No ‘exclusive’ work permits for Zimbabweans in the UK

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13 September 2008

The Home Office has denied reports that it is considering exclusive applications for work permits from Zimbabwean asylum-seekers.

The statement follows the publication of a article by an online publication suggesting that the Home Office had made a special case of Zimbabwean asylum-seekers seeking work permits.

Ever since, the Home Office says it has received hundreds of work permit applications from Zimbabwean asylum-seekers.Most asylum-seekers in the United Kingdom are not allowed to work unless granted special permission for a limited period.

The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA), a professional association of lawyers, also told HAT News that the Home Office had informed them that reports about preferential permission for Zimbabweans to work were ‘incorrect.’

Two weeks ago, an article appeared on a popular Zimbabwean website suggesting that asylum-seekers from Zimbabwe would enjoy exclusive consideration for work permits.
The article was written by a private solicitor and columnist for the online publication. It gave an address and fax number to which applications for such permits should be sent.

Information appeared to have initially circulated through emails before finding itself into the public domain. One such email from a solicitor with the Refugee Legal Centre said: “A Zimbabwe client called me this morning to tell me that her friend had given her a phone number to call and apply to HO for permission to work.

“I called the number on her behalf and spoke to a woman from the CEBU team, BIA, who told me that the Home Office are considering applications for permission to work from any Zimbabwe national with an outstanding asylum claim.

“The person has to fax CEBU , BIA - 0151 237 6391 with: name, address, HO Ref number, person’s signature and the following sentence ‘I would like to know if I can have permission to work’.

“If the case is straightforward, the CEBU team will deal with it, and if it’s more complicated, then it will be passed onto a Legacy Team.”

Soon after, the online article appeared, triggering an instant flood of applications from desperate Zimbabweans to the Home Office.

However, an official with the Home Office said while they considered work permit requests from asylum-seekers, no special dispensation had been granted to Zimbabweans.

He also said that fax number quoted in the article was for the wrong department at the Home Office. As a result, the hundreds of fax applications had to re-directed to the appropriate section.

He said the Home Office position on work applications from asylum-seekers, including Zimbabweans, had not changed.

“The correct procedure is as follows: If the applicant has an allocated caseworker, they should contact them directly if not they should write to UKBA, Asylum Casework Directorate, Lunar House, Croydon , CR9 2BY or fax 0208 196 3248.”

ILPA also said it had confirmed that Zimbabweans were not being granted any exclusive treatment. Alison Harvey the General Secretary of ILPA said: “We have raised this issue with the people in charge of implementing the policy at a stakeholders’ meeting on the 9th of September 2008 and sent them an e-mail on the 10th and the Home Office maintains that there is no change in policy pertaining Zimbabwean asylum seekers’ application for permission to work”

Thousands of Zimbabwean asylum-seekers across the UK - fleeing persecution and grinding poverty under President Robert Mugabe’s regime – either receive minimal state support or have fallen into destitution.

Advocacy groups have been pressing the UK government for asylum-seekers to be granted permission to work.

However the political climate in Zimbabwe has taken another turn after Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, the head of the opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change, and President Robert Mugabe agreed on a power-sharing deal brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki last Thursday. It remains to be known what position the UK Border Agency will take regarding the issue of Zimbabwean asylum seekers.

The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in July 2008 made an announcement freezing the removal of failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers from UK. He told MPs that while officials continued to deal with the issue on a case-by-case basis, no returns were currently taking place.

“No one is being forced to return to Zimbabwe from the United Kingdom at this time,” he said then. -Hat News.

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