The young asylum seekers I work with are vulnerable and often traumatised – yet hostile officials see them as ‘not real victims’
In recent months, it has been exhausting and dispiriting to see the British government demonising Albanian asylum seekers. For several years now, formerly as a barrister and now as a legal support worker, I’ve worked with Albanian asylum-seeking children and young people. The anti-Albanian rhetoric of politicians and media figures has been deeply misleading and unfathomably cruel. And the Home Office’s current anti-Albanian campaign is going to cost lives.
One of the most toxic narratives has been the idea that Albanian boys and men, as opposed to girls and women, aren’t “real” victims and aren’t in need of protection. This assumption is false. I’ve worked with many Albanian boys and young men who came to the UK as unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. They are exceptionally vulnerable. Many have been trafficked, either within Albania or from Albania to the UK or other European countries into forced labour or forced criminality, and severely abused. Most are from deprived backgrounds and some have suffered childhood domestic violence. The overwhelming majority have post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and some have other disabilities.
