Committee
Equal Opportunities Committee 18 May 2010
18 May 2010 · S3 · Equal Opportunities Committee
Item of business
Migration and Trafficking Inquiry
Rami Ousta (Black and Ethnic Minority Infrastructure in Scotland)
Watch on SPTV
As an umbrella organisation, we do not provide services in the same way as the Scottish Refugee Council. We work with our members—more than 600 voluntary sector organisations throughout Scotland that provide services to migrant and other communities. As an umbrella organisation, BEMIS provides support to those organisations for capacity building, ensuring access to education and engagement in human rights education. Consequently, we enable our members to support local migrant communities to be active citizens across the field. In addition, we provide support to the major stakeholders—the police, the national health service and others—by providing direct links between them, the migrant community and the grass-roots communities on the ground.As part of our service, we encourage migrant communities to form their own community organisations and we provide advice and support with regard to their constitutions and manage training for them. That said, we do not believe that those communities should simply exist in their own corners and we always try to build links between them and the wider community, not only through meetings but through the establishment of working relationships. Indeed, that approach has been very much acknowledged in Scotland.In discussing migration, we should not distance the subject from the concept of race equality, in which regard Scotland enjoys a unique status. All migrants’ issues fit under that umbrella, and we are involved with 650 projects throughout the country, in rural and more central areas, that seek to support migrant communities and engage them in wider civic society instead of simply classifying them as migrant groups.Finally, as far as this issue is concerned, the first thing that many stakeholders seem to mention is the Polish community. I want to make it clear that when we discuss the migrant community we should be talking about not only the Polish community, but other community groups.
In the same item of business
The Convener (Margaret Mitchell)
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the ninth meeting in 2010 of the Equal Opportunities Committee. I remind all those present, including members, that mo...
John Wilkes (Scottish Refugee Council)
Thank you for the invitation to the meeting.The Scottish Refugee Council deals mainly with one group of migrants, namely forced migrants. They are people who...
Rami Ousta (Black and Ethnic Minority Infrastructure in Scotland)
As an umbrella organisation, we do not provide services in the same way as the Scottish Refugee Council. We work with our members—more than 600 voluntary sec...
The Convener
I will be asking you to give us a breakdown of the term “migrant”, because the term is bandied about so much that we need to be quite clear what it means. I ...
Rami Ousta
The voluntary sector, especially umbrella organisations such as BEMIS, is not involved in gathering information or providing statistics. We might get a sense...
The Convener
Is trust a problem? After all, until accurate data are available, migrants will not be able to access the services that they should be accessing. Given its e...
Rami Ousta
Of course. In fact, one of our priorities is to educate our members in how to collect data in local areas. For example, we have had several meetings with tho...
Stewart Cunningham (Ethnic Minorities Law Centre)
The Ethnic Minorities Law Centre is a community service whose core work is providing legal advice and representation on three main areas: immigration and nat...
The Convener
Thank you. That gives us a good overview of the services that are offered to migrants and their communities. I want to tease out and get to the root of who w...
John Wilkes
About 25,000 to 27,000 people a year enter the asylum system in the UK, which has a managed process of dispersal. As the committee will probably be aware, Gl...
The Convener
Can you say whether some countries form the main blocks? Of course, other countries will be relevant, but does a main trend involve certain countries?10:15
John Wilkes
In relation to asylum, the population trends are well documented. As the committee would expect, such people tend to come from countries or areas where confl...
The Convener
One submission referred to third-country nationals and to A2 and A8 accession countries. Was that in Stewart Cunningham’s submission?
Stewart Cunningham
Yes. A third-country national is anybody who is from a country that is outside the European Union. The submission discusses a new development whereby people ...
The Convener
Does “A2” refer to countries that have been EU members for some time?
Stewart Cunningham
No specific term describes the countries that have been part of the EU for a longer time—I tend to describe them as old Europe or the more established Europe...
The Convener
In your experience, how does the balance lie?
Stewart Cunningham
The only statistics that we record are on our clients who come through the door. Our submission provides a snapshot of our stats for the past year. Members w...
The Convener
I understand.
Rami Ousta
In the past few years, some stakeholders have developed the wrong concept of what we mean by migration and migrant communities and have given all the attenti...
The Convener
I ask you to address specifically the question that we are asking about the people who approach you. Your submission says that more African clients are comin...
Rami Ousta
I am sorry—that was not my submission. We did not make a written submission.
The Convener
Do you recognise the trend that more African clients are coming forward, as opposed to people from the established communities?
Rami Ousta
Yes, there is an increase in the number of African migrant communities in Scotland, but there is also an increase in the number of the Roma community arrivin...
The Convener
You have made that point and we understand it. So that we can get the most out of the evidence session, can you tell us who the bulk of your clients are or h...
Rami Ousta
I can talk about the bulk of our members’ clients, because we do not work with clients. Our members’ clients come from eastern Europe, African communities an...
The Convener
Is there a gender divide? Is the split 60:40 or is it 50:50?
Stewart Cunningham
Whenever we extract that information, it usually comes back as a 50:50 split, give or take a few per cent; it is pretty equal.
The Convener
Is that the feeling of the other panellists?
John Wilkes
I do not have the exact figures, but I can send them to the committee. In the asylum system there tends to be a predominance of single males, which seems log...