Rwandan refugee Jeto Flaviaih : launches petition to see children after eight years apart

Published: 25 June 2010
by JOSH LOEB

A REFUGEE from Rwanda last week joined mothers who have fled their homes because of violence at a series of events in schools.

Jeto Flaviaih, who lives in Finsbury Park, took part in programmes teaching children about the lives of asylum seekers in neighbouring Camden as part of Refugee Week.

When she fled Rwanda in 2002, Ms Flaviaih left behind her children – a daughter who is now 20 and two sons who are aged 18 and 16.

Although she has since won the right to remain in the UK, she is involved in a battle to bring her children to this country.

She said: “If you are in hiding, if you are being persecuted, you can be more easily identified or caught if you have children with you. 

“Many refugees choose to leave their children with someone, run away and then make ways of being with your children. However, as we’ve discovered, that is hard. My children are now living with a stranger and it took me five years to locate where they were.”

Ms Flaviaih has launched a petition, signed by more than 1,000 people, calling on the Home Office to make it easier for refugees to be reunited with their children.

She said the media were responsible for negative perceptions of asylum seekers and that the English schoolchildren she had met had been keen to hear about her experiences.

Sian Evans, co-ordinator of the Crossroads Women’s Centre Theatre Project, which organised the school visits, said: “A huge backlog of asylum cases has been allowed to build up and the immigration authorities have created a process called Legacy. 

“This is where you are granted the right to remain but outside the normal immigration rules, so it doesn’t restore your automatic right to family reunion. Even if you’ve got very good grounds for having one through the Refugee Convention, because of this administrative loophole you have to fight for years to have a chance of having one.”

Sarah Kajjumba, who left her children with a family member when she fled violence in Congo in 2003, also took part in the Refugee Week programmes.

She said: “It takes a long time to be given status and our children back home suffer. If you leave them when they are two years old, by the time they get status to be reunited with you they are 13. 

“That emotional attachment is no longer there. You have to win their trust back.”