Conference challenge to protect Asylum children

UNISON Scotland's campaigning work to promote the rights and welfare of asylum seeker children, started in 2006, has culminated in a UK campaign and conference aimed at challenging the UK Government to lift its reservation on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The reservation says that the government does not have to apply the Convention where children do not have the legal right to remain in the UK, for example, if they are asylum seekers or have been trafficked.

The campaign and conference aims to challenge the government to meet its obligations to all children in this country.

Entitled, "The welfare of the child is paramount - whatever their immigration status," the conference, organised jointly between UNISON and the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) will be held on Sat 15 March at Birkbeck College, London.

Speakers include the inspirational Glasgow Girls, who will bring their own experiences of immigration and asylum to the conference. This group are a mix of asylum seekers, refugees and young people who have grown up in Glasgow.

Since a friend was dawn raided, detained and deported, they have campaigned tirelessly to improve the asylum processes for other children and their families.

The aims of the conference are twofold. It will help participants to look at how they can support the rights and welfare of asylum seeker children in their own day to day practice; and it will spearhead the campaign for the removal of the reservation.

"The conference is very timely coming so soon after Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's announcement of the government's intention to review the reservation on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child," said Kate Ramsden, of UNISON Scotland's Social Work Issues Group (SWIG) and a conference organiser.

"Hopefully it will give the government that final push to lift the reservation and accord these potentially very vulnerable children the same rights as every other child in the UK."

The week before the conference will also see the launch of a guide for members of UNISON and BASW working with asylum seeker children in England and Wales, similar to the Scottish guide, "child's welfare paramount?" launched in October 2006.

"This guidance has been produced as a direct result of the Scottish Local Government Committee's motion to the Local Government Service Group Conference last year," said John Stevenson, who has also had a key role in organising the campaign and conference.

"It is based on the same principles as the Scottish guidance and will provide guidance and support to practitioners to work with asylum seeker children in a way which promotes their rights and welfare under domestic law and policy, as with any other child."

Any member interested in attending the conference should contact Mandy McDowall at m.mcdowall@unison.co.uk

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