Betty Tibikawa

[sammie19]

Fran sent me this link regarding the case of Betty Tibikawa who is to be deported back to Uganda even although she had been branded with red hot irons by some men while still living in the country because of her sexuality and Uganda is a very dangerous place for gay lesbian and bisexual people..

Fran's covering comment of "...and they call this country a safe haven of compassion and liberty for the oppressed... what fucking planet does our immigration people live on?" needs no elaboration by me.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/may/31/ugandan-branded-iron-deportation-sexuality

[tenni]

That is a sad and difficult situation. In Canada, there have been cases where people have been sent to their home country where they have said that their sexuality places them in danger. It is argued that certain factors may not be made public and yet it seems that the decision just doesn't make sense without knowing more about the case. This happened to a young girl recently and she returned to Canada within a few months. She was greeted by an aunt and by the media at the airport. How she got back in is unclear as well? Will she be permitted to stay this time was not answered. It makes me wonder if some technical aspect was used to deport her and now she has been able to alter her claim. There has been no further media information and this happened at least two months ago.

Another factor here is that the government appoints the adjudicators. It seems to me that if the government holds certain perspectives that are not "progressive" about sexuality or other political matters that they would appoint adjudicators more inclined to take a narrow hard line. How are the panel members making such decisions determined in Britain? Are they appointed by the present government? Do you think that there is a bias against lesbians in some of these ajudicators?

[sammie19]

As far as I know there are similar arrangements in place in this country. Adjucitors are civil servants who review cases on their merits and decide upon the fitness of a person or persons to remain in or be allowed entry to the country. There is an appeal procedure and ultimately a recourse to law.

It is not only issues concerning immigration and asylum which employ adjudicators. These exist across a whole spectrum of government activity. One such I will comment upon because it may be relevant. A friend of mine is an adjudicator who works on the benefits system. He decides after reviewing applications whether or not a person is entitled to benefit and in many instances how much.

His claim is that such are the staffing problems within the adjudication service, and the ever rising benefit tide because of the recession, government targets, an ever expanding and increasingly complex rulebook and internal mangement stresses, that very often to get through the workload, adjudicators are unable to give claims enough time and study to properly make a decision.

Often, because of those stresses, and because it is easy to say "claim refused" backlogs can be quite quickly cleared. Computerised prcesses are used to inform claimants of decisions and send out information of appeals procedures to claimants. It is the appeals procedures which often overturn the original decisions but many people do not appeal and so many properly qualified claimants are refused their entitlements.

I would be surprised given the level of immigration applications and those of asylum seekers if something similar does not exist within the immigration service. People's personal prejudice will come in to play to some extent and many people refused on the basis of skin colour or sexuality. Adjudicators will be a cross section of British society and will have their own prejudices, and some may well express that prejudice by refusing people who are properly entitled to entry or the right of to reside in the UK. Four or five years ago there was a big stink about the numbers of gay people being refused asylum even although they were quite clearly going to have their lives endangered if they were returned to their own country. As with benefits claimants, there is an appeal procedure which sometimes overturns original decisions but very often does not.

Quite often people are removed from the country so quickly that proper appeals cannot be heard, and some we are unable to determine if they have left the country or not.

The government as such does not appoint adjudicators but they are servants of the crown employed in the same way as other civil servants and are meant to work as the government dictates in accordance with the law. Appeals are generally independent of government and held before a magistrate or Judge.

[Darkside2009]

I have heard of similar stories, but the UK is not a lifeboat for the rest of the World. Most of the immigrants that come here do so for economic reasons, that puts a burden on our welfare services, on housing stocks, on educational provision, on hospital services and on the available jobs.

It might be nice to have an open door policy and say come on over and bring your friends. In reality it is not feasible. The UK already has problems integrating the many nationalities that live within our National boundaries. In the current economic climate, the lifeboat is in danger of sinking.

In by-passing the many countries between the UK and Uganda she has passed by many countries in which she would have been safe. Uganda is not the only country in Africa, there are, and were other African countries in which she could have been safe. One can only assume that her reasons are other than those she might have given to the UK immigration service on landing here.

[sammie19]

I have heard of similar stories, but the UK is not a lifeboat for the rest of the World. Most of the immigrants that come here do so for economic reasons, that puts a burden on our welfare services, on housing stocks, on educational provision, on hospital services and on the available jobs.

It might be nice to have an open door policy and say come on over and bring your friends. In reality it is not feasible. The UK already has problems integrating the many nationalities that live within our National boundaries. In the current economic climate, the lifeboat is in danger of sinking.

In by-passing the many countries between the UK and Uganda she has passed by many countries in which she would have been safe. Uganda is not the only country in Africa, there are, and were other African countries in which she could have been safe. One can only assume that her reasons are other than those she might have given to the UK immigration service on landing here.

You are right, dark. This country isn't a lifeboat for the rest of the world. Nor should it be. It should however be a lifeboat as far as it can be for all those the world over who will live in fear for their lives unless they flee their own country, or as the UK tends to do, deports them back to the last country they travelled through which British authorities consider "safe". All reasonably free countries have asylum policies of varying degrees of fairness and the question is whether or not ours is fair. I think to claim that would be a very dubious claim to make.

We are told that most who claim settlement in this country are economic and not political refugees, and it is a claim you have made yourself. It may even be true but in many ways the two overlap and it is this which is not given enough credence in the eyes of the Border Agency and its political bosses. Most immigrants are here for economic reasons and there is usually little problem of accepting economic refugees who are wealthy and it is felt by government have something to offer the country.

The poor are allowed to sink and suffer, but many poor immigrants especially from the Asian and Chinese communities have made a great success of their move to this country and contribute more per capita than their native British counterparts, are better educated are more entrepreneurial and generally more successful.

Betty is black however and such things are not said about black people.

My understanding is that Bette Tibikawa is to be deported back to her country of origin which is Uganda, and that she fled directly to this country from there. I believe no other country has been considered. She is not considered a political refugee because she was not persecuted by the Ugandan government but it is that government which has one of the most anti gay state apparatus on the African continent and no gay person in that country can be cosidered safe. Betty Tabikawa was made a target by a pro government newspaper who outed her as a lesbian and thus made a target in the eyes of its supporters.

Even if we consider that those who enter the country as economic refugees should be deported, it is the criteria used by our country of what constitutes political asylum which I question. We are an overcrowded little group of islands and which can only support so many people and any immigration allowed must be controlled to enable us to develop the infrastructure to absorb them and integrate them into our society.

That we require some form if control on immigration I do not dispute for a minute. But we are not talking of immigration in the normal sense of the world. We are considering the safety of people who have fled their country for fear of their lives. I am sure we can do much better than return people such as Betty to a country where she will certainly be in fear for hers.

[Katja]

Sammie, I do hope that you don't mean we should be the only lifeboat for those in fear of their lives. Lifeboats have a nasty habit of going under when there is only one per ship. I am sure you don't but of western European nations we are actually rather mean when it comes to the criteria for asylum.

Considering the often very cold welcome asylum seekers and immigrants generally get from large sections of our society and media, and the very often miserly way the authorities treat them, it is surprising we have a problem.

I agree with you about the lady you write about, but she possibly should have done a little more homework about where to flee to. This country has a long history of deporting gay and lesbian people who apply for asylum or immigrant status. African and a lesbian? Not the kind of person Government, immigration authorities and the Border Agency approve of at all.

[tenni]

The term that is used in my country for such a person is "refugee" rather than immigrant. Canada has claimed to have a very strong and supportive policies for refugees. What is changing in the world is the access that modern transportation has given to refugees.

Most refugees have in the past been from political chaos in Canada's experience. Canada had the option of determining which refugees it would let in. This goes back to at least WW2 when so many DP's. (displaced people) were sitting in camps throughout Europe. Canada and the US "picked" from these people as to who they would permit to travel across an ocean to live in our country. European countries didn't perhaps have this choice.

As various political uprisings happen in the world, Canada has continued to accept refugees as a special category separate from regular immigrants. Immigrants have to meet certain criteria on a point system while refugees are judged completely differently. Special programmes exist for both immigrants and refugees to help them become citizens. Refugees are financially supported by either the government or humanitarian organizations. Churches and other humanitarian organizations took up the mantel by supporting and sponsoring these refugees. Many came from such countries as Viet Nam etc. and that is the first "boat people" that I heard about.

Now, in more recent decades political upheaval that happened in South America caused refugees to fly to Canada or travel through the US if they could get in there at all. They came to Canada because our government had developed a more lenient policy on accepting such refugees. Some accused these people of being "economic" immigrants just as comments are being made here. People from Mexico have attempted to get refugee status due to the drug killings and crimes in Mexico. Most are being rejected though but not all. Some claim refugee status with death threats like Betty being a factor. Scars like Betty's are used and it gets really unclear why one is accepted and another rejected or even accused of putting the scars on their own body. Doctors become involved in determining the scar validity.

Most recently, the entire question about whether a person is really a refugee or an economic immigrant has sharpened when Canada found itself being used similarly as Spain and Australia. Hundreds of boat people at a time paid large sums of money to travel from Sir Lanka(sp for sure) after their civil war. These boats were very, very unsafe and had been condemned to the scrap yard before unscrupulous "agents" bought them. Now some on these boat refugees are being accused of being members of the "Tigers". The Tigers have been labelled terrorist organizations by the Canadian government but maybe they are freedom fighters in others' minds. There is a large section of the Canuck public that is fearful and we now have a more right winged government that seems to want to "crack down" on these illegal refugees. After all we are thousand and thousands of km from the original country. We were becoming comfortable and had policies to deal with plane refugees but this boat people situation and terrorism was new.

In the mix of all of this we also have non political refugees or sexual orientation refugee issues like Betty. Maybe, because we have legal same sex marriage we are looked on as a "softer touch" but like Europe and the US have concerns about too many refugees. This issue and hardening policies against refugees is probably only going to get worse. Those who support sexual orientation refugees may have a difficult battle ahead.