Good practice in social care for refugees and asylum seekers
Background: Introduction
Asylum seekers and refugees in the UK
Asylum seekers and refugees are a highly heterogeneous group from a range of countries, united by their application for asylum in the UK under the 1951 United Nations Geneva Convention. As a group they include men and women of different ages with different educational backgrounds, including highly skilled professionals, who have experienced different circumstances in their own countries and arrived in the UK through different means. They face hardship before, during and after arrival in the UK and many commentators have remarked on the resilience, skills and strengths of asylum seekers and refugees and their networks as well as their social, cultural and economic contribution to life in the UK.
See the Refugee Council’s website for detailed information on this.
In the 1990s applications for asylum averaged at around 34,000 per year and from 1999 increased significantly to over 70,000, rising to just over 84,000 in 2002. However, since then the number of applications has been falling significantly with 23,430 applications, 28,300 with dependants, recorded in 2007. The top 10 nationalities represented in applications in 2007 were from Afghanistan, Iran, China, Iraq, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nigeria. In 2007, over 70 per cent were from these countries and many have featured in the figures for the top nationalities for the last five years, suggesting that the majority of asylum applicants to the UK come from areas with protracted refugee situations. Men outnumber women with 70 per cent of the applicants for asylum in 2007 being male. The majority of applicants for asylum are under 35 years old (80 per cent in 2007, similar to 2005 and 2006 figures) and a small minority are aged 50 or over (45 in 2007). In 2007, 3,525 unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASCs) aged 17 or under applied for asylum.
The majority of asylum seekers and refugees initially settle in London but since the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 they have been dispersed to other areas of the country.
Information about asylum seekers and refugees can be found at:
Analysis of asylum and refugee statistics on the Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees (ICAR) website.
Immigration and Asylum Statistics on the Home Office website.
