Resource

English National Opera and the Helen Bamber Foundation are partnering for the West End transfer of Du Yun’s Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Angel’s Bone. The partnership connects the opera’s central themes with the Helen Bamber Foundation’s specialist work supporting survivors of trafficking, torture and extreme cruelty, helping audiences engage with the real-world issues explored on stage.

A new briefing from the Helen Bamber Foundation examines how trauma, fear and gaps in the asylum and trafficking systems can affect survivors’ ability to disclose their experiences and why proposed changes to credibility rules risk penalising survivors for the way trauma affects them.

A mother should not have to choose between getting her child to school and providing her family with essentials such as food, medicines and clothing. Yet for families living on asylum support, this is the reality. Asylum support rates are out of touch with people’s lived realities and based on an outdated and inconsistent approach, despite being reviewed each year. The limited routes to additional support are also burdened by bureaucracy and often difficult for people in need to access.