Summary
This letter to the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, is from children we work with whose ages were not believed by Home Office officials at the UK border, and who were sent to adult asylum hotels in the North West.
Dear Yvette Cooper,
We are a group of young people from the All4One group. We all arrived as unaccompanied children to seek safety in the UK. We were all sent to adult asylum accommodation after having our ages disbelieved by the Home Office. We want to talk to you about these decisions being made by your border officials and about the impact it has on us.
At the border, we felt intimidated by Home Office officials. These officials interrogated us and told us they did not believe we were children. Sometimes they were angry and aggressive, or laughed at us. Because of this we were sent into the adult system to asylum hotels.
We had just arrived after dangerous journeys, fleeing violence in our countries. We were not given a chance to rest after these long journeys. Most of us did not understand what was happening or why we were not being believed.
Life in the hotels is miserable. Living as a child with unknown adults is frightening and lonely. It is impossible to feel safe there. We should be with children our own age, making friends and going to college, with social workers looking after us.
Being alone in hotels was very isolating, and our mental health has suffered a lot. It has made us ill, physically and mentally.
Some of us have spent months in hotels before finding anyone to help. It is hard to make ourselves understood there, and it feels like no one listens to us.
These experiences have made the UK feel like an unsafe place for us. We left everything behind, our families and home countries, hoping to find safety. Because of what we’ve gone through since arriving, it’s hard to trust people. Like anyone, we feel sad and angry when we are called liars. Some of us have also had long and hostile age assessments by the National Age Assessment Board. That makes things even worse.
This system destroys us. Please read the report by Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit where we shared more of our experiences. We ask you to hear us, acknowledge what we have been through, and change this system – it’s terrible. We don’t want the young people who come after us to go through what we have gone through.
Yours sincerely,
Young people in the All4One Group