Visit our Family Reunion page for more information on refugees and their right to family life.
Refugee
A refugee is a person who ‘owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country…’ (Definition quoted from the 1951 Refugee Convention)
Asylum Seeker
An asylum seeker is someone who has lodged an application for protection on the basis of the Refugee Convention or Article 3 of the ECHR
Refugee Status
Refugee Status is awarded to someone who the UKBA recognises as a refugee as described in the 1951 UN Convention
Indefinite Leave to Remain
ILR is a form of immigration status given by the UK Border Agency. Indefinite leave to remain (ILR) is also called ‘permanent residence’ or ‘settled status’ as it gives permission to stay in the UK on a permanent basis
Humanitarian Protection
Humanitarian protection is a form of immigration status. It is granted by the Home Office to a person who it decides has a need for protection but who does not meet the criteria for refugee status
for more definitions see here…
WORLDWIDE
There are 42 million forcibly displaced people around the world. This includes 27.1 million internally displaced people and 15.6 million refugees
4 out of 5 refugees are housed in the developing world
Pakistan takes in the most at 1.7 million, more than the 1.6 million taken by the whole of Europe
The Democratic Republic of Congo, Burma and Columbia produce the most refugees
UNITED KINGDOM 2009 FIGURES
The number of asylum applications was 24,485 excluding dependants (30,675 including dependants)
Of this 24,485 the initial decisions were as follows:
- 4190 (17%) were granted asylum and were recognised as a refugee
- 95 (<1%) were granted humanitarian protection
- 2460 (10%) were granted Discretionary Leave
- 17,545 (72%) were refusals
The total number of asylum dependants was 6185 – an average of one dependant for every four principle applicants
Many dependants (71%) were under 18 and just over half (52%) were female
The UK ranked 13th amongst European countries in terms of asylum seekers per head of population
Of the 24,485 seeking asylum 15,330 (62%) applied for some kind of asylum support
More statistics – source Refugee Council 2011
