Access to Public Services and Access to Justice for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Northern Ireland
6. Barriers to complaining and the role of the Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman Why asylum seekers and refugees are reluctant to complain about public services Participants discussed fear of repercussions as one of the most important reasons why asylum seekers and refugees were unlikely to complain about public services: CSO11 noted that “People don’t want to complain anymore because if you complain… the table is going to turn against you, you know” (CSO 11). CSO10 said that complaining was viewed as “risky”: : “…if you’re complaining and you’re in the asylum process you might say, ‘look, is this risky?’ Are they going to be unhappy that I’m speaking out” (CSO10). PB8 commented that asylum seekers and refugees did not feel safe to complain: “… maybe because they don’t know or they don’t feel safe [to complain]…. what is it they need to hear for a sense of safety?” (PB8). Referring to taking legal action rather than making a complaint, CSO9 said “people are terrified to take any action on that individual basis in case it impacts on their asylum claim” (CSO9). CSO8 said that in addition to impacts on their asylum claim (often the central concern for asylum seekers) people feared the impact on other services: “They fear they will be kicked out of GPs, things like that… that is a real genuine fear. We could probably count on our two hands over years how many complaints have gone forward from our service after supporting hundreds of families. And that’s where it comes from, that fear” (CSO8). CSO3 pointed out that gaining refugee status would not automatically make people feel different about complaining: “… even if you are abused, it’s not your problem. So you learn by experience, the experience you had forced you not even to engage with different public services because you didn’t see them when they were there. What you want to do is work, you know? So it’s not because you are a refugee you think, ‘oh, there’s an Ombudsman there’” (CSO3). W2 participants suggested that people’s fear of complaining was sometimes justified and that there was a lot of misinformation about what could and couldn’t impact an asylum claim and a perception that this was intentionally not well communicated by Home Office. CSO5 and CSO7 echoed this point and said that asylum seekers had explicitly been told that complaining would affect their claim: “… particularly when they’re in dispersal accommodation or whatever, they’re told, you know, ‘don’t put your head above parapet, don’t make waves here because that will affect your right to be in the UK or that’ll affect your right to this, that and the other’” (CSO7); “… they’ve been told ‘if you make too big a fuss of it, this is going to affect your claim’. That’s clearly against the rules… But people… asylum seekers fear that, right” (CSO5).
CSO12 gave an example of someone who had been very proactive in complaining about housing issues who was intimidated by a housing officer as a result: “one day, she [a housing officer] came around to his house apparently, knocked on the door and told him that he would never be rehoused in Belfast and he’s staying there... And that was because he was so persistent with the issues and reporting it” (CSO12). Fear was often compounded by a belief that asylum seekers and refugees would not be listened to if they complained: “I think really because they sort of think to themselves, I don’t have the language, no one is going to listen to me” (CSO6). There was a suggestion that people’s experiences in asylum accommodation led to people feeling disempowered: “People don’t like to raise issues, because there’s a culture within the hotel of desperation” (CSO1). CSO7 also noted that asylum seekers and refugees had no confidence in systems that others might engage with to resolve complaints, such as their local political representatives: “… they’ve seen the messages coming out, they don’t feel they can go to a local counsellor or an MLA or an MP… [they feel] they’re not going to be listened to” (CSO7). CSO11 commented that people’s negative experiences when they had made a complaint acted as a disincentive to complain again and led to a multi-general lack of trust, which undermined any willingness to complain: “My complaint should not be disregarded, you know what I mean. And that just gives the perpetrator more power to continue to perpetrate that, because it’s not caught. And then it becomes a culture… my child is growing up, she’s listening to this, she’s understanding that she doesn’t belong here... I want her to see that it is okay for you to complain and you will be taken seriously when you make a complaint. But whenever that doesn’t happen, I mean, that trust is just cascading down to the other generation” (CSO11). On a practical basis, CSO3 said that complaining was simply not a priority for people given the need to deal with the “immediate issues” of daily life as an asylum seeker: “… you cannot ask an asylum seeker to go through this complaint process while the guy has immediate issues, housing issues. They try to face it, they don’t have time to go and fill or try to contact housing first to solve the problem, you have your claim too… That’s what sometimes people don’t understand, when they’re into the asylum process, the most important thing to you or for you is your asylum claim determination” (CSO3). Cultural issues could also be a factor. W3 participants noted that people from some cultural contexts did not have a tradition of speaking out and insisting on their rights – they “don’t believe that they are entitled” (W3). CSO7 said that people might have different approaches to complaining in their country of origin: “… it’s still this issue of complaining, you know, if I complain… You just don’t do that at home, or the process of doing it [is different], you get someone else, an elder or someone of authority to do that on your behalf” (CSO7).
Final report of the of Ombudspersons and the Protection of Refugees and Asylum Seekers (OPRAS) project | 45
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