Re your article on halting migrant boats (Sunak isn’t halting migrant boats or chasing traffickers: he’s just chasing headlines again, 5 March), I am a refugee in the UK (previously a refugee in Sweden) and I would like to comment on the point about the participation of refugees in society. While everyone talks about refugees living in hotels, this is not much different from living in prison. It takes six months from our arrival to be able to study, and 12 months to be able to work (but only in very limited sectors). In fact, we are locked in our rooms because we don’t have money to go out. In the prime of our youth, we feel worthless and depressed. Instead of using the potential of refugees, the British government is suppressing most of them.
Scary newspaper headlines bring a lot of fear and terror to the lives of refugees. In Sweden, refugees are allowed to study and work from the first day. I worked there for two years with a contract and paid taxes for two years while studying at the same time. The British government is not trying to solve the refugee problem. It is trying to prevent people from coming, and has no real or effective solution in mind.
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