We create positive change for all survivors of torture and trafficking by influencing the development of law, policy and practice. Whether small or large, driving systemic change enables us to help many more people than we can support individually. We work closely with survivors to ensure their voices lead that change.
Using the combined experience and expertise of our clients, staff team and volunteers, we create briefings, provide witness statements, write reports, bring and support legal challenges, and lead research to provide an evidence base for our advocacy with local and central government. We also deliver and provide technical advice, training and in-person supervision to support and enable others to change their practice.
OUR GOALS ARE:
Legal protection for all survivors
Ensuring that survivors of trafficking and torture are identified; that decisions on their asylum and trafficking claims are quicker and of a better quality; and that all survivors have fair access to protection through quality legal advice.
A safe and supportive environment
Bringing an end to the use of mass institutional accommodation and the detention of survivors of torture and trafficking, and ensuring they can access quality housing and appropriate financial support in order to recover from trauma and rebuild their lives.
Recovery and integration
Ensuring that all survivors are offered timely access to appropriate healthcare services and evidence-based specialist therapeutic care, are granted leave to remain in the UK that provides the security and stability necessary for them to rebuild their lives. and are able to access education, training and employment.
DRIVING PRACTICE CHANGE
Through our evidence-based research and guidance we have improved the ways in which survivors receive support and treatment. For example:
> Our research has proven that Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) is beneficial for survivors as it helps them contextualise multiple traumatic experiences. We have trained therapists in the UK to deliver NET, as well as internationally in countries such as Myanmar and Iraq.
> We designed the UK Trauma Informed Code of Conduct as a guide for all professionals working with survivors. It is also referred to in the government’s Modern Slavery Statutory Guidance.
> Working with a panel of international trafficking experts, including survivors, we led the drafting of the Organisation on Security and Cooperation in Europe’s revised handbook on National Referral Mechanisms.
> We have delivered training to the NHS, trafficking advocates (including those with lived experience), the police, and outreach services working under the UK Government Contract, as well as other statutory bodies and agencies.
CHALLENGING AN UNJUST SYSTEM
Our policy advocacy is led by our clients’ experiences and is based on authoritative medico-legal expertise and research findings.
Our recent successes include:
> Through research and evidence, we have demonstrated the need for survivors to have secure immigration status. Our evidence was used in Asylum Aid’s successful legal challenge to the Home Office’s ‘secret policy’ of not granting leave to victims of trafficking and has helped push the government to reconsider its policy on grants of leave for those recognised as victims under the National Referral Mechanism. We have worked extensively with the Home Office to improve asylum decision making and reduce the use of lengthy harmful interviews.
> We have significantly highlighted the harm caused to survivors housed in hotels and ex-military sites. Our evidence was a key part of the successful legal challenge to the use of Napier Barracks and is part of an ongoing legal challenge to the use of RAF Wethersfield. The government has announced it will stop using hotels, the Bibby Stockholm and Nappier barrack to accommodate people seeking asylum and has scrapped plans to open new accommodation in RAF Scampton. The Prime Minister committed to closing RAF Wethersfield before the election.
> Working closely with the Home Office, MPs and Peers, we successfully challenged the introduction of short-notice evictions of newly recognised refugees from asylum accommodation. We were pleased to see a significant shift in the government’s operations and a pilot of doubling the ‘move-on’ period to new refugees to 56 days to avoid these risks reoccurring.
> Our groundbreaking research has shown that the Home Office is incorrectly treating hundreds of children seeking asylum as adults, based on a short visual assessment on arrival in the UK, and that the ‘age dispute’ process is causing significant harm to children. Our evidence has been repeatedly cited in parliamentary debates and is being used in strategic litigation. We are working on revised guidance for social workers with the Association of Directors of Children’s Services.