Out of the £200m to £500m in compensation promised to the victims of the Windrush scandal of 2018, only £360,000 has been disbursed among 60 people. Tanzia Haq reports.
Stories of people treated brutally by the British Home Office began to surface in 2018 where the UK government attempted to deport elderly people, originally from the Caribbean, who had been living in the UK for over 40 years.
The situation escalated to the point where Caribbean diplomats condemned the Home Office for its refusal to solve the escalating humanitarian crisis and 140 MPs of all parties signed a letter to Theresa May urging swift action.
Now there are concerns among advocates working with the victims of the Windrush scandal that most of those affected will not see any compensation for their suffering any time soon.
One individual of the 60 compensated had received upwards of £100,000, which means 59 people received many meagre sums. Home Office representatives claim most of these are interim payments and the recipients will get payments in instalments.
1275 people applied for the compensation package as of March 2020. In 2018, the Home Office had banned many people from working or seeking government support on the grounds of suspected illegal immigration.
As a result of this intervention, many who are waiting for compensations now have been living in financial difficulties for some time. Many people lost jobs despite paying taxes for decades, many were mistakenly detained, and others lost out on emergency medical care.
Applicants have complained that the compensation scheme requires them to provide intricate documentary evidence in order to qualify. While there is legitimate reason for requiring proof, many victims claim they have shown ample evidence of their legal status in the UK when the scandal first began to unfold. Over 12,000 people have received apologies and confirmation of their legal status in the UK, which means only 0.5% of those wronged by the Home Office have so far received compensation.
Home Secretary Priti Patel told reporters, “By listening to feedback from community leaders and those affected, we have begun to put right the wrongs caused to a generation who have contributed so much to our country.”
The compensation scandal, as of now, is still unfolding.
