NCADC Campaigning Toolkit
To be granted refugee status, you must show your fear of persecution is ‘well-founded’, meaning there is real basis for your fear.
It is rare to be able to get documentary evidence to support your case. This can be either because there isn’t a ‘paper trail’ to show your activity or the persecution you experienced, or because evidence exists but you haven’t had time to get it sent to you yet (and it is very difficult to bring evidence with you when you are fleeing your country). Because of this, your ‘evidence’ will often end up being your testimony. This means that UKBA will look at the information you gave in your screening interview and then in your substantive interview. They will check if there are any differences, or things they don’t think make sense, or that they don’t think are true.
You may be re-telling difficult experiences, and remembering these events can be upsetting but it is important to try and give enough detail about the events to explain them to someone who wasn't there, isn't from your country, and to explain why these events led to you having to leave your country.
Giving details about a physical or sexual assualt can be particularly distressing, but your testimony will be used to make a decision on your asylum claim. It is therefore important to include information such as who attacked you; what they were wearing; if they were police or army or secret police (and their rank if you know it); what they did to you; how often it happened, particularly if you were in prison/detention at the time; who was in the room; how you managed to survive.
UKBA will compare what you have said in your asylum claim to the ‘country guidance’ they have. If what you said happened is supported by general evidence about persecution in your country, this could help your case.
The country guidance UKBA uses will be both country guidance cases and operational guidance notes. Country guidance cases are asylum appeals chosen by the immigration tribunal to give legal guidance for a particular country, or a particular group of people in a particular country. The decisions in these cases are assumed to be based on the best possible evidence about that country at that time. Until there are significant changes in that country, a country guidance decision sets out the law for other asylum-seekers from that country.
Operational guidance notes are produced by UKBA and provide a brief summary of the general, political and human rights situation in the country and describe common types of claim. They give guidance on whether the main types of claim are likely to justify the grant of asylum, humanitarian protection or discretionary leave.
Case law can be quite old and may not reflect a current or changing situation. The operational guidance for your home country may also be flawed – it may be out of date, or not reflect the concerns of human rights organisations.
The Still Human Still Here campaign (with the Asylum Research Consultancy) produces reports challenging the accuracy of the information UKBA uses about different countries. These commentaries may be useful for a legal advisor, or for you and/or a supporter if you are unrepresented, if your application is refused based on information in operational guidance notes that you don’t think is correct. The other problem with case law and country guidance is that it reflects a general situation, and your individual case might not fit that pattern.
If you wish to challenge the country guidance UKBA are using, or to try and show that your story is true even if it doesn’t fit the general pattern of persecution, it will be useful to get objective evidence. This can be important because almost all refusals of asylum applications are refused on the basis of credibility: UKBA (or the courts) do not think you are telling the truth. Once it has been decided you are ‘incredible’, it will be suggested that anything further you say cannot be trusted. This happens so often because the asylum system and interviewing techniques do not take into account human behaviour (and memory), the effect of trauma and other psychological challenges, cultural differences and language barriers. These problems resurface when cases go to appeal, because the court system is adversarial (the two sides are opposed to each other, each trying to prove the other wrong).
Throughout your application, any discrepancies between your accounts will be used against you, even if there are good reasons for these discrepancies. Discrepancies are when there is a small difference in a story which you have been asked to tell on different occasions, such as saying in your screening interview you escaped from prison on a Monday evening, and later on saying in your asylum interview that you escaped on a Tuesday morning.
You can try to prevent discrepancies with the interview preparation above, and by supporting your story with expert and objective evidence.
CASE HISTORY
The following is a real excerpt from an asylum refusal letter. It seems ridiculous, but it demonstrates how UKBA will use any detail possible to refuse a claim:
‘You were asked what materials the carpets were made from. You stated they were made from a material called xxx in 3 different colours. You were then asked what plant or animal this material came from; you replied you did not know. It is not accepted that someone who claims to have been weaving carpets since the age of 10 would not know whether the materials used to weave the carpets were of plant or animal origin.’
This will often be obtained by a legal advisor if your case goes to appeal, but it is something you or a supporter can think about as well. Evidence could come from an academic, university researcher, or experienced professional who is an expert on your country of origin, or a particular aspect of your case (women’s rights in a certain region, an ethnicity, a religious minority, etc.). They can be asked to look at your testimony and comment on whether it fits with what they know about the subject. They could also be asked to comment on why your case might not fit the general pattern.
Remember you are not asking them to say whether or not you are telling the truth, just to use their knowledge to comment on how your story fits into known information on that topic. Usually, a legal advisor will instruct an expert, and pay them a fee. If you are unrepresented, you could try contacting experts yourself. If a supporter or local group has connections to an NGO or a university, they may be able to find an expert who is willing to do this for free. An expert may be useful in other aspects of a case too. If there are reasons why you can’t give testimony easily, because of memory or psychological problems, they can comment on this. If there have been problems understanding things, an expert could comment on language problems or learning difficulties. If your case includes a claim to a family or private life in the UK (see ‘Human Rights, Asylum and Status’), a teacher, psychologist, psychiatrist or social worker may be able to comment on the impact the deportation of you or them might have on their development.
Objective evidence may be general information about the situation in your country, from reliable sources such as human rights organisations or trusted media sources; or an expert statement on your country or situation. For more information on objective evidence, where you can find it, and what things you need to remember when including evidence, see the ‘Fresh Claims’ section of the Toolkit.
When you claim asylum, you have to tell UKBA what happened to you to prove that you need protection. UKBA will use differences in your account as reasons to refuse your claim, therefore if you have problems remembering the details of what happened to you this can have a big effect on your case.
Everyone finds it hard to remember exactly how things happened in the past, but UKBA and the courts rarely recognise this. It can be particularly difficult to remember upsetting events, or you may have memory problems because of illness, an injury, or learning difficulties.
If you have problems remembering what happened accurately, you will need to explain why.
The Centre for the Study of Emotion and Law has compiled a list of resources about asylum and memory.
A lot of the reports referred to on this website are in academic journals, which means they have been peer-reviewed (so are seen as reliable evidence by the courts), but someone with access to academic journals will need to download them or access them from a University library. The British Library in London may be able to give access to this material to members of the public.
You may also be able to get a medical or psychiatric report explaining the memory problems you have.
Women claiming asylum face a unique set of obstacles to getting the protection they need, including:
Complex claims based on persecution that targets just women, or in a way that particularly impacts on women. Women’s activities that may put them at risk are often harder to prove (for example, support or auxiliary political activities that aren’t performed in public but are still known and therefore put them at risk). Most women asylum seekers are dependants on someone else’s claim and so their specific persecution risk may not be looked at until too late. Difficulty in explaining what happened to male interviewers, interpreters and judges.
Because of these unique considerations, UKBA has specific policy guidance which they should use when considering women’s asylum claims, or any claims where gender or sexuality is a relevant factor. It is important to check that UKBA is applying its own guidance when considering asylum applications.
Asylum Aid’s women’s project has a lot of useful resources, including their Charter of Rights of Women Seeking Asylum, which highlights the particular needs of women asylum seekers. Their joint report with UNHCR, issued in January 2012, shows how far there is to go in making sure women have access to justice in the asylum system.
A great resource for women going through the asylum system (and also for men claiming asylum, and any supporters) is the Rights of Women handbook "Seeking Refuge?"
There are also some specialist legal services for women asylum seekers, such as the Rochdale Law Centre’s Female Asylum Programme (which has Comic Relief funding until March 2015).
Male and female survivors of sexual violence can find it very difficult to talk about what happened to them, which can lead to late disclosure – when someone tells of their suffering a long time after it has happened – particularly to figures of authority, whose counterparts may have been the perpetrators of the violence in their home country. There are very complicated issues around shame, blame and silence.
It is common for asylum claims that involve late disclosure of sexual violence (not telling UKBA immediately), or that only have partial information, to be refused on this basis. Marian Tankink’s article explains why silence is used as a coping mechanism. Groups who support survivors of sexual violence may be able to provide evidence of this for asylum cases and campaigns.
If you are claiming asylum because of a conversion to Christianity (or you are supporting someone who is) you may find this Evangelical Alliance briefing helpful.
The country information in this briefing dates from before 2007 and so you may need to collect more recent evidence for your case.
The information on ‘faith-testing questions’ in the asylum interview is very useful, as UKBA has been known to ask ridiculous questions in order to assess whether someone has converted to Christianity (‘How do you cook a turkey for a Christmas meal?’ being one such question).
Other useful sections in the briefing are the advice for church members wishing to provide evidence for someone’s asylum claim, and the list of contacts. he briefing looks just at conversion to Christianity, but it is intended that an updated version will cover other faiths too.
Asylum decision makers in the UK can no longer say that a person claiming asylum on the basis of sexuality can go back to their home country and hide their sexuality in order to be safe. Because of this, the focus of asylum refusals has shifted to disbelieving that the person claiming asylum is gay.
'Proving' sexuality is highly problematic and usually involves asylum seekers being made to go into humiliating detail about their sexual experiences, even though sexuality is about identity rather than sexual acts.
Start thinking about campaigning options while this process is ongoing and you are waiting for a decision
Start thinking about a public campaign (go to sections on Public Campaigning; Political campaigning; Community Campaigning)
Continue building community links (go to section on Building Communities)
Continue gathering evidence (go to section on Understanding Your Legal Case)
