Helping to support child refugees
Today, Birmingham welcomed a number of child refugees with family links to the city.
Cllr Waseem Zaffar, Cabinet Member for Transparency, Openness and Equality at Birmingham City Council, said: “We are on standby to support the Home Office in bringing children under the Dublin III regulation, which relates to children who already have family links in the UK. We have welcomed a number of children today with family links in the city.
“We are also signed up and are actively working to support children coming to the UK under the Lord Dubs agreement and have signed up to the National Transfer Scheme.
“Anyone who has seen reports of the desperate situation in Calais - and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria and elsewhere – knows we have a moral duty to help refugee children who have suffered immense hardships that no child should go through.
Birmingham, as a City of Sanctuary, has a proud history of sheltering people who are fleeing for their lives and we will continue to work with our partners to ensure those coming here are settled and can start a new life here.”
ENDS
Notes to editors:
Birmingham City Council has recently announced support for the community sponsorship of Syrian refugees. The Methodist Network will be sponsoring a family of four – with the support of the City Council and the Home Office. This will be a pilot for Birmingham which will be monitored during the initial period, followed by an evaluation of learning before committing to further sponsorship applications.
A total of 50 individuals were also welcomed to Birmingham under the Government’s Syrian Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme, which was established in 2015.
Longer-term, the council has made a commitment to welcome a further 500 Syrian refugees by this parliament, in line with Birmingham’s City of Sanctuary status.
Birmingham currently has 100 Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children, and has confirmed to central government that the city could accommodate up to an overall total of 130.
