One year in Erskine

Nathan Hennebry discusses the Erskine hotel demonstrations of the past year and how deprived communities can fight for their living standards.

37 refugees killed at Melilla border

37 African refugees have been killed at the hands of border guards after hundreds attempted to rush into the Spanish coastal enclave of Melilla, an autonomous city located on the northern border of Morocco, last Friday (24 June)

Home Office undermines investigations into deaths in detention

Amid the renewed onslaught against asylum seekers and immigrants, new claims have emerged that suggest many potential key witnesses to deaths in detention have been deliberately deported, preventing them from giving evidence in inquests. Furthermore, the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, has ignored the concerns from a coroner, voiced last year, that the actions of the Home Office could have impaired investigations.

Sharp increase in modern slavery during the pandemic

Amid the pandemic, reports of sexual and criminal exploitation have severely increased, as stated in new figures calculating the extent of modern slavery and trafficking in the UK. Compared with the preceding year, cases of sexual exploitation, which includes people held captive in brothels and those strong-armed into prostitution, increased by a quarter in 2020. Almost a quarter of cases concerned children.

Home Office scheme to deport non-UK rough sleepers relaunched

A contentious program that employs councils and homelessness charities to glean personal data has been quietly reinstituted by the Home Office, potentially causing the deportation of non-UK rough sleepers. Since the relaunch six months ago, two charities and six councils have enrolled in the scheme, as reported by Liberty Investigates, a journalism group of the human rights organisation Liberty.