I had this happen with a Somalian refugee I was guiding last year. She was sold as a slave to Saudi Arabia, fled to Belgium but has no legal documents right now. Her Belgian papers couldn’t be processed because her Somalian ones weren’t valid anymore (because, as it turns out, being sold as a child slave makes it hard to renew your documents). If we brought her to the Somalian consulate to renew her papers, she’d be arrested on whatever bullshit charge they had on her, and she’d be deported back to Somalia and eventually Saudi Arabia.
No one wanted to take the time and realize: hey, this is a human being we’re talking about. No one. And she’s stuck in a limbo. Can’t get a legit job because she’s illegal here. Can’t integrate into society for all these reasons. What are we doing, man?
This sort of mistreatment of refugees is totally illegal under international law too.
Article 17 of the refugee convention states that any refugee has the right to hold employment in the same way that any other foreign national (who isn’t a refugee) should be able to access employment. The UK government also heavily restricts access to employment for asylum seekers.
Article 17 - Wage-earning employment
The Contracting States shall accord to refugees lawfully staying in their territory the most favourable treatment accorded to nationals of a foreign country in the same circumstances, as regards the right to engage in wage-earning employment.
In any case, restrictive measures imposed on aliens or the employment of aliens for the protection of the national labour market shall not be applied to a refugee who was already exempt from them at the date of entry into force of this Convention for the Contracting State concerned, or who fulfils one of the following conditions:
(a) He has completed three years’ residence in the country;
(b) He has a spouse possessing the nationality of the country of residence. A refugee may not invoke the benefit of this provision if he has abandoned his spouse;
The Contracting States shall give sympathetic consideration to assimilating the rights of all refugees with regard to wage-earning employment to those of nationals, and in particular of those refugees who have entered their territory pursuant to programmes of labour recruitment or under immigration schemes.
I had this happen with a Somalian refugee I was guiding last year. She was sold as a slave to Saudi Arabia, fled to Belgium but has no legal documents right now. Her Belgian papers couldn’t be processed because her Somalian ones weren’t valid anymore (because, as it turns out, being sold as a child slave makes it hard to renew your documents). If we brought her to the Somalian consulate to renew her papers, she’d be arrested on whatever bullshit charge they had on her, and she’d be deported back to Somalia and eventually Saudi Arabia.
No one wanted to take the time and realize: hey, this is a human being we’re talking about. No one. And she’s stuck in a limbo. Can’t get a legit job because she’s illegal here. Can’t integrate into society for all these reasons. What are we doing, man?
This sort of mistreatment of refugees is totally illegal under international law too.
Article 17 of the refugee convention states that any refugee has the right to hold employment in the same way that any other foreign national (who isn’t a refugee) should be able to access employment. The UK government also heavily restricts access to employment for asylum seekers.
Article 17 - Wage-earning employment
The Contracting States shall accord to refugees lawfully staying in their territory the most favourable treatment accorded to nationals of a foreign country in the same circumstances, as regards the right to engage in wage-earning employment.
In any case, restrictive measures imposed on aliens or the employment of aliens for the protection of the national labour market shall not be applied to a refugee who was already exempt from them at the date of entry into force of this Convention for the Contracting State concerned, or who fulfils one of the following conditions:
(a) He has completed three years’ residence in the country;
(b) He has a spouse possessing the nationality of the country of residence. A refugee may not invoke the benefit of this provision if he has abandoned his spouse;
© He has one or more children possessing the nationality of the country of residence.