Dr John Campbell (see biography below) gave a talk on:
'What prospect for asylum in the 21st Century'
15 November 2017.
Dr John Campbell, Reader in the Anthropology of Africa and Law is a social anthropologist at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Dr Campbell has carried out extensive research into the British Asylum System. Between January 2007 and January 2009 he undertook a research project "Refugees and the Law: An ethnography of the British Asylum System". This sought to follow refugees from Eritrea and Ethiopia who were seeking asylum in the UK. At the beginning of 2017, he published ‘Bureaucracy, Law and Dystopia in the United Kingdom's Asylum System’, based on ethnographic research over a two-year period. The book analyses numerous asylum appeals as they go through the British courts and draws on a myriad of interviews with individuals and an examination of many state and non-state organisations with a view to understanding how the asylum system in the UK works. In addition, Dr Campbell has undertaken research in Ghana, Tanzania, Ethiopia and the UK and development consultancy work in Ethiopia, Kenya and Botswana. He provides expert reports for Ethiopian and Eritrean asylum applicants.

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A conversation around how children seeking protection are positioned in current debates on ‘trafficking’ and the implications in both policy and practical terms. Bridget  unpacked the concept of ‘trafficking’, how it is understood and who is - and is not - included in the debate on how to prevent it. Heaven Crawley focused on the difficulties experienced by children who move, but are not considered to have been ‘trafficked’, in accessing the protection to which they entitled under international refugee law, with particular reference to the issue of guardianship in Scotland.

Biographies:
Heaven Crawley: Heaven Crawley is Professor of International Migration at Coventry University’s Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations where she leads a team of researchers working on issues of migration, displacement and belonging. Heaven has served as a specialist adviser to the Home Affairs Committee and Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) on three separate occasions. She is a patron of the Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile and Asylum Justice and a Trustee of Migrant Voice. In 2012 Heaven was conferred the title of Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) in recognition of her contribution to the social sciences and to evidence-based policy making.
Bridget Anderson: Bridget Anderson is Professor of Mobilities, Migration and Citizenship at the University of Bristol. She was previously the Research Director of the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford. Her interests include citizenship, nationalism, immigration enforcement (including ‘trafficking’), and care labour. Her most recent authored book is ‘Us and Them? The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Controls’ (OUP, 2013).  Although now an academic Bridget started her working life in the voluntary sector working with migrant domestic workers, and she has retained an interest in domestic labour and migration. She has worked closely with migrant organisations, trade unions and legal practitioners at local, national and international level.
 

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29 May 2019
Max McClellan and Lucy Gregg from the legal protection team at the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in London came to talk to Baobab about their current work on child protection in the UK relating to unaccompanied and separated children. UNHCR has been funded by the EU to undertake three research projects and the talk featured presentations on two of these projects. These reports have been written also with the support of UNICEF and IOM.

Best Interests project 
Article 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child gives every child the right to have his or her best interests assessed and taken into account as a primary consideration in all actions or decisions that concern him or her. UNHCR has been undertaking research to review the current approach to the consideration of the best interests in unaccompanied and separated children’s cases, using an analysis of the existing child protection and asylum systems. This aimed to understand if these systems and procedures are appropriate, and whether they are accessible to unaccompanied children. An expert Advisory Group of eight professionals who have worked extensively in the UK system for many years (including lawyers, social workers, NGOs, judges and academics) advised on the content of the report.  Lucy highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of the current systems and outlined proposals for alternative approaches. This research will be the first UN commissioned document which provides concrete proposals for how the principle of best interests for unaccompanied and separated children could be strengthened and implemented comprehensively within and across UK procedures.

Children’s Integration Study
This study is on the reception arrangements and early integration support of unaccompanied and separated asylum-seeking and refugee children and young people (under 23 years old) in the UK. It is based on interviews with 65 children and young people and 47 key experts (mostly frontline professionals; social workers, service managers, youth workers and foster carers). The research covers areas including the experiences of children on arrival, and in reception and orientation, transfers and resettlement to the UK, care and accommodation, education and English language learning, health and wellbeing, safeguarding and social inclusion. The research was conducted due to an increase in the numbers of unaccompanied refugee children living in the UK in recent years as well as significant changes in the policy environment.  

UNHCR is also undertaking a third study which is investigating the motivations as well as push and pull factors of children’s journeys to the UK. All three research reports will be published later this year.

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