Opinion / Columnist
Leicester should offer Evenia Mawongera Freedom of the City
11 Oct 2013 at 10:09hrs | Views
I believe that Leicester should offer Evenia Mawongera the Freedom of the City.
I say this because Evenia has been living in this city with her daughters and grandchildren for more than 10 years. She calls Leicester home, not only because her family is here, but also because Leicester embraces the whole world. It makes people who arrive here from other parts of the world feel that the are part of the City and that, in Leicester, they are home.
Another reason why Leicester should offer Evenia the Freedom of the City is in acknowledgement of the contribution that refugees and asylum seekers make, have made and will continue to make to Leicester. And, although there are no readily available statistics on this, I would say that over a third (or more) of the population in Leicester is made up of people who arrived here as refugees and/or people who are descendants of refugees.
This is similar to what is happening in London where a significant proportion of the population are immigrants and which prompted Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, to publicly call for an amnesty for immigrants who have made London their home but who, because of immigration control laws, are not recognised as having the right to be in the UK.
Thirdly, there are a significant number of people living in Leicester who have spent 10 or more years of their lives trapped in the immigration and asylum system, who cannot return to their countries of origin (because those countries are unsafe or are at war or have atrocious human rights records) but who the Home Office will not give leave to remain to because it wants to be seen as being tough on immigration.
That these people have been here for this long is also a testament to the energy, hope and resilience that they bring to this city because life, when you do not have leave to remain or are at risk of being removed, is extremely difficult psychologically and materially.
With Evenia, if the Home Office had looked at her case properly, the Home Office would have allowed her to stay because that would have been the descent and right thing to do. I get the sense that the Home Office is currently detaining her and threatening her with deportation because it does not see her as a person. It sees her as a number. And, not only does it see her as a number, it sees her as a number that has to be kept down.
Awarding Evenia the Freedom of the City would be a way of acknowledging that Leicester is aware of the challenges that refugees and asylum seekers are facing in this City and in this country. It would be a way of acknowledging the contribution that refugees and asylum seekers make in Leicester. And it would be a way through which the City can urge central government to conduct itself with decency towards refugees and asylum seekers who, as you already know, are among some of the most vulnerable people living among us today.
Section 249 of the enabling statute, the Local Government Act of 1972, requires that the Honorary Freeman must be "a person of distinction" or "a person who has … rendered eminent services to the City". Evenia fits this bill for the same reasons for which she was a finalist and received a Special Commendation in the Good Neighbour Awards 2013. On top of sharing parental responsibilities for her grandchildren with her daughters, she is a tireless pro-democracy and human rights defender and has also been working with a number of community organisations here in Leicester on initiatives aimed at alleviating the suffering that refugees and asylum seekers experience. Furthermore, over 2,000 people from Leicester alone have signed hardcopies of the petition calling on Home Secretary Theresa May and Immigration Minister Mark Harper to exercise their discretion and let her stay. This is on top of close to 2,000 more people from all over the country who have signed the online version of the same petition.
Also, should Leicester City Council convene a meeting with the object of passing a resolution to confer the honour, it should be possible for more than two thirds of the councillors to agree to the resolution because four fifths (4/5) of the councillors have also signed the petition asking central government to let Evenia stay.
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Ambrose Musiyiwa can be contacted at amusiyiwa@googlemail.com
I say this because Evenia has been living in this city with her daughters and grandchildren for more than 10 years. She calls Leicester home, not only because her family is here, but also because Leicester embraces the whole world. It makes people who arrive here from other parts of the world feel that the are part of the City and that, in Leicester, they are home.
Another reason why Leicester should offer Evenia the Freedom of the City is in acknowledgement of the contribution that refugees and asylum seekers make, have made and will continue to make to Leicester. And, although there are no readily available statistics on this, I would say that over a third (or more) of the population in Leicester is made up of people who arrived here as refugees and/or people who are descendants of refugees.
This is similar to what is happening in London where a significant proportion of the population are immigrants and which prompted Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, to publicly call for an amnesty for immigrants who have made London their home but who, because of immigration control laws, are not recognised as having the right to be in the UK.
Thirdly, there are a significant number of people living in Leicester who have spent 10 or more years of their lives trapped in the immigration and asylum system, who cannot return to their countries of origin (because those countries are unsafe or are at war or have atrocious human rights records) but who the Home Office will not give leave to remain to because it wants to be seen as being tough on immigration.
With Evenia, if the Home Office had looked at her case properly, the Home Office would have allowed her to stay because that would have been the descent and right thing to do. I get the sense that the Home Office is currently detaining her and threatening her with deportation because it does not see her as a person. It sees her as a number. And, not only does it see her as a number, it sees her as a number that has to be kept down.
Awarding Evenia the Freedom of the City would be a way of acknowledging that Leicester is aware of the challenges that refugees and asylum seekers are facing in this City and in this country. It would be a way of acknowledging the contribution that refugees and asylum seekers make in Leicester. And it would be a way through which the City can urge central government to conduct itself with decency towards refugees and asylum seekers who, as you already know, are among some of the most vulnerable people living among us today.
Section 249 of the enabling statute, the Local Government Act of 1972, requires that the Honorary Freeman must be "a person of distinction" or "a person who has … rendered eminent services to the City". Evenia fits this bill for the same reasons for which she was a finalist and received a Special Commendation in the Good Neighbour Awards 2013. On top of sharing parental responsibilities for her grandchildren with her daughters, she is a tireless pro-democracy and human rights defender and has also been working with a number of community organisations here in Leicester on initiatives aimed at alleviating the suffering that refugees and asylum seekers experience. Furthermore, over 2,000 people from Leicester alone have signed hardcopies of the petition calling on Home Secretary Theresa May and Immigration Minister Mark Harper to exercise their discretion and let her stay. This is on top of close to 2,000 more people from all over the country who have signed the online version of the same petition.
Also, should Leicester City Council convene a meeting with the object of passing a resolution to confer the honour, it should be possible for more than two thirds of the councillors to agree to the resolution because four fifths (4/5) of the councillors have also signed the petition asking central government to let Evenia stay.
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Ambrose Musiyiwa can be contacted at amusiyiwa@googlemail.com
Source - Ambrose Musiyiwa
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