Current Projects
Unaccompanied refugee children – The UK government operates a deeply problematic policy of determining the age of unaccompanied minors within hours of their arrival by small boat. This decision is made during a short interview by immigration officers, and often involves racial prejudice. Children often arrive without identity documents, but even when in possession of proof of age, they are frequently prohibited from showing this. As a result of this practice, at least 1300 children have been wrongly treated as adults and placed in adult settings such as Home Office hotels and highly populated camps. They are now at risk of harm as a direct result of these policies.
Due to our extensive outreach work we have carried out, these children often contact us directly requesting help. When contacting us these children often tell us they are afraid, distressed and justifiably confused as to why they have been placed in accommodations with adults.
HfRN has worked with over 2600 children wrongly placed in adult settings, that we have since assisted into child protective settings.We have worked with these children to gather evidence of the harm caused to them and identified the practices that are resulting in this harm. We have strategised with lawyers and developed an emerging legal strategy to achieve our aim of ending the Home Offices’ practice of placing children at risk of harm and denying them their rights.
More information can be here.
Criminalisation of unaccompanied refugee children – Since October 2022, HfRN has worked with 30 children, charged with immigration offences under the Nationality and Borders Act, that are incarcerated in adult prisons. We assist these children to be able to access legal advice, and ensure their release from prison, into child protective environments. To date, 19 of these children have had their ages accepted and are now in child protective environments. However this has taken place after they have all spent long periods of time incarcerated in adult prisons. We are working with these children to help them recover and continue to access their rights. Organisationally, we are learning from their experiences and using litigation to challenge this practice.
More information can be found here.
Cross Border – The situation at this border is characterised by extreme violence and neglect. The role of the UK government in these atrocities must be examined in order to consider what steps can be taken to save lives, and ensure no further harm is perpetrated, with those responsible both those directly perpetrating this violence and states, responsible for policy and finance. Our recent work cleary shows how, through bilateral agreements between the UK and France, including the spending of at least 763.4 million, the UK is in part responsible for this extreme violence. We continue to focus on this issue, evidence gathering through interview and discussion with survivors of this violence, and developing an emerging legal strategy. This work relies on collaborations with a range of NGOs both in the UK and France, building on our decade long experience of cross border work in France.
More information can be found here.
Widespread abuse - In addition to our focused projects, we generally support those suffering from a range of grave human rights abuses within the UK asylum & protection system such as denial of medical care, access to legal advice, experience of abuse and harm by the Home Office staff and contractors, death and serious illness or harm, police violence and the wider impact of Home Office Immigration policies. Our aim is to work with those individuals affected, to expose harm and examine ways of achieving individual and collective access to justice to challenge systemic policies.