Positive Action in Housing is seeking your support for Aminahs Baby Appeal.

29 jan 2022 - Babys nearly here! see latest update here

*Update 14 Jan 2022: After highlighting her plight in the press, Aminah* and her husband, a Phd Student, was moved out of the guest house and into a flat in the North of Glasgow. The flat is bare and has no Internet access, dishes/cutlery or baby essentials, but they are grateful to have their own privacy, and be able to cook their own food for the first time in 15 months. A team of volunteers from our Humans of Glasgow volunteer network has visited too. Thank you Alison, Aileen, Helen and Brother Umran. The baby is due any day now. Thanks to our donors on this page, our volunteers will be able to buy what is needed for the new home and arrival. The couple are taking legal action against the Home Office for the suffering they were caused by the denisl of support to which they were entitled. ***

The Appeal

26 year old Aminah* is seeking asylum from Libya with her husband Faraj*. They are expecting their first baby in less than three weeks.

Since November 2020, the Home Office has accommodated them in a guest house in Glasgow while they await their asylum decision.They receive no financial support whatsoever, although they are supposed to get £8 a week each for "essential living costs", such as bus tickets, phone calls and food (Section 95 support).Their lawyer advises that the Home Office will NOT provide this money until they are moved into accommodation, even though the high court has ruled asylum seekers must receive their essential living costs. Yet like hundreds of others this couple are being denied support and forced to rely on our charity and others to simply survive each day.

The room that Aminah and her husband occupy has no cooking facilities. They get drinking water from a sink in the toilet. Residents are forced to collect food in plastic cartons at set times from large green delivery crates dumped in the dining area of the guesthouse each day. Breakfast contains crisps, juice and a sandwich. Lunch and dinner consist of a sandwich, pasta or rice served in plastic cartons. On two or three days of the week, the couple go without food because the meal contains pork, and they only eat halal. They queue at food banks on these days.

Fifteen months on, the Home Office and/or it's accommodation contractor MEARS has not moved the couple into settled accommodation or provided any form of financial support before their baby is born. Other than getting a Scottish Government baby box, Aminah has not been able to prepare for the arrival of her new born.

A volunteer at a local foodbank who also happens to be a midwife, noticed Aminah was heavily pregnant and reported her living conditions. An NHS health visitor has now provided a letter of support, confirming that the accommodation is unsuitable for a baby and that they need a kitchen to make up feeds and their own meals. Aminah said:

Im expecting a baby girl on January 31, I am worried about bringing her up here. There are very few women here, and I feel isolated, sometimes people are drunk or aggressive. My baby will cry. What if it upsets other people. If I open the window the smell of smoke comes in. I cant bring my baby daughter up like this in peace, without proper cooking facilities to even make up her feeds once she is born.

Aminah and her husband are frightened of the Home Offices powers. They do not want to be identified because of the danger to their lives if they are returned to Libya. Aminah has a Masters degree and Faraj is a PhD student.

What we are doing.

We are taking up the couples case with the Home Office and highlighting what is happening in order to help Aminah and Faraj to pursue a speedy legal resolution to their asylum claim. We are also assisting them to pursue the Home Office to provide backdated support and accommodation so they can care for their new born baby.

The purpose of this appeal

This appeal will pay towards Aminahs babys needs. Any gift aid raised from this appeal will go to the Emergency Relief Fund which supports destitute and impoverished asylum seekers.

Please help us to highlight this case to the Home Secretary and demand that action is taken to provide the couple with money for essential living costs and accommodation in Glasgow until their asylum case is resolved. They cannot return to Libya and simply need help until they can resolve their asylum claim and then seek work suited to their abilities.

More about the living conditions of asylum seekers held in hotel accommodation

More than one hundred asylum seekers have reported to Positive Action in Housing that they were told that will NOT get financial support until they are moved to accommodation. We believe the number could run into thousands across the U.K. Yet this goes expressly against a High Court decision in October 2020 when Immigration minister Chris Philp conceded that individuals living in full-board asylum accommodation would receive £8 a week towards essential unmet living costs previously denied to asylum seekers living in hotels. In October 2021, a Home Office decision not to give asylum seekers money for unmet needs such as phone calls was ruled unlawful by Mrs Justice Farbey in the high court.

Since the start of the pandemic, the Home Office increased its use of hotels, hostels and barracks to house asylum seekers almost tenfold, with many staying there for months. Previously, new arrivals would be housed in such accommodation for only a few weeks and so were not given money to fund essentials.

Conditions in hotels used by the Home Office to accommodate asylum seekers during the pandemic are described as being akin to detention centres.

In September 2020, the Home Office admitted that thousands of asylum seekers placed in emergency hotel accommodation should have been receiving financial support during the pandemic, after being ordered by the High Court to review whether asylum seekers in hotels were having their needs met, after lawyers challenged the lawfulness of not providing any financial support.

In October 2020, the Home Office agreed to make payments and back payments of £8 a week for essential living costs previously denied to asylum seekers living in hotels. Immigration minister Chris Philp conceded that individuals living in full-board asylum accommodation would receive £8 a week to go towards clothes, non-prescription medicines and travel.

In October 2021, a Home Office decision not to give asylum seekers money to make calls to friends and family during the pandemic was ruled unlawful by Mrs Justice Farbey in the high court.

Asylum seekers in hotels are given three basic meals per day at set times. They are provided with basic toiletries, for example one toilet roll, one bar of soap and a sample size of shampoo per week. They are not provided with clothing, travel, communication facilities, or certain toiletries such as toothpaste. Many people report that they are left with insufficient food, insufficient and dirty clothing, unable to clean their rooms, or communicate with lawyers or health professionals and cannot afford to travel.

Check https://www.paih.org abd thus page for updates. To support the humanitarian work of Positive Action in Housing with regular donations please see