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Migrant Voice Blogs

18/03/2016

Young woman of the year highlights the plight of Eritrean refugees

A teenage refugee who arrived here speaking not a word of English has been named Young Woman of the Year. Seada Fekadu’s honour is part of the annual Women On the Move awards. She was 16 when she fled Eritrea – part of an exodus of people unable to work…

17/03/2016

The £35K income threshold and the fate of women

At the last Migrant Voice network meeting in London, Don Flynn, Director of Migrants’ Rights Network, revealed a startling statistic: under the Government’s new 35K threshold for non-EU migrants to settle in the UK, 7 out of 10 of those who will be affected, are women. The new rules, which…

11/03/2016

Welcoming refugees - the view from Brazil

Despite of the economic and political difficulties of Brazil, refugees from around the globe move to the biggest South American country in the hope of a better life. Almost every day the refugee crisis is in the headlines of European newspapers. With the exception of the Angela Merkel's administration and…

27/01/2016

Denmark’s new asylum law illustrates the broader problem in Europe’s response

The decision of the Danish parliament on the 26th of January to approve new legislation on asylum seekers has generated much discussion and media coverage across Europe. Much focus has been on the aspect of the Bill that allows the seizure of asylum seekers’ valuables and assets over 10,000 Danish…

04/01/2016

A Descendent of Refugees: Standing in Solidarity with This Generation of Refugees

My name means beautiful refugee. My grandparents on my father’s side were from Germany. On my mother’s side my people thought they were Austrian, but, when I found the town in 2002, it was in Poland about 45 minutes away from the Ukrainian border. So now they would be Polish. Borders…

17/12/2015

On International Migrants Day, 18 December 2015

I am a British citizen of Eritrean origin, the country that is the largest producer of refugees in Africa. Widespread public support for the “Welcome Refugees” campaign has given me hope that people care and are willing to give protection to those in need of it. The campaign has focused…

24/11/2015

All that is wrong with Europe - my diary from Calais

This blog was first published in September 2015, following Nazek Ramadan's first visit to Calais. Entering the Calais migrant camp is like stepping out of Europe and into another time and space. I spent the day there earlier this month and at times it felt more like some of the…

12/11/2015

Claiming Britishness now and then

I have been teaching Hurricane Hits England by Grace Nichols to my year 8 class. It is a poem concerned with the push-pull feelings of loss and displacement that migration always entails. In it Nichols explores her feelings of isolation within the UK and how she comes to understand that despite it…

06/11/2015

Victimhood and the politics of representation

I shared a car journey recently with a few young people from Calais to Dover who had just finished two weeks of volunteer work in the Calais Jungle. I was struck by their electricity; each one seeming to have enough energy to push the ferry across the Channel themselves. One…

29/10/2015

Reality and discourse: Media victimisation of Roma

In recent years, the Roma population living in the UK have been subjected to an increasingly negative media coverage. Often Roma are depicted as 'lazy', 'parasite individuals', 'benefit scroungers' who migrated to UK from Eastern Europe for the sole purpose of 'abusing' the social security system, thus perpetuating the image…