Listen to the Refugee's Story: How UK Foreign Investment Creates Refugees and Asylum Seekers
132 pages, A5
In 2002 the Ilisu Dam Campaign joined with other refugee, human rights and environmental campaigners, academics and politicians to hold a public seminar in December 2002 entitled "How UK Foreign Investment Creates Asylum Seekers". Speakers from several asylum communities told their stories about why they had been forced to flee from their countries. Other speakers described how the UK supports human rights abuses through some of its overseas investments and trade, and highlighted broader links between enforced migration and global economic processes.
Out of this seminar came a book Listen to the Refugee's Story: How UK Foreign Investment Creates Refugees and Asylum Seekers. The book includes personal stories, poems and drawings from refugees and asylum seekers including Kurds, Colombians, Afghans, Nigerians, Burmese and Somalis. It poses key questions about trade and development policies, corporate accountability, the injustices of the present economic system, and the implications of the war on terrorism.
The book, described by one reviewer as a "punchy, challenging and hard-hitting volume", constitutes an invaluable resource for all people who believe that a "better world is possible".
"I am proud to be associated with this book" said one of the contributors, poet Benjamin Zephaniah. "I've read many books this year and this is the most important one. I hope that it is as widely read as it should be and I hope that in its own small way it is able to play its part in creating a fairer, more compassionate country where refugees are seen as human beings."
To purchase a copy of the book, Listen to the Refugee's Story: How UK Foreign Investment Creates Refugees and Asylum Seekers (£5 including post and packing), please send payment and address to: The Refugee Project, 11 Goodwin Street, Finsbury Park, London, N4 3HQ. Cheques payable to 'The Refugee Project'.
Alternatively you can download
the book as a pdf file here.