Geographical Association

Photo by Flickr user Takver provided for use under a Creative Commons Licence.

The case of refugees and asylum seekers

Learning Objectives

• to understand why people flee from their own country and come to the UK to seek asylum
• to analyse the impact of being a refugee on the people themselves and their families
• to understand why the UK accepts refugees and in some cases gives them asylum and the challenges and benefits that this process brings to the UK

Learning Outcomes

• an appreciation and an understanding of the wide range of reasons why people become refugees
• an understanding of the complex feelings and emotions that refugees have when arriving in the UK, particularly if kept in detention centres
• deeper knowledge and understanding of the reasons why there are international agreements to deal with refugees and why the UK has signed up to this agreement

Resources

The main resource used in this session is a section from a DVD called Population Change: Causes, impacts and management of migration, produced by Pumpkin TV in association with the Geographical Association. The DVD contains several short video clips which case study the stories of different types of migrant. You may also find further useful material in the Links and Resources section in the Plenary.

As in earlier sessions, the video provides the main resource but the stories are very different this time around. It is almost as if things have been turned on their head - the people in the case studies are not economic migrants and even if they want to work (which many do), they are not allowed to do so!

According to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is 'a person who flees to a foreign country to escape danger or persecution'. A person who is seeking to be recognized as a refugee is an asylum seeker.

The United Kingdom, along with 146 other countries, is a signatory of the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951) and the 1967 Protocol which removed the geographical and time limits of the original document (it was originally designed to deal with people displaced within Europe by the events of World War II).

One of the key difficulties that the government and the recently formed UK Border Agency faces is deciding whether people arriving in the UK are genuine refugees or just 'economic migrants' from outside the European Union.

The case study on the video clip that accompanies this session highlights the story of Hadi Butimar and his family who came originally from Iran. It is a somewhat familiar story of a person caught up in the politics of history. Hadi is Kurdish and his historical homeland of Kurdistan is nowadays spread-eagled across five countries (Turkey, Syria, Armenia, Iraq and Iran). Like many people in all these countries, he would like to see an independent state of Kurdistan but the rich mineral resources in this area mean that countries are unlikely to give up territory. Inevitably, any criticism of the government in Iran, however small, draws attention to individuals and the possibility of persecution. Hadi feared for his life and fled the country. Once he arrived in the UK he became an asylum seeker and eventually was granted refugee status and allowed to stay. His family were then able to join him. There is a supplementary story which shows a young asylum seeker called Zardesht who is unsuccessful in being granted asylum and is therefore left in limbo.

One of the key questions that often comes up when discussing refugees, is 'how do the refugees choose in which country to seek asylum'. How important do you think that this question is?

Key Resource:
'Asylum Seekers and Refugees' [Pumpkin TV] Clip Length: 13 minutes

Below is a low quality version of the clip.
The DVD can be purchased at the GA Online Shop.

Iran is a tough country for young pupils to get to grips with. In most western countries, the press have very little good to say about Iran. Pupils need to get a feel for what life is like for ethnic minorities in countries where free speech is not the norm, where the intelligence services may monitor people secretly and where the death penalty is still a punishment for a variety of crimes.

Once the pupils have watched the video, a useful starting point is to track the secret journey of Hadi who travelled by car over 2,500 miles to the UK. This exercise could be done with outline maps and an atlas but has also successfully been done using ICT with Google Earth and Google Maps. Pupils could work out additional information such as the amount of time taken to make such a journey and what it would cost (petrol, food, accommodation). The exercise reinforces the link between the UK and this distant country, builds locational knowledge of Europe and the Middle East, and gives a better feeling for the scale of the task that was involved. What is difficult to convey is the complexity of moving across borders and the paperwork that would be involved - we are given no clues in the video as to how this was done and the pupils might, with some teacher support, think a little about this aspect.

In order to convey an element of personalisation into the exercise, it is useful to compare the experience and the feelings of the two men Hadi and Zardesht in terms of the following:

a) how they were treated when they arrived in the UK and asked for asylum

b) how they feel about living in the UK?

c) what they feel about their future prospects

This could be done in the form of a diary of short thoughts written over a period of time (50 words per thought).

As the video tells us that 70% of the people seeking asylum in the UK are refused permission to stay, this ought to prompt the question in the pupils minds as to what happens to these people. This aspect inevitably raises some difficult questions and issues - detention centres, forced repatriation, people 'disappearing' and seeking work illegally, etc. You might decide to leave this aspect aside or you might wish to get the pupils to think about the various options. Some kind of flow diagram works well for this exercise and an example is provided below.

Download: Immigration to the UK - A Summary

The 'Changing Populations' DVD has on it an exercise based on pupils looking at the cases of a group of different asylum seekers and giving advice as to whether or not they should be granted asylum in the UK. You could use this decision-making exercise or devise your own to include whichever countries are in the news at the time thus ensuring that the exercise is topical. Pupils could be given cards with the individual stories on them and work in pairs or small groups to come to a justified decision. The stories could be read to the whole class and the decision announced. Individuals could then vote on whether they agree with the decision or not - this would open up opportunities for everyone to contribute to the different case studies. The exercise could also be done by bringing up the individual stories of the asylum seekers on the IWB and all pupils given five minutes to note down their thoughts and their decision. Votes could then be recorded for the whole class.

A good way to finish this session and get the pupils thinking deeply about the refuge issue is to ask them to listen to or read some of the stories about refugee children - many refugees are children and many become separated from one or both of their parents. It is difficult to imagine how terrifying this must be. The pupils after reading or listening to the stories could produce a piece of work that tries to convey the feelings of these refugee children when they first arrive in the UK - this could be in the form of a short poem, a collage, a drawing or simply a diary entry voicing the thoughts in their head.

An alternative could be to get the pupils to imagine that they were suddenly told that they had to leave their home and that they would be living a long distance away in a new country. If they were given just an hour to pack a small bag (equivalent say, to a supermarket shopping bag) in which they could put their most precious belongings, what would they include and why? This information could be collated and a display made.

Some useful resources
Note that some of these articles may need editing before use with pupils

True Stories: An anthology of tales from children refugees and asylum seekers
Refugee Stories: Untold stories from around the UK       
Refugee children speak out (BBC, 2001)

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