THE “scandal” of refugee children made destitute after winning the right to stay in Scotland has been laid bare in new figures.
The Refugee Survival Trust (RST) awards lifeline grants to asylum seekers and refugees cut off from support.
People seeking sanctuary in the UK receive Home Office funding that ends when a final decision is made, with those successfully granted refugee status transitioning over to mainstream benefits administered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) within 28 days.
However, the RST claims this switch is increasingly not being made within that time frame, leaving families and other vulnerable new Scots without any means of support.
New figures show the Trust is supporting an increasing number of children from families who should be starting new lives but are instead facing a new fight to survive.
Co-ordinator Diana Rix said: “We are supporting a lot more children. That transition from asylum support to mainstream DWP support is just not happening in the necessary timescale. They are not supported by either system.”
She added: “It is unacceptable, regardless of immigration status, that children are being made homeless and destitute in Scotland.
“It is not acknowledged, it is not well-known by the general population and it is a scandal.”
The RST provided almost 900 destitution grants between April 2015 and March this year.
The money – almost £5,000 every month – covered essentials for 1,200 people, including 223 children, up from just 97 the previous year.
As many as 110 cases included children and half of these were refugees or had limited leave to remain.
Of this group, 35 per cent had won refugee status but were waiting for the shift to conventional welfare and 69 children from 38 applications were homeless when they sought help.
Rix said: “A lot of people think once people have got refugee status they can start a new life but it is a new battle having to navigate a whole new bureaucratic system.
“When your 28 days are up, that Home Office support stops regardless. When it fails, people are plunged into destitution.”
All of the youngsters affected were in Glasgow, home to Scotland’s largest refugee and asylum seeker population. Last night, the city council said young people from these groups are given the same support as “any other child in Glasgow”.
Meanwhile, the Home Office said the transition process is set up “to ensure no one is left without support”.
However, an evaluation of the system will be carried out by the DWP later this year.
Responding to the findings, Graham O’Neill, policy officer at the Scottish Refugee Council, said: “No one should be destitute.
“Too many people – people refused asylum, those granted refugee status, and people from Scotland, too – will, tonight, sleep on the streets, in temporary and sparse accommodation, or at a price of heinous exploitation.
“It is particularly harrowing but not surprising that children are destitute also.
“We should be outraged. Imagine it was your son or daughter or grandchild. We wouldn’t stand for it.
“The destitution of women, men and children refused asylum is by design, it is callous and counter-productive also. The destitution of those granted protection is perverse but persistent.
“The impending Immigration Act 2016 will, within months, make matters far, far worse, rendering many more people and especially children destitute in Glasgow and, indeed, wherever people refused asylum have been dispersed.
“The new Scottish Parliament and Government has led the way for years in the UK on refugee protection.
“But now is the time to work round UK restrictions and practically end refugee and other forms of destitution in Scotland.
“Northern Ireland has shown the way and we can now follow by creating our own Scottish anti-destitution policy.”
He concluded: “And, we should be clear: Scotland can do this.”
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