After refugees arrive, the hard work begins
This month, an 18-year-old Iraqi refugee, who had been living in the UK for three years, took a homemade bomb onto the London Underground. It malfunctioned, prematurely exploding at Parsons Green, injuring dozens. According to ISIS, the perpetrator was a “soldier of the caliphate”. I mention this month’s attack because it contains an awkward truth often overlooked in the case of the refugee: a victim can be a perpetrator at the same time.
There was an outpouring of public sympathy and outrage when Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler, washed up dead on a beach in Turkey in September 2015. Much of the outrage was directed at quite sensible concerns about the region from which the refugees were coming and what that might mean about those refugees. To ask whether a refugee could also be a terrorist was to be xenophobic, as this thunderous exchange between Twitter gods Piers Morgan and J K Rowling demonstrates. While Aylan was clearly a tragic victim, both as a refugee and of a system gone wrong, it doesn’t mean everyone with refugee status is as innocent.
A stark, and I’m sure limited, illustration of this concept would be to think of a child who has been sexually abused. The child is a victim. Yet a child who as an adult goes on to sexually abuse children has become a perpetrator. As an adult he is still a victim of childhood abuse deserving sympathy, and a perpetrator that must be sent to prison. One status doesn’t cancel out the other, in either direction.
All to say, when we open the doors to people from war-torn regions, and one embedded with ISIS, we should remain fully sober to this tension: someone can be both a victim (in this case having the legal status of refugee) while also having the capacity to perpetrate a crime.
And yet we seem to be naïve to it. When Angela Merkel admitted 890,000 migrants and refugees into Germany in 2015, the nation’s association of psychotherapists said at least half of those fleeing war zones needed psychological support for conditions such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – and the help was not available to them.
It is an indicator of the lack of open-eyed realism characterising governments which provide sanctuary or asylum for people from war-torn countries. Not only are they inadequately realistic about the backgrounds they are coming from, they underestimate the support needed to ensure successful settlement. Not all refugees are troubled, let alone terrorists. That would be an idiotic thing to believe. But, the turbulent circumstances mean that resettlement programmes require some considerable thought and imagination.
The case history for government competence in this regard is not encouraging.
Between 2010 and 2015 over 900-asylum seeking children went missing according to The Guardian. While other suspects arrested in connection with this month’s Parsons Green attack (though not charged) have included a 21-year-old Syrian refugee and a 17-year-old living in a half-way house for asylum seekers in south London, amongst others.
This just isn’t good enough. It is failing the refugee and risking our security. The care on offer should be the best possible. Why is a 17-year-old living in some rough house in South London? Why did the first child refugees let in from Calais from the Dubs amendment go missing within days?
Letting people fall through the cracks puts them in danger of exploitation, trafficking, gangs and radicalisation. It is to take someone from the frying pan and throw them into the fire, as well as to put communities at risk.
And part of our realistic assessment should be to understand that some will come to the UK with the intent of causing harm.
My frustration is with some campaigners too. One friend called me in 2015 demanding extended rights for a category of refugees, asking if I could drum up political support for the cause.
“It sounds great,” I said, “but what are the support systems in place? For education, mental health, integration, young people not being sucked into the criminal justice system?”
The reply was depressing. “I don’t know, we just see it as a human rights issue.”
What cruelty there is in demanding human rights without providing them.
In the same way, it is simplistic and vacuous to think victim status gives immunity or disqualifies someone’s capacity to do harm. True compassion does not turn a blind eye to the vast complex needs an individual or family brings with them from a distressed context. It faces up to them honestly.
But there is some light. I spotted a very promising Home Office programme this week that is part of their Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme.
In a meeting over instant coffee bathed in fluorescent lights, I joined churches, community groups and Home Office officials talking about the ‘Community Sponsorship’ initiative, which allows groups to settle a refugee family.
It’s based on a programme that has settled over 280,000 refugees in Canada since 1978, where refugees are more likely to be in employment, at higher pay, more satisfied and at less cost than those government-only settlement programmes.
Rather than having refugees ‘done’ to them, a community prepares and participates in a family’s welcome. It is estimated that over three million Canadians have participated in the sponsorship programme there.
This breadth of support speeds up integration and provides a substantial safety net for the refugee, the most vulnerable of whom may be susceptible to traffickers, gangs or radicalisation. It’s also a powerful antidote to the bad press and ill-will generated by attacks from a minority.
If the UK is to provide the sort of hospitality that people fleeing distress deserve – and which the compassionate people of the UK want to offer – let us be generous but never naive.
Settlement should be personal and personalised to address the complex needs that people come with. Victims should get the help they deserve. And perpetrators should be identified immediately. For that complex, hazy, gap in between, surely the best defence is for refugee families and individuals to be known and supported by real life people in their new home. Hopefully the Community Sponsorship scheme will prove to be a successful contribution to existing provision.
