National Assembly for Wales

EOC(3) MW 19

Equality of Opportunity Committee

Inquiry into Migrant Workers  

Response from South East Wales Racial Equality

This report is based on the work of a development officer for economic migrants (and convention refugees) with the South East Wales Racial Equality Council (SEWREC).  From late March 2006 until the end of December 2007 SEWREC took part in the Curiad Calon Cymru Development Partnership which co-ordinated the Equal Project (funded through the Europan Social Fund).  This project has now ended.

The geographical remit covered by the Project was Gwent (Blaenau-Gwent, Torfaen, Monmouthshire and Newport) while the areas of work initially covered ESOL, access to local services, employment and self-employment, education, housing, discrimination, racism and xenophobia.  Inevitably, as the Project progressed that was expanded to include sexual and domestic slavery, (attempted) honour killings, domestic violence, the setting up of community groups and many more, depending on each client’s needs and requirements.

The Beneficiaries

During the course of the Project SEWREC’s DO for migration had processed close to 300 clients’ cases.  Most of them would be between the ages of 25 to 40 and only a small number would be either older or younger than that.  Men and women were represented in fairly equal numbers.

Based on their nationality, SEWREC’s clients came from:

Africa: South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Sudan, Eritrea, the DR of the Congo, the Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Benin, Guinea, Somalia, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Angola and the Gambia

Americas: Brazil, Guyana, Cuba, Jamaica, Montserrat, Aruba, St. Lucia and USA

Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzystan, China, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait

Europe: Portugal, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, Macedonia, Albania, Malta and Georgia

It is important to notice that one’s nationality does not necessarily correspond to one’s country of origin: e.g. SEWREC’s German clients were originally Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka who were granted German citizenship, most of SEWREC’s Dutch clients originally come from Sudan or the Gambia etc. which means that the overall linguistic, cultural, ethnic and religious picture in Gwent is much more complex than statistics on nationality would show.

Another important issue that needs addressing is the issue of 'ethnicity’ as it has been defined for the purposes of the UK census.  Clients were confused by and unable to identify with UK census categories such as, for instance 'white other’ or 'Black African’ or 'Pakistani’ and the similar and they felt that those did not adequalty describe their ethnic identity and, in some cases, found the rendering of their ethnicity based solely on the colour of their skin or mere nationality (e.g. Black African, Aisan, Pakistani, Indian, Chinese etc.), to be insulting.  These categories, it was felt, did not sufficiently reflect their ethnic identities which are based on a number of other important components such as the language and the alphabet, shared history, religion and culture to name but some.  For example, the Roma people from Eastern Europe, who are of slightly darker skin complexion did not find it possible to identify with terms such as 'white’ or 'Asian’ (although their ancestors came to Europe from Asia around a millennium ago) nor did they feel related to Gypsies or Travellers over here.  A large number of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian clients were ethnic Russians and would find it easier to communicate in Russian than in Estonian, Latvian or Lithuanian etc.  Sometimes these misunderstandings would lead to more serious problems e.g. one Latvian passport holder was refused a national insurance number at the interview because she told the interviewer that she was (an ethnic) Belarussian which the interviewer mistook for her nationality.  Her response was based on the fact that in all the Slavic languages the term 'nationality’ means 'ethnicity’ or 'ethnic affiliation’ while the corresponding Slavic terms for 'nationality’ in the Englsih sense of the word vary.

Since SEWREC’s DO for migration started on this project he established a large network comprising numerous organisations in the Gwent area, around 150 of them, following separate meetings with most of them.  The establishment of a network of organisations interested in working with migrants or coming in contact with them continued throughout the project.  Meetings were also held with a number of members of public who were willing to help with the project.  SEWREC’s DO for migration had joined and attended meetings of a number of different fora such as Torfaen Diversity Forum (Cwmbran), the Newport Forum to Counter Hate Crime, the Newport BME Support Group, the Monmouthshire Diversity Forum etc.  After initial contacts had been established he started being approached by a number of local government departments and individuals (clients and those working with them) requesting advice and help regarding the issues revolving around migration.  The work done on this project has raised awareness among different organisations and local government departments about issues surrounding migration who had used SEWREC as a point of reference on the issue and continued to use it throughout the project.

In September 2007 SEWREC’s DO for migration also took part in the E-Drim conference in Granada with participants from Romania, Ireland, Spain, Italy and Germany where he spoke about his work with migrants.  The purpose of the E-Drim project was to look at professional potential of economic migrants facing major issues of social and economic integration.

Language Difficulties

  • Almost every client that approached SEWREC’s DO for migration had expressed the need to better their knowledge of English.  That did not seem to represent much of a problem for certain unskilled, repetative factory jobs they did and for which the lack of the knowledge of the language was not a major hinderance for performance in the job.  However, concerns were immediately being raised over issues such as health and safety and exploitation in employment, exploitation by unscrupulous landlords and the similar.  

If unable to speak English economic migrants and convention refugees were open to all sorts of abuse.  They were neither aware of their obligations nor they were aware of their rights or entitlements.  They would not know which services to access and how.  They worked for wages that were way below minimum wage and in a lot of cases were unaware of what minimum wage meant.  In a lot of cases neither employers nor employment agencies were informing A8 nationals of their obligation to register with the Home Office and if they worked for over 30 days without registering the Home Office would treat them as illegal workers.  

Very often SEWREC’s clients would rely on friends who speak slightly better English or even their own children as interpreters and that would inevitably lead to problems such as having to openly discuss issues the clients did not want their children to be aware of.  In many cases when applying for benefits or social housing where these service providers were also relying on such friends instead of calling for qualified interpreters the forms would be wrongly filled and the entire process unnecessarily delayed until further clarifications were submitted leaving the clients destitute in the interim.  

As recorded during this Project, some private landlords would charge the clients any amount of rent they could think of - in one case SEWRECD’s DO for migration dealt with a landlord who tried to raise the rent every two weeks.  In other cases private landlords would refuse to return the bond, would not provide the tenants with tenancy agreements or rent books and without the latter two the clients would not be able to apply for council housing (because they would not have any proof of rental liability which they knew nothing about in the first place).  Private landlords or their agents would be extremely difficult and uncooperative when approached by SEWREC and asked to do the repairs and make the accommodation habitable or to provide tenancy agreements or rent books and, in a case of one Latvian client, the landlord’s agent even forged the tenant’s signature in order to avoid returning her bond.

The number of people in need of ESOL classes was growing much faster than the number of ESOL providers in Gwent even if one takes into account the fact that economic migrants do not always intend to stay and are here only temporarily.  Still, the reasons for having a large number of ESOL classes available were not going to change just because the numbers of people who need them may fluctuate due to emigration/immigration.

One of the major difficulties had been the inability of clients to attend ESOL classes since the majority of them worked in shifts and their work pattern frequently depended on availability of work due to Zero-Hour contracts.  It had transpired that a lot of workers would only be available to attend ESOL classes on weekends which was difficult to organise because the majority of ESOL tutors approached about the issue were unwilling to work on weekends.  This has affected both economic migrants and those convention refugees who would have to interrupt their attendance of ESOL classes in order to find work and support family members in their countries of refuge.  Gwent also faced the issue of the lack of qualified tutors.

Initially it was possible for some of the benficiaries, particularly women, to be referred to English classes straight away but others had to wait a bit longer.  There are a number of voluntary organisations that provide ESOL classes for women only and it is therefore easier to enrol this section of the migrant  and refugee population than their male counterparts.  Another issue was that of eligibility which depends on the beneficiary’s status in the country combined with huge costs in cases of those who were not asylum seekers, convention refugees or economic migrants from the EU.  However, it is necessary to point out that voluntary organisations such as BAWSO, for instance, faced the same problem of recruitment and were struggling to hire enough qualified tutors if able to find some at all.

One of the praiseworthy initiatives are ESOL classes organised by RISE in Newport.  The three-days-a-week classes are run and taught by volunteers which also allows for a large amount of flexibility in the way the syllabus is approached and taught.  For example, in cases when clients, economic migrants (a minority) or convention refugees (a majority of them) wanted to look for jobs similar to or identical to their previous professions it was possible for SEWREC’s DO for migration to request the RISE tutors to help the clients acquire the necessary vocabulary and, subsequently, improve their chances of employment.

Earlier in 2007 Communities First in Pill and SEWREC had finalised all the arrangements revolving around ESOL classes for some of SEWREC’s benficiaries and the classes were held for some of them during the summer (only 12 places were available).  This initiative will continue.  

It was quite obvious that approach to ESOL classes needed to be changed in order to suit migrants’ needs and working patterns.  Therefore, in September 2007 SEWREC’s DO for migration began working with Coleg Gwent, Newport City Council, GEMSS and others to establish a forum for agencies delivering ESOL, EFL and ILTES English lessons.  The aim of the project was to bring providers together and establish a single strategic approach to the provision of classes. We hope that in the long-term a co-ordinated approach will:

  • Avoid duplication
  • Permit easy referrals between different providers
  • Fill current gaps in relation to capacity and the range of courses
  • Provide a minimum standard of curriculum and teaching

The Forum has begun by agreeing to share information on classes, eligibility and the availability of translators and interpreters. This information will be published on SEWREC’s website - www.sewrec.org.uk/englishforum.html - at least initially.

Access to Local services

  • Initially, at the start of the project, it was quite obvious that the major issue faced by clients was poor knowledge of local services while SEWREC’s ability to advise them was additionally complicated by different entitlements for different groups of economic migrants (e.g. 'Old’ EU members v 'New’ EU members v Romanian and Bulgarian nationals v non-EU nationals and their dependents holding various types of visas) and by constant changes in Immigration Law.  However, a few months in the project it was possible to claim that access to local services had improved as more migrants as well as service providers had been made aware of the Equal Project and had started consulting SEWREC on various issues.
  • A number of problems had been encountered by SEWREC’s clients in Newport and Chepstow who had been facing eviction, unemployment, court cases due to rent arrears or unapid council tax bills or were having problems regarding their benefits due to the fact that interpreting services had not been used by public service providers such as Housing Departments, Job Centres, Magistrate Courts and Council Tax Offices although most of these service providers have access to them (the Housing Department in Chepstow were unaware that interpreting services such as Language Line existed at all).  The practice had resulted in hardship for many clients who were never properly explained about their obligations, duties, requirements or their rights.  A series of meetings were held with these service providers throughout 2006 and 2007 in order to remind them, or make them aware of their obligations and duties under their BME Strategies and particular interpretations of the Race Relations Act.  
  • The situation was particularly grim with the Job Centre Plus in Newport whose staff were refusing to use interpreting services or were unaware that they had access to them.  That, in turn, resulted in large number of eligible clients being refused benefits or the clients’ benefits would subsequently be stopped because they did not understand what their obligations as jobseekers were (such as filling in the jobsearch diary).  Both convention refugees and economic migrants were affected by such state of affairs and in January 2007 SEWREC’s DO for migration requested a meeting with the Job Centre Plus’ operations manager for Torfaen, Monmouthshire and Newport and other managers because the situation needed to be resolved.  The meeting was also attended by a representataive from the Welsh Consortium for Refugees and Asylum Seekers but the British Red Cross, the Welsh Refugee Council the Somali Association and a number of other BME organisations in Newport had also been informed about the meeting (and its outcome).  We were promised that the service was going to be improved and information packs in a number of additional languages introduced (information was requested in Russian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, French, Somali, arabic, Kurdish).  However, the situation did not improve and by May 2007 SEWREC’s DO for migration had accumulated around 60 complaints about the Job Centre Plus in Newport, the complainants being members of different BME communities and were both British and non-British nationals.  But the complaints were also being lodged on their behalf by various organisations working with these groups.  Another meeting was requested, this time attended by SEWREC’s director and legal case officer, and the situation eventually got better.
  • Research was also done on medical access for different groups of migrants depending on their visa status and that information was sent out to interested beneficiaries.  A comprehensive list of all the GPs in Gwent was obtained and employment agencies in the area informed.  Letters were sent to the employment agencies requesting them to inform their employees that they should register with GPs, particularly if they had children.  Sadly, but not surprisingly, only one employment agency in Gwent responded and requested a copy of the list.

Housing

  • Although it had been impossible to obtain exact numbers of new immigrants in Gwent it had not been hard to conclude that housing providers in the area were under significant strain due to increase in numbers of those looking for accommodation.  Meetings were held with both Homelessness unit and Social Housing unit in Newport and the Monmouthshire Housing Department in order to clarify the situation regarding entitlements different EU nationals would have if they wished to apply for housing by the City Council.   This information was then disseminated or explained to the beneficiaries.  In addition, a number of housing associations had been contacted in order to find out about eligibility criteria regarding migrant workers who may wish to apply for housing with them and their application forms were regularly offered to beneficiaries by SEWREC’s DO for migration.
  • There had been cases of overcrowding reported by various agencies and individuals.  As far as the law is concerned voluntary overcrowding is not illegal - but can lead to a number of problems such as neighbours’ complaints, health realted issues, damage to property and breach of lease in which case the landlord can evict the tenants without a prior notice and the tenants then find themselves homeless and, if from Accession States, without any recourse to public funds unless they have worked in the UK for a year.  However, although it is illegal for a landlord to overcrowd the house and take the rent for more people than should be in the house there had been anecdotal evidence to that extent.  
  • Instances of overcrowding were reported to SEWREC’s DO for migration by Environmental Health and Community Safety Wardens (around 30 people in one house in Newport).  Similar reports still occasionally reach SEWREC.  Overcrowding is also noticeable among Slovak, Czech and Lithuanian Romanies who have continued some of their cultural practices such as living in extended families for which accommodation affordable to them - having in mind that most of them worked either in low-paid, unskilled jobs or were unemployed - was inadequate.
  • Similar to the above described situation with the Job Centre there had been a number of issues affecting numerous BME organisations’ clients and beneficiaries in relation to the Re-Housing Department in Newport:  
  • information was not being given to clients in languages they understood even though Council’s tenancy agreements were available in at least 10 different languages
  • the clients were asked to 'bring a friend’ (or a child) to help with interpreting even though the Council were signed up to Language Line
  • Language Line was not used in order to avoid costs
  • SEWREC’s beneficiaries were being sent back to its DO for migration requesting he helped them fill in housing forms (similar situations were reported to SEWREC by a number of organisations dealing with BME clients)
  • clients were not being told that properties they had been offered had been targeted by local youths (broken windows, break-ins etc.) and yet attempts would then be made to evict them from those properties for non-occupancy (although, legally, nobody can be forced to live in a property they are scared of living in) and, consequently, they would be threatened with courts for rent arrears
  • there was no proper matching of properties with clients’ needs for instance in cases of convention refugees who had been victims of torture and whose mental state would get progressively worse when housed in such targeted properties
  • nobody was being explained about complaint procedures (in fact, on 23.01.2007 SEWREC’s DO for migration was told by one housing officer that such forms did not exist and that they did not have complaint pricedures!) or how to go about appealing negative decisions  
  • in general, housing applicants were not explained about their right to refuse an unsuitable property and, in cases they did refuse, the Council would discharge their duty to them and the clients with serious difficulties would find themselves inelligible for housing.
  • There had also been numerous allegations of racism and discrimination made by members from Asian, Eastern European and African communities.  One Eritrean convention refugee, for instance, was told by a housing officer that '…she hadn’t been tortured enough…’ to be in priority need although she had submitted evidence of torture inflicted on her, the evidence the Home Office found sufficient to grant her refugee status.  A Zambian client who had been tortured and repeatedly raped in prison in his country was told the same and also that his anti-depressants were not '…strong enough’ for him to be regarded as to be in priority need (SEWREC’s DO for migration was informed that not even GPs would dare utter such statements about one’s medication!).  An 8.5-months pregnant Latvian woman who was homeless and sleeping in her car at the time she approached SEWREC for help was refused housing and was told that she had made herself intentionally homeless by going to Latvia for two weeks to visit her 87-year-old grandmother she looked after - although she had worked in the UK 3 years prior to losing her job and these were her first holidays in 3 years.
  • When a Congolese beneficiary - who was not only SEWREC’s but also the British Red Cross’ and the Welsh Refugee Council’s client - was illegally evicted on 23.01.2007 BME organisations in Newport, led by SEWREC, decided that the situation should not be allowed to continue, got together and demanded a meeting with the management in Re-Housing.  The situation needed to be addressed urgently because the day before a 16-year-old Congolese boy was racially assaulted in his school for the 5th time, members of various African communities were visibly upset and agitated and there was a huge possibility of the situation getting out of control.
  • The meeting was attended by the represenatives of the Welsh Consortium, the British Red Cross, the Welsh Refugee Council, the Refugee Voice Wales, SEWREC and the Newport Somali Association (with apologies from BAWSO and Women in Need).  On SEWREC’s request the Council’s Equalities officer was also present.  All the above issues were addressed and the Housing department promised a number of changes to their policies and procedures:  
  • new guidelines were to be devised by the Council’s equalities officer and dissemminated to every Council employee  
  • all the managers would be sent a memo requesting of them to make sure that every employee had printed off and read the new guidelines  
  • Council’s employees would be given a training in how to use Language Line
  • Tenancy agreements and leters sent to service users would be printed in Somali, Bengali, Urdu, Punjabi, Swahili, French, Welsh, Russian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Slovenian (this has not materialised yet)  
  • children and friends would not be used as interpreters  because it had transpired that although they might speak slightly better English they were unable to interpret the jargon and explain the rules and procedures correctly
  • complaint forms and procedures would be explained and would be made accessible to everybody  
  • interested and involved agencies’ letters and phone calls would be replied and we would be able to follow our clients’ progress.

Access to Employment

  • Access to employment would depend on a number of different factors.  Most economic migrants who approached SEWREC’s DO for migration for help had been educated to primary or secondary level only and were looking for unskilled jobs.  However, as the project progressed it was becoming obvious that there were also large numbers of people educated to university level who were working in unskilled professions due to the lack of knowledge of the English language or due to their immigration status e.g. African convention refugees, African, Asian and non-EU Eastern European (Ukrainian, Belorussian, Russian) doctors and nurses who work in nursing homes in Gwent as care workers for minimum wage.  In addition there is the issue of the recognition of the latter’s degrees and additional exams they would have to do in order to qualify to work in medical professions in the UK.  Similarly, people who had been granted refugee status had to go through the same process of recognition of their degrees if they wanted to work in professions they worked in prior to becoming asylum seekers.
  • Most economic migrants as well as convention refugees had found work through employment agencies.  However, employment agencies had proved to be extremely elusive and unwilling to co-operate when approached by SEWREC.  For instance, SEWREC’s DO for migration sent out letters to 77 employment agencies in Gwent in July 2006 with a brief survey about non-UK workers employed by them.  The questionnaire contained a few questions only and was very general, it was asking if those agencies had any foreign employees and where they were coming from (e.g. Africa, Asia, Eastern or Western Europe etc.).  Only 6 of the agencies approached filled in the questionnaire which was insufficient and would not allow for any major or important conclusions.
  • Although clients, or other agencies on their behalf such as the Welsh Refugee Council, BAWSO or the British Red Cross, would approach SEWREC with complaints about zero-hour contracts, the clients’ wages and treatment in work, tied-housing, discrimination, bullying and the similar the clients would normally refuse to take their complaints further and SEWREC’s DO for migration would have to treat these issues as anecdotal evidence.  The only way available to SEWREC to deal with such instances then was to send out a generic letter to all the employment agencies in Gwent in which it would be stipulated that SEWREC’s attenton had been drawn to this or that particular issue and such a letter would further explain breaches of the law that had occured.  There had also been numerous instances of employment agencies not issuing clients with P45s once they stopped working for these agencies which, in turn, would prevent the clients from accessing benefits.
  • Frequently, employment agencies in Newport would make arbitrary decisions as to which Immigration Status Documents they would use in order to check somebody’s identity and when doing so the same employment agencies were not following the Border and Immigration Agency’s guidelines which clearly prescribed which documents or combinations of documents were or were not permissable as proof of identity.  In these instances employment agencies in question were also in breach of the Race Relations Act when, for instance, refusing to accept the refugee status document.  However, there is also copious anecdotal evidence of employment agencies knowingly employing asylum seekers with forged documents who could then be paid lower wages and who were not going to complain about their treatment.
  • Great co-operation had been established with the Want2Work and the Deprived Areas Funding award Teams as well as Careers Wales who were able to find jobs for a large number of clients referred to them.  The drawback with the former two, however, is the fact that they operate on post codes and significant numbers of beneficiaries were excluded from accessing them.  This would very often include people who may live in affluent areas but in cheap shared accommodation because they had been paid minimum wage - and which would hardly make them well off even if their post codes indicated so.
  • As the project progressed a number of economic migrants and convention refugees felt secure enough to start considering the setting-up of a business.  SEWREC’s DO for migration had particularly encouraged members of various African communities in that direction due to the fact that a lot, but not all of them, were convention refugees who were settling down in Newport (Newport as a city of dispersal is convention refugees’ 'local connection’ because this is where they lived when they were granted refugee status and could only get housed by the City Council in the Newport area).  However, the main reason for this approach was the fact that there are not all that many Black-owned businesses in Gwent.  In order to achieve that goal succesful co-operation was established with the Newport and Gwent Enterprise and some 40 African owned businesses are on the way to be set up.  Around September 2006 SEWREC’s DO for migration started informing different agencies about several different projects and organisations that help BME individuals set up their own business and asked for their clients to approach him or SEWREC’s African-Caribbean worker so that they could signpost the clients and refer them to the Newport and Gwent Enterprise, the Ethnic Business Support Programme and the Want 2 Work initiative with the Job Centre Plus.  The individuals who had approached SEWREC and started setting up businesses  were of Russian, Ghanaian, Nigerian, Pakistani, Yemeni, Sudanese, Hungarian, Polish, Congolese, Lithuanian, Montserratian, Zimbabwean, Zambian and Jamaican origin.

Discrimination, Racism and Xenophobia

  • There had been numerous recorded cases of hardship experienced by pregnant women, mostly from A8 countries, who would be laid off by their employment agencies once the clients told them they were pregnant.  Furthermore, some pregnant beneficiaries had faced problems because their employers had been disregarding their obligations to risk-assess them and offer flexible working hours (which was eventually rectified).  In one case a pregnant Brazilian beneficiary’s manageress was very helpful and offered her flexible working hours so that the beneficiary could attend ESOL and IT classes with BAWSO without losing on wages.
  • There had also been rumours about possible conflicts between Eastern European migrants and members of established ethnic minorities in the Pillgwenlly area of Newport.  These reports mainly came from the Police who were alerted to the problem by local community groups and who were concerned about possible conflicts between Polish economic migrants who were openly expressing racist opinions about Black people on one hand side and the members of the African-Caribbean and African communities on the other.   The (cultural) attitudes of male Kurdish refugees towards underage girls in Newport were also a cause of concern.  Quite noticeably, some Slovak and Czech nationals had brought over very negative and disparaging opinions and attitudes towards Romanies and had been openly expressing those opinions.
  • An issue that needed to be addressed was also the understanding of the term 'racism’ which differs in Britain to that in Central and Eastern Europe where the term only refers to discrimination against people of different skin colour.  When it comes to disputes between different nationalities such as several recorded fights between Latvians and Lithuanians in Newport these disputes were not seen by them as racism but rather as 'chauvinism’ in the older meaning of the word as: contemp for other nations.  SEWREC’s DO for migration explained this issue to the Police in Newport, Cwmbran and Ebbw Vale because such differing perceptions would cause that many of these incidents remained unreported.
  • A possible source of ethnic tension were the cases where British workers were laid off in order to employ cheaper Eastern European workers as had been reported to have happened in one instance in Abergavenny.  A number of myths about economic migrants particularly those from Eastern Europe had also been recorded and which had been previously known from elsewhere in the UK.  One such myth was that Eastern Europeans had been stealing 'British jobs’.  However, as confirmed during a meeting SEWREC’s DO for migration had with the Job Centre in Chepstow, those jobs had been available to domestic labour force for years before Eastern Europeans came over but the locals did not want them.
  • Cases of direct discrimination had been relatively rare although there had been landlords who openly expressed racist views towards their tenants.  Another one was a case of an Albanian national employed by the Royal Gwent Hospital who had suffered racial discrimination at work and whose case was dealt with by SEWREC’s legal case worker.  There was also a case of a Nigerian national who was unfairly dismissed based on his nationality and SEWREC’s DO for migration dealt with the case in conjuction with SEWREC’s legal case worker.  In another case a Bangladeshi client’s family was being exposed to constant racial abuse by black and white children in their street.  This had been discussed with the Police and the case was referred to SEWREC’s legal case worker, who in turn organised a conference with the family and which involved all the relevant agencies.
  • A senior nurse from the Torfaen Local Health Board approached SEWREC’s DO for migration at the end of 2006 because she had been aware of large numbers of foreign nurses working for local health boards and nursing homes in Gwent who, she felt, had been exploited and had not been protected.  Soon afterwards SEWREC’s DO for migration became aware of 18 foreign nurses (1 Pakistani, 15 African and 2 Czech) who had been sufferring harassment, bullying and racial discrimination by their matrons, the staff and residents in various nursing homes in Gwent.  However, each time some of them approached SEWREC with a complaint they would either phone or visit the DO for migration as soon as the following day and ask him not to proceede with the complaint because they were afraid of losing their jobs.  Non-EU nationals do not have recourse to public funds and losing a job after a complaint would result in destitution while the two EU nurses withdrew their complaints because their jobs were tied to their accommodation and losing one would mean losing both.  In addition, the two Czech nurses had not worked in the UK for full 12 months and would have no entitlements to benefits either.  The Employment Agencies Section of the then Department of Trade and Industry was then informed and they promised to react.  In March 2007 the DTI’s Employment Agencies Section sent a team to investigate allegations of discrimination in nursing homes in Gwent and found  a series of irregularities.
  • Romanies in Gwent are discriminated against not only by their fellow countrymen but by the host population as well.  In the summer of 2006 SEWREC’s DO for migration received a phone call from a Newport City councillor who not only expressed openly racist viewes about '…those people (who don’t live like us…)’ but was reporting alleged anti-social behaviour and overcrowding involving a Czech Romany family living in Stow Hill, an affluent area of Newport.  According to the councillor some 60 residents from the road had signed a petition requesting that the family was moved elsewhere although the family lived in a privately rented accommodation and its male members were all employed.  SEWREC’s DO for migration phoned the Police and they went to visit the family just to find not only that all the allegations were untrue but also that the Czech family were the only family of dark skin complexion in the road.  The councillor was then contacted and told about the findings.  SEWREC’s DO for migration himself from South Eastern Europe and an Ethnologist by profession was also able to explain issues revolving around cultural differences and the councillor promised to convey those to his constituents and even to fight for this family’s right to live in peace.  However, the family in question were quite upset by the events and requested SEWREC’s DO for migration to help them apply for social housing which was arranged.

Education

  • Apart from the clients who came to the UK with the sole purpose of studying (such as a large number of Zambian nationals for instance) but who also held work permits, queries and requests for help in relation to further and higher education had been pretty rare among economic migrants but had been much more frequent among convention refugees.  There had been clients with no previous education whatsoever (mostly Darfuri and Somali refugees) or with only primary (mostly Romany) or secondary education (the majority of all Eastern European clients).  Instances of clients wih university degrees were most notable among non-EU nationals from Africa and non-EU countries of the former Soviet Union (Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzystan).   
  • In relation to education and training some very interesting trends could have been noticed: while Darfuris in general had been quite motivated and driven to acquire as much eduacation as possible the group SEWREC’s DO for migration found most difficult to interest and engage in education or ESOL classes were ethnic Romanies (from Romania, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia).  Due to discrimination and persecution they had suffered at home even the Romanies who spent 9 years in primary education in those countries cannot read and write and that seems to be the major put-off factor for them, in their own admission they are too ashamed to attend ESOL classes.  SEWREC’s DO for migration had interviewed over 30 Romanny clients from various Eastern European countries and had become acutely aware of the danger that they may be rapidly forming an underprivileged, allienated underclass in Gwent.  The lack of stronger educational basis and the fact that most of them are unable to speak English result in the inaccessibility of better paid employment and poor and inadequate housing.  Combined with daily exposure to discrimination  all these factors make this group unable to engage as well as wary of engaging with the rest of society.  
  • Some of the beneficiaries would use their age as an excuse not to attend ESOL classes i.e. they would say they’re too old to study now.  Cultural reasons could explain why Somali men (and single Somali women) were most eager to find work: once in the UK they are expected to send money back home in order to support their extended families in Somalia or their families’ countries of refuge.  That prevented both ESOL attendance as well as any possibility to engage in further education which, in turn, means that they only had access to unskilled, low-paid jobs and low-quality housing.  
  • The co-operatin with GAVO and Careers Wales resulted with an agreement whereas they would notify SEWREC of any training courses available which the DO for migration would then offer to his clients.  It is worth mentioning that a great number of SEWREC’s clients required assistance with their CVs (which are done differently in their countries of origin) or had no knowledge of how to the fill in job application forms, benefits’ forms and the similar.  When interviewing them for the first time SEWREC’S DO for migration would ask each client if they were interested in any training and they would be signposted to relevant service providers.  A request was also made to GAVO to organise training courses for SEWREC’s clients in order to teach them how to go about filling in job applications and various other forms.

Peer and Community Support

  • As SEWREC was being approached by an increasing number of African clients it was becoming obvious that the formation of a community group to cater for their needs was an inevitability.  The African Roots Alive community group is to be set up as a company limited by guarantee first so that it would be able to start applying for funds before applying for charitable status.  SEWREC’s DO for migration had also approached members of the African-Caribbean community in Newport and invited them to actively participate in order for the two groups to work more closely together and to address some of the tensions that exist between the two communities.  There are well over 60 members of the group so far and they come from Algeria, Egypt, Togo, Ethiopia, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo-Kinshasa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Kenya, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, St. Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, Barbados, Jamaica and the UK.
  • The group’s objectives are to:  
  • Bring together individuals of African descent regardless of their nationality, race, ethnicity, language, religion, gender, disability, age or sexual orientation and rather concentrating on individual members’ needs based on their social i.e. socio-political and socio-economic status in the UK
  • To be an all-encompassing organisation that would cater for the needs of people of African descent be they asylum seekers, convention refugees, economic migrants, permanently settled sections of the population, groups with specific and urgent needs (trafficked people, sex slaves), unaccompanied minors, women, the elderly, people with learning disabilities or LGBT (Lesebian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) people.
  • To promote equality and comtinue to fight discrimination against its members in education, employment, housing, media and service provision in general following on the great example and achievements of African-Caribbean and African (and other BME) equality campaigners of the previous decades.
  • To actively promote literacy, bi- and multi-lingualism of its members thus enabling easier inclusion in the host society as well as allowing for the reservation of separate members’ own sense of identity.
  • To promote African unity and the unity of all groups of African descent but also to allow for and to support the setting-up of their separate country-based or single-issue organisations catering for their particlar needs.
  • To actively advocate the benefits of education among its members and to help maintain the high level of academic achievements of adults and children of African descent.
  • To assisst with training, re-training and the recognition of overseas degrees thus enabling the newly arrivals’ easier access to UK job market  and voluntary sector regardless of their current status in the UK
  • To assisst its members with immigration related issues.
  • To promote entrepreneurship and encourage self-employment among its members.
  • To lobby and advise service providers on behalf of its members raising awareness of and offering better understanding of its members’ cultural needs in housing, education, employment, health and mental health etc.
  • To discouragee ghettoisation of its members and encourage active participation in and engagement with all issues concerning the host society.
  • To support the preservation and free expression of different cultral traditions found among its members and to reach out to non-Black sections of the population facilitating better understanding and mutual respect.
  • To organise cultral events such as as art exhibitions, the presenation of literary works by African writers, concerts of African music, discussion fora (on politics, history, archaeology and anthropology of the continent and similar), workshops and talks for school children and other events that would involve interested sections of non-African population.
  • To co-ordinate activities based on particular needs e.g. activities for the elderly, afterschool activities, outings for people with learning disabilities, sports events etc.
  • To host a specialised library - or electronic library - with newspapers, journals, books of particular interests to various sections of African population in Gwent.
  • To issue a multi-lingual newsletter thus making it more accessible to its various members particularly those with insufficient proficiency in English.
  • Preliminary consultations had been conducted in order to set up a Polish association (and a Polish school), a Slovak association, a Russian women’s group and a Russian school.  However, the Polish and Slovak beneficiaries never got around setting up their own associations due to the lack of interest.  On the other hand SEWREC’s DO for migration was more actively involved with the setting up of the Russian Speaking Women’s Association and the Haweenka Somali (Somali Females) group.  The former group’s membership consists of Russian speaking women from the former Soviet republics.  The group aims to help women not only from the former republics that are now EU members (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) but also from Belarus, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzystan etc. who live and work in Gwent.  SEWREC’s DO for migration also attended the first meeting of Haweenka Somali group to which he also invited a community development officer from GAVO and a representative of the Newport and Gwent Enterprise.  The group’s constitution was discussed at the meeting as well as the group’s charitable status which will be dealt with by the Newport and Gwent Enterprise and it was discussed how our separate organisations could help.  SEWREC was to assist in finding a venue, probably in a local school, where it would be possible for members of the group to provide some teaching in Somali, particularly to school children while GAVO’s community development officer was to get more closely involved with the group and help with the group’s activities in the future.

Women with the right to work but with no recourse to public funds

SEWREC’s DO for migration had worked with and had been able to identify several groups of vulnerable women with no recourse to public funds:

Internet brides

  • The majority of these women came from Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzystan (most of them but not all, ethnic Russians) and from Thailand.  Typically, they had met their husbands online first and then went on to meet up with them during holidays somewhere abroad.  At that stage things normally looked pretty OK and upon returning back home these women would quit their jobs (most of the women dealt with by SEWREC are highly qualified), borrowed money for the trip, applied for and obtained fiancee visas and came to the UK.  The fiancee visa would allow them to stay in the UK for 6 months but they would have no right to work until they got married and there would be no recourse to public funds in case things went wrong.  However, in some cases even before the 6-months period ran out, the women would start having problems with the men and which would amount to emotional abuse and financial blackmail by their husbands or husbands-to-be and, since they would be unable go back home because there would be no money left, they would end up in a position that could only be described as 'domestic slavery’.  They would be expected to clean, wash, cook etc. but would have no access to any money at all.  Those who had obtianed the right to work after getting married would also be asked by their husbands to pay the rent etc. although due to poor English most work in low-paid jobs and need money to send to their families back home.  They continue to have sex with these men because they are terrified of what might happen if the husbands refused to sign the visa extention forms.  Some of these women - who are mostly in their late 30s or early 40s - also have children that they had brought here and are terribly worried about their future.  Needless to say SEWREC’s DO for migration had had no luck in trying to persuade their respective Embassies to help (the Russian consul simply hung up, she was not interested at all).  Local politicians were absolutely uninterested in the issue.  Some Russian Orthodox Churches in London do offer help and the one that helped with the first such case in mid 2006 not only had a safe house for such women but also paid for hers and her daughter’s plane tickets.  However, Orthodox Churches are streched financially and not always able to help.

Dependents

  • These are women who have joind their husbands who are here on student or work permits (Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Nigerian and Chinese so far).  Once they come over they suddenly find out that, for various reasons their husbands want to divorce them (in one case because the husband had a mistress over here, in another case the wife walked in on her husband abusing their 3-year-old daughter).  If these women refuse to agree to a divorce (which they shouldn’t do unless they have secured some sort of settlement for themselves) these women are threatened, beaten, kicked out etc.  Usually, they also have dependent children with them.  Unfortunately, due to the fact that they have no recourse to public funds the only organisation in Gwent that can help them is BAWSO but BAWSO gets funded for only one such woman per a year.  Women’s Aid do not get such funding and are unable to help.  Due to cultural and religious reasons some of these, particularly Muslim, women would not be able to go back home even if they wanted to because they had 'disgraced’ the family and the consequences of such acts are quite serious.  In one case the client would be unable to return back home (she is African) because one of the husband’s uncles was at some stage a holder of the highest office in the country they come from and she would not be safe anywhere in the country (she had already received numerous death threats from her husband’s family).  Eventually, she was forced to apply for asylum.  Depending on their husbands’ status in the UK most of these women do have the right to work but still cannot approach any agency for help when things go wrong for them because their visas do not allow for recourse to public funds.

Women (and men) from A8 countries and women from  A2 countries.

  • Nationals of the A8 countries have to be working in the UK 12 months continuously if they are to pass the habitual residence test and qualify for benefits.  The habitual residence test usually takes 6 - 8 weeks to assess so even women who do qualify for help and will be found to have recourse to public funds still have to wait for up to two months to receive any income following the loss of employment.  If there is a 30-day gap between two employments during those 12 months then they have to start from scratch (SEWREC’s DO for migration had dealt with a number of such cases where the clients had worked for up to 10 months and then ended up unemployed for a period longer than 30 days and, consequently, was unable to assist them).  When they find themselves unemployed and unable to access any services they become extremely vulnerable and are open to exploitation (which is how one of the SEWREC’s Polish clients was raped by her landlord).  SEWREC had also dealt with some Eastern European women (Lithuanian and Czech) whose final resort was prostitution.  It is even more difficult to help women from Romania and Bulgaria because those countries’ nationals are only allowed to come over as self-employed or students and, apart from that, are only allowed to work in meat-, mushroom- or fish-processing.  Most employers don’t bother with them because the process of obtaining work permits for them appears to be excrutiatingly long and those employers SEWREC approached to help them find work were unaware of what they needed to do.  In all these cases nationals of A8 and A2 countries had no previous knowledge of their obligations, rights or entitlements prior to coming to the UK and had no idea how to obtain any help and once they have spent all their money, they would end up homeless and unable to look for work (firstly and foremostly because they cannot speak English).  
  • In December 2006 SEWREC’s DO for migration was approached by the Wallich Clifford Community (the Newport Rough Sleepers Team) regarding a Czech national who had been found unconscious at Newport Bus Station after being badly beaten by baseball bats.   The client did not speak English and that was why he was brought to SEWREC.  He was destitute due to the fact that he had only worked 5 months in the UK and did not qualify for any benefits.  He had no money on him or any ID.  Initially he told SEWREC’a DO for migration that his passport was stollen the night he was beaten up.  The Czech Embassy in London were approached but were very unhelpful.  The Embassy insisted that the only thing they could for the client was to issue him with a travel document after he had got in touch with his brother in the Czech Republic and who was supposed to send him money for the travel document as well as the trip to London and back home.  That was highly unrealistic having in mind that the client was sleeping rough and continued to be beaten up almost every night and was being arrested very often for shoplifting (stealing food).  Eventually, the client admitted to SEWREC’s DO for migration that his ID and his NI card were being held by a gangster from the Czech republic who had forced him to work for those 5 months but had only given him £10.00 out of his wages.  The client was terrified but SEWREC’s DO for migration managed to persuade him to go to the Police with him where they gave the Police details of the gangster’s address.  The Police finally managed to bring the client’s ID to SEWREC near the end of December.  The client returned to SEWREC a few days later and the DO for migration took him to the local branch of the Salvation Army who had agreed to pay for his coach ticket to Prague but the only available date for his trip was January 3rd 2007.  The Wallich Clifford continued to meet him every morning giving him some food.  On December 28th 2006 SEWREC received a phone call from the Police who had arrested the same client for shoplifting and the possession of an offensive weapon (a knife which the client had for his own safety).  They were going to keep him in custody over night and take him to magistrates court in the morning.  The following day SEWREC’s DO for migration went to the court where he was able to explain to magistrates about the client’s predicament and asked them to keep him in prison until January 2nd for his own safety.  At least he would be in a warm place and would be fed.  The magistrates agreed and the client was released on 02.01.2007.  SEWREC gave him some warm clothes and the following day the DO for migration took the client to the bus station and put him on the bus to Prague.

Foreign workers (non-EU)

  • SEWREC had dealt with a number of women who came to the UK on the Highly Skilled Migrants Scheme but who were, for various reasons employed in low-paid jobs such as care work.  They can be qualified nurses or doctors in their countries of origin  (such as Belarus, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Pakistan among others that SEWREC had dealt with) but do not have letters of comparability from NARIC which means that their degress have not been recognised and that is how they end up doing unskilled jobs.  Some had been brought over by unscrupulous employment agencies and owe them a lot of money for arranging the jobs, the trip and the accommodation provided for them.  Most end up in tied housing which means they cannot afford to lose their jobs or complain about the agencies’ treatment of them because they will find themselves on the street and will be forced to return home unable to return the money they owe to agencies.  Most put up with racism, bullying and discrimination at work but are too terrified to start grievance procedures.  Since there is no recourse to public funds they are desperate to keep their jobs.

Women fleeing domestic violence and various other forms of abuse

  • Once these women were forced to leave their abusive partners or spouses they would find their way to BAWSO’s or Women’s Aid’s refuges where they would be referred to by a number of agencies including SEWREC.  Determined to start new lives they would also want to get jobs.  However, since they had no recourse to public funds they would be unable to obtain any help from job advisers in Job Centres.  Additionally, due to the fact that their new addresses in refuges could not be disclosed those organisations whose work is based on post codes such as the Want 2 Work and DAF Teams would also be unable to help them.  SEWREC’s DO for migration negotiated with these two teams to treat these women as with 'no fixed abode’ which the teams were willing to do but their superiors rejected the idea and insisted on the women having the right post codes before being eligible for any assistance.  

British women with no recourse to public funds

  • Although British nationals would be outside the DO for migration’s remit he had dealt with two interesting cases where the situation regarding the clients’ status was not always clear.  In the first case a British woman returned to the UK after spending the last 11 years living with her violent husband in Jamaica and where she acquired Jamaican nationality as well.  She was automatically disqualified from getting any benefits because she had been away for over 3 years and had paid no NI contribution in that period.  Luckily, she had approached BAWSO at the right time (while they still hadn’t spent the money they had for women with no recourse to public funds) and they were able to help her.  The second case was of two sisters from Montserrat who, although both in possession of UK passports, were being treated as foreign nationals because Montserrat is a British colony and not part of the UK.  They were being refused housing, education and, in case of the eldest sister who suffers from epilepsy, disability benefit.  However, the law regarding Montserratians changed in December 2007 and hopefully they will be able to access services and move on with their lives.
  • When attending Women’s Aid AGM in September 2007 SEWREC’s Do for migration established contacs with the Medaille Trust.  The Trust works with women who are trafficked for sex but their attention was drawn to the above described cases where women have no recourse to public funds.  The Medaille Trust owns safe houses in Oxfordshire and Yorkshire and their trustees are currently discussing if those houses could be used to house SEWREC’s, BAWSO’s, MEWN’s, Women’s Aid’s and Women in Need’s clients.

Sex Slavery and Prostitution

  • Women in Need is the only organisation in Newport that has dealt with women trafficked for sex but their funding has run out and it is questionable how long they can continue working on a purely voluntary basis.  Trafficked women found in Newport have been either Chinese or Vietnamese nationals.  Again there had been no help from local politicians forthcoming and we have never managed to obtain a safe house for these women.
  • There has been anecdotal evidence of Eastern European prostitutes moving to Newport and the possibility of a turf war between local and foreign prostitutes, with the likely involvement of the Yardie pimps from Bristol.  SEWREC has been in touch with Women in Need and the Police about the issue.  It is most likely that these women may be coming from countries further East of the A8 and A2 States which means that they would have no access to public funds either and are therefore highly vulnerable and open to exploitation.  It may be possible to link this and the above issues of women who have no recourse to public funds for various other reasons and to seek funding for a safe house from the WAG or voluntary organisations.

Domestic) Slavery

  • Around the end of September 2006 SEWREC’s DO for migration was contacted by an ESOL teacher from Chepstow who was becoming increasingly worried about one of her Polish students who had stopped attending her classes and because she had been alarmed by reports about his working conditions.  The client himself was unable to speak much English and that was the reason he had not approached anybody for help.  He first started working on a farm outside Chepstow on October 14th 2005 - and not on Octber 24th as stated on his Accession State Worker Registration Certificate.  The client assumed that his employer had deliberately misled the Home Office about that.
  • When he first started in the job the client was offered £5.60 an hour but those wages had never materialised.  He was never given a written contract although he had asked for one.  His employer never applied for a NI numbebr and it was only after SEWREC’s DO for migration sent him the Home Office information pack in Polish that he realised what that was.  However, as his pay slips show, his employer had been taking money off his wages towards the National Insurance contribution - but nobody knew where that money went.  The client was getting paid weekly but was getting pay slips monthly - if at all since he had received only 3 in 14 months that he had been on the farm.  The client worked up to 70 hours a week looking after some 200 animals but no consideration was given to all the overtime he did.  At the time the Minimun Agricultural Wage was £5.74 an hour for the first 38 hours and £8.34 for every hour overtime.  However, the farmer would only give the client £120.00 a week.  £50.00 a week was taken off the client’s wages every week towards 'security’, in case he broke something.  Each month the farm owner was also taking £50.00 from the client’s wages towards electricity although the client lived in a bedsit on the farm.  The client had been told that he was not entitled to paid holidays so he had only taken two days off since he had started working on the farm and that was when his mother arrived for a visit.  She was to stay until Christmas 2006 and the client had been told that his electricity bill was going to rise.
  • The client would also get financially punished in case something went wrong.  In November 2006, for instance, he hurried the bull with a stick and immediately £50.00 were taken off his wages.  In the past, the farmer had also taken £200.00 for the broken tractor door and another £160.00 for burst tractor tyres and £65.00 for a broken speedometer on the farmers motorbike.  The client was allowed to use the farmers car if he paid for petrol but the farmer would still take 25 pence off the client’s wages per each mile.
  • SEWREC’s DO for migration contacted DEFRA and along with the client filled in the complaint form.  Once DEFRA wrote to the farmer requesting the client’s money back and threatening the farmer with inspection the farmer started threatening the client with eviciton.  In the meantime, on December 2nd 2006 the client was kicked by a cow and his leg was broken (the farmer refused to take him to hospital until Monday Dec 4th).  The farmer also called DEFRA stating that he hadn’t done anything wrong and that he could persuade the client to sign a letter stating that he was happy and satisfied with his conditions.  SEWREC’s DO for migration advised the client not to sign anything, particularly because he would not be able to understand what it was that he was signing.  The farmer then tried to persuade the client to return to Poland until his leg had healed and then return to the UK.
  • SEWREC’s DO for migration arranged an urgent appointment with the Housing in Chepstow - because the farmer had been threatening the client - in order to get him housed.  The interview was held in Chepstow at the beginning of December 2006 and was very unsatisfactory, it appeared that the Housing were unwilling to take any responsibility although SEWREC’s DO for migration had been advised by SHELTER Cymru that the client was vulnerable due to the fact that he could not speak English and had been threatened with eviction.  SEWREC’s DO for migration reluctantly agreed to act as an interpreter on that occasion - for he was to be present at the meeting anyway - because the Housing called him several hours prior to the meeting and told him that signing up to Language Line was too expensive and promised that they were going to do it at a later stage.  SEWREC’s DO for migration did remind them that providing an interpreter would be their duty under the Race Relations Act, that Polish was not his mother tongue and that he had not spoken it in some 20 years and that he could not guarantee the accuracy of the interpretation.
  • Simultaneoulsy, SEWREC’s DO for migration had arranged an appointment with the Job Centre in Chepstow who were supposed to help the client apply for the NI number and allow him to apply for Incapacity Benefit because his stay in the farm wass becoming unatenable.  An employment agency in Chepstow had also been approached and SEWREC were told that they would be able to find work for the client.  However, since the Housing interviewers told the DO for migration that they had been instructed not to make any decisions on the day of the interview, himself and the client were unable to go to the Job Centre on that occasion.  In addition, the housing interviewers informed the client that they were to conduct an investigation into his conditions on the farm and that they had 28 days to do so.  That really scared the client who believed that the investigation wiould provoke the farmer to evict him and yet his leg was broken and it was winter time.  Unknowingly to SEWREC’s DO for migration the client phoned the Housing the day after the interview and asked them in his broken English not to pursue his application.  He then asked SEWREC to halt the DEFRA’s investigation until his health improved and that request had been passed on to them.
  • As expected, as soon as the client’s mother returned to Poland he was evicted from the farm and found himself homeless.  He went to stay with a friend in Bristol but she was unemployed and unable to help him for a longer period.  The Housing Department in Chepstow refused to house him and sent him to a hostel in Newport for a few days where he had no local connections and could not be housed either.  The client then disappeard for a month until SEWREC’s DO for migration bumped into him in the street by chance.  It transpired that he had been sleeping rough for a month unable to find a job.  SEWREC arranged accommodation for him with the Salvation Army in Cardiff.  In the meantime DEFRA called SEWREC and informed the DO for migration that according to their calculations the farmer had stolen from the client over £16.000 in wages.  They needed more information from the client which SEWREC requested of him to supply.  Unfortunately, after that contact the last that was heard of the client was in the spring of 2007.  The Wallich Clifford Community found him sleeping in a tent in Cardiff as he had become a heroin addict after he had been introduced to heroin while staying with the Salvation Army.  Nothing has been heard of him since.

Honour killings

Innovation

Over the course of the Project SEWREC had dealt with only one such case of attempted honour killing.  The case involved a young couple.  The girlfriend was Sikh and held dual British and Indian nationality and was 19 at the stage while the boyfriend was 18 and was a Czech Romany.  The young woman’s parents did not approve of the relationship and her mother tried to suffocate her with a pillow first and, when that failed, her father tried to strangle her with a shoe lace.  They were from a city outside Gwent from where they were referred to BAWSO in Newport.  The girlfriend was staying in BAWSO’s refuge while the boyfriend was staying in a hostel for the homeless.  They were referred to SEWREC’s DO for migration in order to help the boyfriend sort out his benefits.  However, the young woman’s cousin saw her in Newport and the couple needed to be sent elsewhere.  SEWREC approached the housing Department and an urgent transfer to Cardiff was requested.  For some reason it took the Department over a month to arrange for the transfer but the couple, afraid and aggitated, left Newport a week before the transfer was approved and went back to their city.  All that could be done for them afterwards was to contact the Ethnic Minority division with the Police in their city and ask them to be vigilant and at hand if the couple needed protection.
  • The book drive was a new initiative in co-operation with EQUAL’s African-Caribbean worker based in SEWREC the purpose of which was to help the setting up of a new community centre in the Pillgwenlly area of Newport.  The project was initiated with the New Testament Church in Pillgwenlly and with the Black Heritage Association Cymru.  The Church and BHAC want to set up a community centre that would offer after-school activities for children, computer classes, sports activities and the similar.  On SEWREC’s behalf the DO for migration organised a book drive and in a short period of two weeks over 1500 books  were collected for the project.  Many more organisations responded and the book drive will continue.  Newport Libraries will be able to land books to the Centre long-term and will be replacing them with new ones every few months.  The Young People’s Partnership were also willing to get involved and facilitate the young people’s involvement in the local community.
  • Several among the African beneficiaries, mostly Congolese and Burkinabe, have been writing children’s books or their life stories or fiction.  Several among them, including some Nigerian, are also traditional story-tellers who would like to have their knowledge recorded.  However, it has been difficult to find publishers for their work.  SEWREC’s DO for migration then contacted Mr Roy Grant, an African-Caribbean writer from Newport, to see if an organisation could be set up that would help Black writers publish their work.  The organisation is provisinally called The Black Writers’ Guild.  Pending on its success the project could be broadened to encompass members of other BME communities in Gwent and/or Wales.