Resource

The meagre financial support given to people seeking asylum is woefully inadequate to meet their basic needs. They are forced to live in poverty, which has a terrible impact on their mental health and impedes their recovery from trauma, torture and abuse. Free bus travel in London would go a long way to ensure they could live with independence and dignity.

Despite the government’s manifesto pledge to “uphold human rights and international law,” its recent proposals include the dilution of the protections offered by both Article 3 (protection from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment) and Article 8 (the right to private and family life) of the ECHR, on the basis that those protections are being used to ‘frustrate’ immigration and deportation decisions. This Human Rights Day we call for leadership that strengthens rights, not weakens them.

This clinical guidance for delivering psychological interventions for survivors of trafficking is written by psychologists and practitioners from the Helen Bamber Foundation and Freedom From Torture. Working therapeutically with survivors of trafficking is often complex and emotionally challenging for both the survivor and the therapist, but it can lead to significant improvements for a survivor’s quality of life.