Access to Public Services and Access to Justice for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Northern Ireland
2. Intrinsic and situational barriers facing asylum seekers and refugees in accessing public services 23
Asylum seekers and refugees’ experience of trauma Participants commonly cited the trauma experienced by asylum seekers and refugees (in their home countries, on their asylum journeys, and within Northern Ireland) as creating barriers to accessing services. Some participants in Workshop 2 (W2 participants) commented on the need to recognise that asylum seekers and refugees arrived traumatised into Northern Ireland. CSO8 said that trauma meant that people were in a difficult position to absorb information about how to access services: “… when someone’s in that state, which they have been sometimes for years, of fight or flight… it’s maybe not their priority to hear the ins and outs of how the health system works when they can’t sleep all night without nightmares or flashbacks…” (CSO8). CSO8 noted that for asylum seekers emotional safety was hard to reach even when they were physically safe in Northern Ireland: “That whole process of being an asylum seeker is still a state of panic in some form, like, fear, do you know?” (CSO8). PB5 commented that trauma experienced by asylum seekers and refugees could make it more difficult for them to trust public services; referring to interventions around trauma presenting in schools they noted: “[with] bereavement or other forms of trauma, normally those families would be really willing to communicate and share… But that’s not the case for families who have experienced very traumatic journeys from different parts of the world to get here” (PB5). Workshop 2 participants said that while asylum seekers and refugees often faced the same challenges and barriers as other people the issues were compounded by racism, hate crime, feeling unsafe, language barriers, and poverty. PB2 had a slightly different view and suggested that “… there probably aren’t any specific barriers per se facing refugees and asylum seekers” (PB2). PB2 went on: “For example, you have experienced trauma and you need to access a mental health service. Your issue is about: do you know how to navigate that service? No, you don’t. But neither does the guy who arrived here from Lithuania yesterday. Yes, your need might be greater, but your inability to access and navigate the service is probably exactly the same” (PB2).
Asylum seekers and refugees are not a homogenous group
Some participants in Workshop 1 (W1 participants) 24 said that asylum seekers and refugees do not constitute a homogenous group, with different groups impacted by particular issues to different degrees. PB2 25 noted: “… asylum seekers and refugees are not homogenous... Everything has to be person-centred” (PB2). CSO8 gave the example of differences between arrivals on the Syrian scheme and the Afghan scheme: the former were more likely to be considered vulnerable by virtue of ill health, disabilities, and learning difficulties. PB2 pointed out that particular asylum seeker and refugee groups had acute needs : “There are lots of groups, subgroups and subsets, but for me it’s women and girls, LGBTQIA+ and then probably people with disabilities [who face the greatest challenges in accessing services]” (PB2). W1 participants added that barriers facing asylum seekers and refugees were dynamic and could vary at different stages in their immigration journey. CSO1 pointed out that in addition to barriers varying between individuals and groups, it was very common for issues to cluster: “… everybody that came in yesterday came in on the basis of an education problem. But when we talked to them, it was an accommodation problem, education problem, disability, mental health, it went right across the whole spectrum...” (CSO1). W1 participants highlighted a lack of data collection as an issue, which meant that there was no robust way of knowing in what way the asylum seeker and refugee population (and segments of it) was experiencing a lack of access to public services. Some participants in Workshop 3 (W3 participants) noted, for example, that schools did not record the immigration status of children which meant that opportunities for future planning of services might be missed.
23 As noted in the methodology section, this research sought to surface people’s subjective views and experiences, recognising that these may be at odds with those of others involved, or be based on underlying divergences with regard to perceived factual circumstances. Quotes from research participants presented in this report represent the personal views and opinions of participants. 24 Three workshops were held. Participants in workshop 1 included a mix of civil society organisations and public bodies; participants in workshop 2 were from civil society organisations; participants in workshop 3 were from public bodies. Workshop 1 participants are referred to as W1 participants, Workshop 2 participants as W2 participants, and Workshop 3 participants as W3 participants. 25 All participants in interviews are referred to by a pseudonym. Public body participants are referred to as PB1, PB2, PB3, etc. Civil society organisation participants are referred to as CSO1, CSO2, CSO3, etc.
Final report of the of Ombudspersons and the Protection of Refugees and Asylum Seekers (OPRAS) project | 15
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