information for practice

In 2005–06, more than 46,000 asylum seekers and refugees contacted Refugee Action for advice. Approximately 40 per cent of these requests for help came from destitute asylum seekers. Our caseworkers are encountering unprecedented levels of despair among this group. In fact, there exists in Britain a new and growing excluded class of people whose asylum applications have been refused, who are afraid or unable to return to their countries of origin, who have no contact with the authorities, no access to work or mainstream support services, and little prospect of their situation being resolved. In January 2006, Refugee Action commissioned researchers to explore the causes and effects of this destitution.