One week

Could you imagine life as a Section 4 asylum seeker, just for one week?

You arrived in the UK desperate and asking for protection from the torture you had undergone in your own country. Your family are dead, you know that people are hunting you down. You are covered in scars from injuries inflicted during your beating/torture/rape. Your request for help and protection is turned down because your immigration solicitor didn't really see the urgency of sending your documents, or because the Home Office decided they didn't believe you, or indeed they did believe you but they think that your rape and torture is unlikely to happen again because they're sure your country is just fine now.

But you don't want to leave as you are afraid of being hunted down and killed as soon as you get home. I am not exaggerating. This is the experience of the majority of failed asylum seekers that I know. They have been refused help or protection and are now essentially destitute. This is the stage at which they are put under Section 4 support. This means they will receive a roof over their head and £35 vouchers for their nearest supermarket. This must suffice for all food, toiletries, clothes and any other requirements. Fine in the short term I'm sure. Not for several years though. Not, in the case of people I know, for over 3 years. And if I'm honest, I don't think I could survive like that for one week let alone such a protracted amount of time.

Apart from the primary consideration about making your money last there is the added indignity of having to be identifiable as a voucher user. Knowing that you have nothing and everyone else knowing it too. The fact that you are a social pariah being aired every time you go to buy a loaf of bread. But hold on, if you just want a loaf of bread you would waste a whole heap of money, because the supermarkets are not allowed to give change. So popping to the shops for a couple of bits is no longer possible. You have to plan it out.

Can you perhaps understand why so many exchange their £35 vouchers for £25 cash? But should you be really prudent and save up your pennies by barely eating each week so that you can buy yourself something remember that you don't qualify for contents insurance and you can't pay for it. So when your place gets broken into and all your meagre belongings stolen you have no way of reclaiming it. You might think this is a little extreme. I have known one man in particular who has sadly been through this. It happens.

Add to this the fact that you are not allowed to work and you are probably a trained lawyer, doctor, nurse, teacher. How horribly frustrating for anyone with a bit of intelligence to have to fester and not be allowed to use the talent or training you are lucky enough to have. So you decide to volunteer; no-one could have a problem with that. But a recent application for volunteer work resulted in a refused asylum seeker being asked for 5 forms of ID, such as bills. People under Section 4 have an ID card and confirmation of their support (usually a few years old). They have no bills or bank statements. Nothing. They have no status. They appear on no lists. They do not exist in a day to day reality. They occupy a space beneath the real world and no-one sees them there.

And the irony is they have no choice but suffer like this. There is no escape. They have no travel documents so it's not like they can just up and leave and tell the UK government where to stick their 'support'. It is illegal for them to travel. They can't even leave their address for a week as they have to regularly report to the Home Office. They are imprisoned here. They are utterly trapped. Section 4 is the new Catch 22.

Can you imagine this, really? I don't think you can truly contemplate it. I find it hard and I'm faced with people suffering like this every day. I can't imagine having no identity, status or rights for the best part of a decade. That's an appalling thought.