News Brief

Hundreds of destitute Zimbabweans who have sought sanctuary in the UK asked Gordon Brown yesterday for permission to work, pay taxes and gain the skills to help them rebuild Zimbabwe at a demonstration and delegation to Downing Street.

The demonstration was organised by Citizens for Sanctuary, a Citizen Organising Foundation campaign to implement the findings of the Independent Asylum Commission. The action marked six months since Gordon Brown promised to review the situation of 11,000 destitute Zimbabweans in the UK who cannot return home, and yet are not allowed to work or access benefits.

A larger than expected crowd of several hundred Zimbabweans and supporters assembled outside Downing Street in a traditional colourful and noisy Zimbabwean demonstration of songs and dancing to remind the Prime Minister that it is six months since he promised to look “...at what we can do to support Zimbabweans in that situation [destitute], and we will report back to the House in due course.”

A delegation of Zimbabweans and a cross-party group of Parliamentarians including Liberal Democrat frontbenchers Ed Davey MP, Chris Huhne MP, and Simon Hughes MP, Labour backbenchers Kate Hoey MP, Jon Cruddas MP and Neil Gerrard MP, Conservative Rob Wilson MP and the Earl of Sandwich (Labour) then delivered a dossier of 500 CVs from Zimbabweans who are ready and willing to work and whose skills and experiences are going to waste because of the ban on work.

The dossier of CVs shows that many Zimbabweans have skills and work experience in areas listed in the government’s National Shortage Occupation List – such as teaching, social care and nursing. In a covering letter to the dossier, the parliamentarians and the Zimbabwean delegation challenged Mr Brown to match his rhetoric on Zimbabwe with his treatment of its people in the UK by allowing Zimbabweans to work and pay taxes to benefit the UK economy and provide them with skills to help rebuild Zimbabwe when it is safe to return.

Over 20 civil society institutions from across the UK showed the British people’s support for Zimbabweans by pledging strategic internships in universities, schools, hospitals, churches, charities, the media and Parliament, to provide the skills and experience that will help rebuild Zimbabwe. Citizens for Sanctuary will issue an appeal for other organisations to pledge strategic internships, starting with a call to the Prime Minister to offer them within government departments, including at 10 Downing Street, to help rebuild democracy and good governance in Zimbabwe in the future.

Chipo, an accountant from Zimbabwe who has been destitute in the UK for 7 years, said: “It was so difficult for me to leave the country, the job, and the young children I loved because I opposed Mugabe. I came to Britain for sanctuary, but instead find myself in a terrible limbo. I can’t go home but I have no way of supporting myself here. We are a proud people – we just want to be able to work, pay taxes, and develop the skills that will help us piece together the shattered remains of our homeland when it is safe to return.”

Jonathan Cox, Lead Organiser of the CITIZENS for Sanctuary campaign, said: “We have had an amazing turnout and they are representative of many thousands of others who could not come because they did not have the means. That is a real indication of how keen Zimbabweans are to find out what the Prime Minister can do for Zimbabweans. We are waiting for him to keep his word. Our government has been a world leader in criticising Mugabe while leaving many of those who escaped that horrific regime to languish here without hope. We must prepare Zimbabweans who came to Britain in search of sanctuary with the skills and experience that they will need to forge a brighter future for their country once democracy and stability are restored.”