A Petition too many, for me at least.

UK Border Agency: Please review the fresh evidence submitted for Afusat Saliu's asylum case properly

By Anj Handa

Leeds

My friend, Afusat Saliu, faces being returned to Nigeria. She has removal directions for 25th April. If she goes back, there is a real risk of forcible FGM on her daughters. She fled to the UK when her step-mother expressed a wish to have her daughter Bassy cut. Bassy will be four in May; two year old Rashidat was born in London - Afusat fled while she was heavily pregnant.

In Afusat's village, FGM is usually performed on babies, which is when Afusat herself was cut. If she is made to return and her family catch up with her, it is likely that she will be powerless to protect them from being mutilated. Afusat is also in danger as she escaped a forced marriage to a man 40 years her senior to whom her family is indebted.

I met Afusat in January. She hadn't had much support, so I assisted her with finding a solicitor and working with him to prepare fresh evidence. This fresh evidence and recent case law was not referred to in the Home Office response letter. We ask that her case is reviewed as it does not seem to have been given due consideration.

Afusat came to England to protect her daughters. She helps out at their school and volunteers with the Refugee Council and other organisations to support women in a similar position, despite her own mental health issues. Afusat is a real asset to our society. Her daughters are little Leeds lasses and have a spirit and character that I worry will be knocked out of them if they taken away. 

Our law says that Every Child Matters. I'm not willing to gamble on the risk of them being cut - a 13 year old died just this Sunday as a result of FGM gone wrong. It's too late for Afusat - nobody could protect her, but we do have a chance to save her girls. Please sign the petition. If you want to read more about their journey, visit anjhanda.wordpress.com.

My Request to Home Office:

- Review new evidence, which was presented, but appears to have been overlooked

- Consider Case Law precedent, where a materially similar application for asylum was upheld

- Ensure the safety and well-being of her two small daughters who are now well settled in Leeds (including the youngest, who was born in London), but who are likely to be subject to FGM should they return to Nigeria

- Pay due regard to the imminent danger involved to her and her family should she be returned to Nigeria, given the latest information that Nigeria is unlikely to be able to provide sufficient protection for herself and her family

- Take note of the community contribution already made by Afusat.

What does one say?  Easy!  No!  I definitely will not be signing this petition.

My reason is simple.  I live in a country that has, or used to have, its own religion, standards, behaviour and Laws.  If you want me to protect you, you must adopt all of my Rules, Laws and even my beliefs.  If you do not, then do what my ancestors did, and do what I did.  Fight for your own beliefs in your own country.

I am now tired and sick of putting my family at risk to provide a level of comfort that you could not provide for your family in your own country.  If you disagree with me, turn your machine off or delete my blog from your reading matter.   

Her children are not Tykes, they are Nigerian. So where are the fathers?

You say she has mental problems.  So do millions of true Brits and they don’t get help either.  If someone wants to adopt this family, then they should take full fiscal responsibility for them which includes their medical costs, education, housing and all other external expenditure BECAUSE I am sick to death of having every buggers’ hand in my packet except mine own.

Many years ago I wrote to as many MP’s as I could, indicating the strange anomaly of allowing aliens right of abode just because they had children born in this country.  The example I raised  was that of a pregnant female mass murderer, in transit to another country, being taken off an International flight so that she could have a child; and then the wheels of disjointed international system preventing the continued extradition purely because of this anomaly.   

My hackles were up because children born to British service personnel, stationed overseas, were finding it difficult to obtain their Rightful British Passports by a bureaucracy that appeared not to know where its responsibility and duty lay.  Yet every immigrant appeared to be getting a passport just by asking.

Enough is enough and although I sympathise, I leave my compassion for my former comrades butchered wholesale with their corpses rotted in Matabeleland.

So NO, Change.com.  I will not be signing this one too many petition.