Cover Story DRCONGO


Escape to nowhere


By Selina Cuff


South Kivu, DRCongo. But now, eight years on, she lives in fear of the infamous ‘night snatch’, where police under the or- ders of the UK Borders Agency (UKBA), will raid her home in the dead of night, bundle Salome and her two-year-old daughter into a police van and take them to a detention centre before they are sent back to the terror she thought she had leſt behind. Salome currently lives in Bristol, one of


W


the UK’s designated asylum areas. Her ap- plication for asylum has been rejected and while she is trying to appeal she feels no safety in the country she sought help from. Salome’s story is not unusual. Like


many asylum-seekers she came into the UK through an agent, and had no knowl- edge of her ability to claim asylum. When she arrived, Salome could speak only her


34 | NEW AFRICAN WOMAN | WINTER 2011


hen Salome managed to escape to the UK, she felt safe from the ordeal she and her family had been experiencing in


native language. With time she picked up English, got a job, rented a flat but was repeatedly told by those around her that the UKBA and the Home Office were to be feared, they would deport her. Fear- ful of discovery, she obtained a French passport under a false name, assuming a new identity that would later be used by the UKBA to prove her lack of credibility. Salome had become tangled up in a


web of lies necessitated by fear. When she discovered she was HIV positive, Salome registered for medical treatment under her new alias and when her daughter was born the birth certificate stated the child’s mother was of French birth and had the name Sally Angubilwe. Last year Salome’s web began to unravel aſter police picked her up for suspected immigration viola- tions. Knowing she was discovered, Salome revealed all to the UKBA, applying for asy- lum and explaining her false identity. How- ever, the measures Salome had taken to protect herself and her child were deemed discrepancies that affected her credibility.


From that moment on, Salome was cast as a liar, who was not to be trusted. Tis label is not exclusive to Salome. Louise Perrett, a civil servant-turned-


whistleblower, sent ripples through the UK when she publicly denounced the UKBA Cardiff, where she worked, as unprofessional, incompetent and racist. According to Perrett, the case-owners who decide the fate of asylum-seekers like Salome are conditioned to believe that all asylum-seekers are liars and pose a threat. Case-owners are even provided with combat training to deal with these potentially dangerous individuals. “In the office there was a feeling of anti-


immigration,” Perrett says. “Not every case-owner is a racist, xenophobic, homo- phobic bigot but there is enough of an element there to influence everyone else.” Case-owners oſten have no experience


or knowledge of the countries that people are fleeing, and according to Perrett are oſten young, middle-class, white graduates who know nothing of the harsh realities of


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100