General Article Every child must matter in new Asylum Bill

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The Refugee Children's Consortium is challenging the Government to demonstrate how its new asylum proposals square with its recent commitment to ensuring that 'Every Child Matters' and to iron out its contradictory approach to refugee children.

The Consortium, which includes the major domestic children's charities and refugee agencies, is concerned that new proposals in the Government's Asylum and Immigration Bill which gets its Second Reading in the House of Commons tomorrow (17 December 2003), will place refugee children at risk.

The Consortium is calling on the Government to treat refugee children as children first and foremost and to place their rights at the heart of asylum policy.

Under domestic and international legislation, the UK Government is obliged to ensure that decisions are made in children's best interests. However, the Bill will significantly restrict asylum appeal rights, which the Consortium fears will result in bad decisions going undetected and children being...

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