Esme Madill

A LAWYER has criticised the assumption that refugees are “scamming the system” after it was announced that the vast majority of Albanians – even those escaping torture or forced labour in brothels and cannabis houses – will be unable to claim asylum under new government plans.

Esme Madill is a solicitor at Islington Law Centre, where she works with young refugees from Albania who arrive in Islington, often as victims of trafficking.

Ms Madill appeared before the Home Affairs Committee last week to lambast the assumption that Albanian refugees are falsifying their asylum claims and “scamming the system”.

“Some can never tell their stories. Some girls who have been in brothels will never say what they went through. Some boys who have been kept for seven, eight, nine months locked in cannabis houses… they’ll never tell me all of what they’ve been through,” she said.

“Often clients will have scars, they will have rope marks on their backs from beatings from trying to escape. [Captors] will cut their sides as punishments for losing narcotics, and all the boys will have severe cuts that have got infected,” she added.

Last week home secretary Suella Braverman announced plans to introduce a blanket ban on asylum claims made by Albanians in the UK, because the Balkan state has been designated a “safe” country by the government.

More than 11,000 Albanians arrived by small boats between May and September of this year, according to the home office.

But Albania’s status as a “safe” country is disputed by many who point to the country’s deep-rooted problems with gangs and organised crime, entrenched poverty and blood feuds.

Ms Madill said many Albanians who arrive as asylum seekers in the UK are escaping violence or have been trafficked from their home countries to repay family debts.

“Families have borrowed money to pay for medical care, so they will have borrowed money for an eye operation to save somebody’s sight within the family, or borrowed money for a child with disabilities to have an operation,” she said.

“And because there isn’t the same kind of money-lending opportunities that you would have here, they will borrow those monies from trafficking gangs… then the traffickers will come and take a child to work in cannabis to pay back that loan.”

Once they arrive in the UK, young people are subjected to a “rigorous” vetting process by the home office, Ms Madill said, with asylum seekers subjected to interviews that last between three and six hours.

“[My] last five clients who went for interviews were asked an average of 126 questions in detail about the reasons they’re fleeing,” Ms Madill said.

Anyone who appeals a home office decision must undergo another “adversarial hearing,” she said, adding: “I think we talk a lot about people scamming the system and I’m not sure if it’s always clear quite how rigorous the system is. It’s not an easy system to scam – it’s actually very difficult for ordinary people to go through that system.”