Profiting from Misery: Disability and Migrant justice campaigners protest at the companies profiting from depriving people of essential needs.
At 4pm on December 1st (two days before international day of disabled people) a coalition of disability and migrant justice organisations, including a group of disabled refugees will meet outside the Home Office to call for a stop to the obscene profits made by private corporations depriving people of human needs. Clearsprings and Serco are among the private corporations profiting from the government’s outsourcing of asylum accommodation to private corporations.
The Disability and Migration Network (DAMN) will be delivering letters signed by over 300 people in protest about the dramatic rise in the profits of these companies. Last week, campaigners took a giant cheque, which featured the slogan, ‘Profiting from Misery‘ to the head office of Clearsprings in Essex.
Clearsprings made £62.5 million profit with its Home Office contracts to provide accommodation to people in London and the south of England. Clearsprings have been contracted by the Home Office to provide “safe, secure and warm [asylum] accommodation” until 2029. But Nanou Thassinda of Migrants Organise points out:
“Clearsprings has been profiting from our misery providing unsafe, undignified and inadequate accommodation for people seeking asylum for too long. The stark reality is: these places aren’t everyday homes or hotels, they are ‘detention hotels’ and open door prisons. It’s time the government returned the contract to local authorities to provide asylum accommodation on a not-for-profit basis. There is nothing more important than people living with freedom and dignity in their communities.”
Among their sites, more than fifty disabled people are being housed together in a Clearsprings property in Essex. As covered by the Disability News Service and The Guardian people are being housed without basic support services. One person has already died, other people’s physical and mental health is deteriorating. One woman was left on the floor for 14 hours because staff employed by the company are not trained in manual handling.
Svetlana Kotova, Director of Campaigns and Justice at Inclusion London added:
“Disabled asylum seekers must be treated with dignity. This not only includes a safe and accessible place to live, but also appropriate care and support, so people can do basic everyday things. We are calling on the Home Office to respect the basic human rights of Disabled asylum seekers. The Home Office should work with local authorities to ensure people get the support they are entitled to. They should stop passing the buck and bring this horrific neglect to an end.”
After becoming infamous for the injustices inflicted on people at Yarl’s Wood detention centre and for providing substandard asylum accommodation in the north west of the UK, including Manchester, Serco has recently got a new contract – worth £338 million over five years – from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for assessing disabled people’s capacity for work in the south west. (https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/activists-raise-concerns-over-human-rights-record-of-company-that-ousted-atos/ )
The protest brings the campaigns together. Mary Atkinson, campaigns and networks manager at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) added, “We are proud to be taking part in this action against morally bankrupt companies profiting from the misery of disabled people seeking sanctuary, The movement calling for justice for people who move has so much to learn from the disability justice movement – our struggles are intertwined, and we are stronger together.”
Rebecca Yeo an academic researcher on disability and migration and member of Disabled People Against the Cuts (DPAC) said, ‘Many restrictions initially imposed on migrant populations are later extended to the wider population, particularly of disabled people. The Disability and Migration Network calls for a halt to the huge profits of the companies that are failing to provide people’s essential needs. We are part of a broader movement seeking to build a society that prioritises human needs rather than financial profits’.
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