, deported once she was 18, and banned from ever being able to apply for UK citizenship.
We all recognise the need for all countries to control immigration, but what I want to know is, why is it one rule for one set of people and one for others?
There’s no suggestion here that the Ukraine refugees be put on a plane and sent to Rwanda – that would just be plain cruel, right?
So far the Government has issued 220,300 visas to Ukrainians, but calls the need to stop 40,000 who have entered the country via the Channel “urgent”.
The fact is we should be showing compassion to people fleeing war and persecution regardless of where they are from. Don’t Daryna and Ariam both deserve to live in peace and safety? This, and previous policies, make it clear that as far as Britain is concerned, they don’t.