CYP Now - Denying refugee children protection

With new asylum legislation going through parliament, Joyinola Layonu, legal and policy assistant at the Migrant Children’s Project at Coram Children’s Legal Centre, looks at concerns for children’s rights.

Penally Training Camp in Wales was one of the large-scale accomodation centres used by the Home Office to house asylum seekers at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Picture: Rebecca Naden/Reuters/Adobe Stock

In July, the government published its Nationality and Borders Bill, referring to it as “the most comprehensive reform in decades to fix the broken asylum system”. The bill’s key objectives include making the asylum system fairer and more effective so that the government can better protect and support those in need of asylum and “deter illegal entry into the UK, breaking the business model of criminal trafficking networks and saving lives”. However, many organisations – including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – have been outspoken in their assessment of the provisions within the bill, going as far as to say that it would violate the 1951 Refugee Convention.

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