UK

'Labour needs to learn lessons from Finland in tackling homelessness’

Mike Amesbury   

9th October, 2024

© Olesea Vetrila/Shutterstock.com

Eradicating homelessness and rough sleeping must be a key ambition of the Labour government as we prepare to mark World Homeless Day on October 10.

Those in the sector know only too well the damage homelessness causes to individuals and their loved ones as well as the cost to society, including the loss of potential and talent.

A stable home is the bedrock of good physical and mental health, happy relationships and the springboard from which to develop a career and raise a family.

Creating a strong economy and fairer society, with opportunities for all and a safety net to stop people falling through cracks, should be the big picture after 14 years of Tory failure.

While tackling homelessness in the here and now requires a systemic approach.

We should draw inspiration from the last Labour government with its Rough Sleepers Unit but also Finland’s Housing First programme which has virtually eliminated street homelessness and is now close to ending all forms of homelessness.

Earlier this year, in my then role as shadow minister for homelessness, I joined charity Crisis for a whistle-stop visit to Finland to see what has been achieved.

This coincided with research highlighting the contrasting reality in Tory Britain where our badge of dishonour was having the highest rate of homelessness in the developed world.

The following is my takeaway from an intense but informative couple of days, which I’m sharing with the new Labour administration.

Strong foundations

By 2008, Finland had reached a crossroads. The old ways of tackling homelessness were not working. Emergency night shelters were a sticking plaster at best; reproducing trauma and trapping people in a vicious cycle of destitution.

Housing First was a new philosophy based on everyone being able to access a decent home as a human right rather than being conditional on engaging in services for addictions or mental health. In a reversal of traditional thinking, policy makers realised having a place to call home was a necessary foundation for people to begin tackling their problems.

In practice, it meant building affordable social homes as well as hopes and dreams.

Political leadership with a missionary zeal to end homelessness was the driver. Directed from the centre but owned and shared across government departments, local government, the third sector and trade unions.

It’s not rocket science really. A national plan to increase the supply of affordable homes for social rent, with wrap-around support for people with complex needs and vulnerabilities. It even included converting the former night shelters into apartments.

While it’s true upfront costs may be high, in the long-term Housing First saves money, with cost reductions in areas like healthcare, social services and the justice system.

Successive administrations, from across the political spectrum, stuck to the plan and the results are impressive.

In the early hours, I walked around Helinski, near the main train station, passing shop doorways and public parks. No cardboard, quilts, blankets or sleeping bags. No sign of a person so desperate they must sleep on the streets.

Housing First pilot schemes are taking place here – in Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region and the West Midlands – guided by similar principles.

I’ve visited the projects in Manchester and Liverpool where homeless people with complex needs are helped through the provision of safe, secure homes upfront, together with person-centred support.

At the time, tenancies were being sustained in both cities at around the 80% mark.

Putting housing first

But Housing First is not immune to the housing supply and affordability crisis that remains the fundamental problem in the UK. Project leaders have started to bump up against that particular brick wall in terms of sourcing future properties.

If such pilots remain tiny islands of hope surrounded by a sea of rising waters, then our approach won’t be transformative.

So, it’s welcome news for everyone that Labour is committed to building 1.5 million new homes over five years, including ramping up the amount of social and council housing being built – and this latter element is crucial.

I want to see 90,000 social homes, available for genuinely affordable rent, being constructed every single year – on a scale we have not seen for a generation. Building these homes will provide dignity and security to working people.

And it’s vital ‘right to buy’ on new social homes is paused to protect the housing stock otherwise, as my friend and colleague Andy Burnham has pointed out – ‘it’s like trying to fill a bath but with the plug out’.

If increased supply can be twinned with a laser-like focus on tackling homelessness along Finnish lines, we can make a real difference.

Because what’s needed is early intervention and wrap-around support to stop people becoming homeless in the first place and to pick them up quickly if they lose their home or are forced to sleep rough.

Over time the Finnish model has evolved in this way, focusing more and more on prevention and the rapid rehousing of people, with support, if they do become homeless and applied to all forms of homelessness.

As a result, they have dramatically reduced the use of temporary accommodation for individuals and families.

We all want to see homelessness become a thing of the past. It’s a national scandal and a tragedy that one of the wealthiest countries on the planet is failing the hundreds of thousands of people recorded as homeless, including children.

It’s time for us to unite across government departments, charities and organisations; pooling our resources, knowledge, and expertise to get behind the common goal of a future free from homelessness.

I wish colleagues including my good friend, Deputy PM Angela Rayner, and ministers, well in this endeavour.

We have the wherewithal to make this vision a reality. Let’s do it.

Mike Amesbury is the Labour MP for Runcorn and Helsby.@MikeAmesburyMP

View all articles by Mike Amesbury

UK Budget 2024: FBU warns Tory austerity ‘needs to stop’ to rebuild fire services

Daniel Green   

8th October, 2024

The Fire Brigades Union has called on the government to rebuild the nation’s fire service after more than a decade of austerity so fire crews can tackle future risks and build resilience.

Hundreds of firefighters packed the Emmanuel Church near Parliament for what was billed as “the first national trade union rally of its kind since the general election” to demand the new Labour government provide greater funding and provide national standards on training and equipment.

Addressing fire crews from across the country, FBU President Ian Murray said: “For the new Westminster government, it’s now time to deliver.

“The Tories got absolutely walloped – they absolutely deserved it. Everybody in this room knows what they’ve done to the fire and rescue service. The jobs that have been lost, the stations that have been closed. The pay and pensions that have been attacked.

“We now have a new government and whatever you may think of it, it presents to us an opportunity to get an improvement in our fire and rescue service.

“We’re here to demand investment so that those that work in the fire service can do their jobs to the best of their ability as safely as possible, and in doing so keep our communities safe.”

READ MORE: What do trade unions hope to see in Budget 2024?

Photo: Jess Hurd

The Labour-affiliated union outlined ten demands for the Labour government including the creation of a new statutory advisory body, scrapping anti-union legislation, safeguarding collective bargaining and setting national standards to keep firefighters and communities safe.

Speaking to LabourList at of the event, general secretary Matt Wrack said: “You can see firefighters from across the country gathering here.

“They’re here because every single fire service for the past 14 years has faced devastating cuts to the numbers of jobs, fire stations and fire engines under austerity, but also the fire service is fragmented, with different standards applying in different parts of the country.

“We’re here to say to the new government that needs to stop and we need to invest in the fire service.”

Wrack said that the rally had “sent a firm message to the government that the fire service is in crisis”.

Extensive new evidence released regarding Israel’s killing, detention and torture of Palestinian healthcare workers

October 9, 2024
Labour Hub Editors

In a comprehensive report, Healthcare Workers Watch (HWW) is sharing first-hand testimony from Palestinian healthcare workers who have been tortured while in Israeli detention.  The Killing, Detention, and Torture of Healthcare Workers in Gaza contains the organisation’s detailed research, compiled over the past year, regarding Israel’s killing and detention of healthcare workers, including an analysis of the devastating impact on the provision of healthcare to the population of Gaza.

Through the rigorous evidence collected as primary data by HWW, this report outlines patterns of human rights violations carried out by the Israeli Occupation Forces that are unambiguously consistent with deliberate acts to inflict upon a specific population – the Palestinians living in Gaza – serious physical and psychological harm, consistent with the intent of genocide. These patterns of conduct include the targeted killing, injuring, detention and systemic torture of healthcare workers in a manner that is leading to death and disability of the Palestinian population by depriving them of healthcare, both in the short and long term.

This report also provides evidence of a wider pattern of genocidal conduct that has led to the largescale destruction of the healthcare system of Gaza. This includes the military besiegement, invasion and deliberate destruction of hospitals and medical equipment, forcing hospitals out of service, in some cases permanently. As a direct result of these crimes, tens of thousands of Palestinians are dying entirely preventable deaths due to a lack of access to adequate healthcare.

Dr. Muath Alser, the founder of HWW says: “In this report, we use rigorous evidence to demonstrate how the Israeli Occupation Forces are systematically targeting the healthcare workforce of Gaza. The patterns of human rights violations are unambiguously consistent with the intent of genocide.”

He goes on to say: “The key message from Healthcare Workers Watch is that all healthcare workers – especially those working in areas of conflicts and war zones – must be protected, supported, and respected instead of being targeted, tortured, and detained.”

Among the report’s findings are:

• HWW has confirmed the killing of a total of 587 healthcare workers in Gaza since October 7th 2023, and are in the process of verifying the killing of a further 420 healthcare workers. One third of those confirmed killed are women (194).
• HWW data shows that 105 senior physicians were killed or detained by the Israeli military since October 7th 2023, constituting 23% of Gaza’s most experienced physicians. This includes 39 killed consultants, 41 detained consultants, 19 killed specialists and 6 detained specialists.
• As of September 20th 2024, HWW documented 264 cases of unlawful detention of Palestinian healthcare workers in the Gaza Strip by Israeli Occupation Forces since October 7th 2023. These include 73 physicians, 2 dentists, 80 nurses, 36 paramedics, six pharmacists, one optometrist, 21 technicians, 29 healthcare administrative staff, four healthcare students, three volunteers, and nine others. Four of those detained were killed while in detention, 127 remain in detention currently, 23 are missing, and 110 were released (three of them were detained twice, then released). Fifty-five were from North Gaza, 91 from Gaza City, one from the Middle Area, 115 from Khan Younis, and two from Rafah.
• Several released healthcare workers interviewed by Healthcare Workers Watch reported being subjected to systematic torture and inhumane treatment in Israeli detention.

According to messages received from several healthcare workers in Northern Gaza, and also a statement recently released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, Israeli Occupation Forces are now threatening all healthcare workers and patients in northern Gaza’s hospitals, ordering them to evacuate to the south or they will face the same fate as Al-Shifa Hospital, where mass graves of men, women and children were found following the withdrawal of Israeli forces.

 So far, Israeli Occupation Forces have detained a paramedic while transferring a critically ill patient from the ICU of Kamal Adwan Hospital. The fate of the paramedic is unknown.

HWW are profoundly concerned about the safety of healthcare workers and the existence of the northern Gaza population as they are “facing a serious escalation of genocidal acts that render northern Gaza unliveable due to indiscriminate military actions and the destruction of the healthcare system through the killing, detention, and torture of healthcare workers and the wanton destruction of hospitals.”

Regarding the new report, HWW say: “We release this report in memory of the hundreds of healthcare workers killed in Gaza by the Israeli Occupation Forces, given the complete absence of effective international response, utter impunity, and failure of concerned organisations to prevent or stop these crimes, let alone hold their perpetrators accountable.”

Healthcare Workers Watch is powered by dedicated volunteers committed to documenting the Israeli attacks against healthcare workers in Palestine, and taking action accordingly. For more information, see www.healthcareworkerswatch.org

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UK

Report finds what campaigners have long-suspected – ‘Affordable’ housing products increases rents for low-income Londoners

By the Public Interest Law Centre’s Gentrification Project

October 8, 2024
Labour Hub Editors

Last month, we – Public Interest Law Centre (PILC) – released a report authored by Dr Joe Penny of UCL’s Urban Laboratory.  It found that estate regeneration projects which feature demolition routinely underproduce truly affordable housing for low-income Londoners and increase rents of council and social housing by an average of more than £80 per week.  The residents we support, who are part of campaigns to save their estates from demolition, have long suspected this. This report lays out the evidence.

We commissioned this report  to research cross-subsidy estate regeneration projects where estates are demolished with the promise of funding new ‘affordable’ housing. The report found that these projects routinely overproduce housing that London has little need for – market homes for sale and rent – and either underproduce or more often reduce truly affordable council houses that Londoners desperately need.  

Main findings of the report

The report studies six of the ‘best’ and ‘worst’ regeneration projects across three London Boroughs including the Aylesbury Estate, and the Heygate Estate.

It considered three different models of cross-subsidy estate regeneration: developer-led approach, local-housing company approach, and council-led approach.

Across all three cross-subsidy models in the report:

• The loss of social and council housing and the displacement of low-income working-class tenants are embedded features of regeneration projects that involve demolition
• All underproduce the housing that Londoners need the most (council rent and social rent)
• All overproduce the type of housing London has the least need for (market sale and rent)
• The total number of council and social housing was reduced by all but one of the regeneration projects
• Demolition and redevelopment of council estates increase the rents of council and social housing by more than £80 per week on average
• 23,551 new homes have been or are expected to be delivered by 2035
• 8,629 council rented homes have been or will be demolished across the six cases
• There will be a net loss of 2,151 truly affordable council homes
• Of the homes due to be built, just 6,478 (27%) of these homes are replacement social rented homes
• Almost double the amount of social or council homes will be for private market sale or rent (11,961, 51%).

Cross-subsidy models don’t produce affordable housing

The cross-subsidy approach to estate regeneration has been the dominant model of estate regeneration for the past two decades and looks set to continue under the Labour Government.

This is when council estates are demolished to make way for expensive properties which are put on the market or rented privately. In theory, the new private homes fund the construction of ‘affordable’ homes on the sites.

However, the report has found that the word ‘affordable’ is used with no consideration for what is truly affordable for people who need these housing options the most.

The report benchmarked affordability using the UN-Habitat’s definition: rent that costs no more than 30% of a household’s total monthly income. The report found that for some tenures on redeveloped sites, so-called ‘affordable’ rent could be as high as 76% of a household’s income.

For example, a person impacted by the benefit cap and living in the redeveloped Aylesbury Estate will be expected to spend 55% of their income on rent, despite paying Social Rent. This highlights the gap between true affordability and the so-called ‘affordable’ housing options available.

The report reveals that the unaffordability of ‘affordable’ housing options replacing council-rent homes after estate demolition is worsening the housing crisis for working-class Londoners. This raises the crucial question of which policies are effectively addressing the needs of those on the lowest incomes.

This is not the first time this model has come under scrutiny. Is cross-subsidy dead or resting?  was published as a comment piece in Inside Housing in 2019. It advised that: “Housing leaders lined up this week to warn that the current system of cross-subsidy is no longer working.”  Yet, there has been no notable break from this approach by Labour-run councils or Government. 

Council-rent housing?

Campaigners we support regularly raise the issue of why council-rent housing is disappearing from local-authority or Governmental policy when it comes to affordable housing targets, despite it being the lowest cost and therefore most affordable housing for the majority of Londoners.  It is not mentioned in the National Planning Policy Framework and not mentioned in the majority, if any, of local plans. 

In fact, it is so rare, that it was a nice surprise to see a development by Haringey council which shows a number of the homes they are building are council-rent.   This is what those we support want to see.

This is the ideal moment to challenge the dominance of cross-subsidy models in housing provision, which are driving gentrification in London and spreading across major cities nationwide. Communities are calling for sustained Government investment to preserve housing estates and prevent further displacement.   We hope those committed to addressing the housing crisis will use this evidence to elevate solutions that prioritise working-class communities.

Download the report

The promise of cross-subsidy: Why estate demolition cannot solve London’s housing emergency.

Download the guide to the report

To make the evidence as accessible as possible, PILC have created a guide to the report called What Golden Era: A guide to help challenge estate demolition plans with hard facts.

Watch our short film

What Golden Era? 5 things you need to know about council house building in London – YouTube

Labour Hub Editors

A national scandal – but will Labour fix it?

Mike Phipps reviews The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, by John Pring, published by Pluto.

 October 9, 2024

As John McDonnell MP points out, this book provides “definitive proof of how government austerity hasn’t just harmed disabled people, it has killed them.”

It has taken over a decade of research by disabled journalist John Pring, who is founder and editor of the Disability News Service, to uncover the hundreds of deaths of disabled people resulting from the slow, bureaucratic violence inflicted on them by those running the UK’s benefits system. The  individual stories of the suicides and deaths by starvation and other causes that Pring includes in the book are utterly harrowing.

First victims

When did the deliberate targeting of disabled claimants start? Pring starts his story in the late 1980s when the then Department for Social Security begins to deliberately brief the media about ‘workshy’ disabled claimants in preparation for a harsher benefits regime.

The change comes in the early 1990s. The government plans to cut the benefits bill by bypassing the claimant’s GP and using their own doctors from the Benefits Agency – “an objective medical test”. Henceforth the insurance industry, and other parts of the private sector, will gain an increasingly tight grip on disability assessments. The aim is to make about 20% of those who previously qualified for benefit ineligible under the new regime.

One victim of this reform was David Holmes, a man who had suffered a massive heart attack in 1982 and been awarded a lifetime mobility pension. Under the new rules, he was seen by a DSS doctor for 40 minutes and assessed as fit for work, his benefits ended. When he collapsed and died a few weeks later, he hadn’t even had time to post his appeal to the Department, explaining that on some days he struggled for breath getting out of bed.  The local paper ran the story under the headline “Worried to Death”.

The minister responsible said that cases of this kind were isolated. In fact,  a 1997 report found that, of the 60% of claimants who appeal against being disallowed benefit, more than half have it reinstated on appeal.

New Labour makes it tougher

A change in government brings no respite. To cut the benefits bill, New Labour outsources the assessment process to a private company. Reflecting the new ‘work ethic’, intensified job-search requirements are imposed – alongside tougher sanctions.

In May 1998, the government faces a significant, but unsuccessful, backbench rebellion, over its plans to means-test and tighten access to incapacity benefit. Despite the absence of evidence, a widespread belief in claimants’ malingering and propensity to fraud remains embedded in the Department and the private sector companies it works with.

From 2005 to 2007, the Secretary of State for the Department for Work and Pensions is John Hutton, who is later elevated to the House of Lords, works for the nuclear industry and takes a job with the Tory-led Coalition examining public sector pensions. While DWP head, he absurdly claims that “the vast majority” of people on incapacity benefit want to work – in fact, most know they are simply unable to do so.

Hutton proposes to cut the number of incapacity benefit recipients by a million over a decade. One of the experts who works on the Department’s attempts to fine-tune its plan later describes it as “reckless”. He tells the author that “everybody thought” the reforms would harm claimants and were simply about cost-cutting.

The Tories and most of the media – the Guardian included – appear to be in lockstep with this approach. By the time Labour leaves office, a Citizens Advice report finds that “high numbers” of seriously ill and disabled people are being found fit for work. Pring documents some of the tragedies that result from this – and the ensuing rise in disability activism.

The austerity Coalition

During the Coalition, it is these activists who raise the alarm about the harm the DWP is causing – the distress, self-harm, suicide attempts and hospitalisations that occur in anticipation of claimants being reassessed. But in 2012 the Welfare Reform Act introduces universal credit, the bedroom tax and a new disability benefit that ministers hope will cut spending by 20% in that area.

As media reports about disability benefit fraud more than double between 2005 and 2011, a crossbench peer tells Parliament that disabled people are now facing public hostility, with strangers accosting them and accusing them of faking their disability. Meanwhile, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Rachel Reeves announces Labour will be tougher on welfare than the Coalition.

As the deaths of people wrongly found fit for work mount up, the DWP denies – falsely – that it keeps records of these. The author concludes that the Department is doing everything possible to prevent the fatal consequences of its assessments being made public.

The dire quality of assessment interviews is an important feature of the author’s research. One man, Michael O’Sullivan, who suffered from extreme anxiety, panic attacks and  depression, is declared fit for work after a twelve-minute assessment by a physiotherapist – because by now you don’t have to be a doctor to carry out these vital assessments. Later Michael says he was left “humiliated… feeling like a criminal.” He is called for another test four months later, at which the doctor, from the private contractor Atos,  who also finds him fit for work, subsequently admits – at the inquest following Michael’s suicide – that he had not asked him if he had suicidal thoughts because he “looked OK.” This was despite Michael declaring in his pre-assessment form that he had indeed had such thoughts.

These are not isolated cases. Public health research shows that across England the reassessment of incapacity benefit claimants between 2010 and 2013 was “associated with” an extra 590 suicides.

Tories turn the screw

Meanwhile the Tory government cuts disabled people’s benefits again in 2016. Furthermore, new guidance to Maximus, the contractor which replaces Atos, makes it harder for claimants who are at significant risk of harm because of their mental health to avoid work-related activity.

In 2018, research from Essex University finds that the system of sanctions imposed on disabled people, including having their benefits cut for weeks, is “psychologically toxic”, “incoherent”, “arbitrary” and causes “a state of almost constant anxiety”. The DWP announces plans for a review of its sanctions policy – which it later scraps. Further research in 2021 shows how the Department inflicts psychological harm on claimants, imposes unofficial sanctioning targets and pushes disabled people into work despite the risks to their health.

In 2018, Roy Curtis, who suffered from chronic depression, panic attacks and Aspergers Syndrome, publicly posts online his intention to kill himself because he no longer has the energy to fight the DWP who have cut off his benefits. Although they are subsequently reinstated, he is then called in for a further face-to-face assessment, in a letter automatically generated by the Department’s IT system. A few days later Roy commits suicide. Without visiting his flat, social workers close his case. His benefits are stopped; so is his rent. Only when bailiffs break in nine months later to evict him is his body discovered. At his inquest nobody from the DWP or Maximus give evidence.

The idea that lessons might be learned so that such tragedies are not repeated is contradicted by the evidence of further deaths. This book documents a consistent refusal by the Department to take any notice of either the tragic deaths caused by its vicious policies, or the academic findings that systematically criticise them.

On the contrary, by 2023 the Conservatives are proposing to allow jobcentre staff with no medical qualifications to decide whether disabled people are able to carry out work-related activity. How far this mentality will change under a Labour government remains to be seen.

Accountability thwarted

There are many villains that emerge from Pring’s work, in all governing parties. But one who deserves special mention is Iain Duncan Smith, who presided over the DWP from 2010 to 2016, introducing Universal Credit, the Work Programme and real-terms benefit cuts. It was under him that the Department employed debt collectors to retrieve overpaid benefits and tried to introduce retrospective legislation to re-establish the legality of its ‘workfare’ policy after it was overturned in the courts – which itself was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. And it was under him that statistics showed 2,380 people died in a three-year period shortly after a work capability assessment declared them fit for work – which led Jeremy Corbyn MP rightly to call for his resignation. TheIndependent newspaper recently highlighted eleven ways Iain Duncan Smith made life harder for the most vulnerable people in Britain.

During the 2024 general election campaign, I went to Chingford to support local Labour activist Faiza Shaheen in her effort to unseat local MP Iain Duncan Smith, whom she had come close to defeating in 2019. I was not alone. Supporters of disability rights had travelled from far afield to help bring down this perpetrator of so much misery.

Two days later, mid-campaign, Faiza Shaheen was removed as Labour’s candidate in one of the most unpleasantly factional manoeuvres of the entire Starmer leadership. The Labour apparatus’s parachuting in of a careerist replacement with no connection to the area helped this much-detested Tory get re-elected.

John Pring has written a hugely important book which highlights a neglected national scandal. A copy has been delivered to every MP – let’s hope they read it!

John Pring writes about his book for Labour Hub here.

Mike Phipps’ book Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow: The Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn (OR Books, 2022) can be ordered here.

UK

Beyond the Checkpoints visit of Palestinian children starts this week

Labour Hub Editors

An international youth visit to the UK is fairly normal – but having a youth visit from Palestine under current conditions is extraordinary.  The Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association (CADFA) has has been organising such visits for the last18 years but in the current context this is especially challenging.

Here is a link to the report of the last one it organised earlier this year – a group of ten young Palestinians aged 13 to 16 visited in February and March. Activities included meetings with young people including in schools and youth clubs, sightseeing and other fun activities and meetings with local people.

“It shows why we go on,” says CADFA. “We ask you to support the visit both for the sake of the young people involved and also more widely to counter racism by helping the voice of young Palestinians reach across the country, asserting the importance of equality and human rights.”

“There is worry everywhere: you can smell it in the air,” say CADFA’s friends in Abu Dis. But the children and their parents still wanted the upcoming youth visit to go ahead and everything is now in place to look after them as well as possible. So the Beyond the Checkpoints youth visit goes ahead.

The Palestinians arrive in the northern England this week and will be in Pendle, Blackburn, Bradford, Derby, Birmingham and Cornwallbefore coming to Londonat the end of the month.  CADFA says: “We have great partners on this visit who have been working hard on a wonderful programme, full of great experiences for young people from Palestine and the UK and public community events where you can come and meet the group. We hope you will be able to meet them.”

Information about the youth visit and a full list of public events in Pendle, Blackburn, Bradford, Derby, Birmingham, Cornwall and different parts of London can be found here.

CADFA works in the UK to promote awareness about the human rights situation in Palestine. It works to bring Palestinian voices to the attention of people in the UK through publications, public events, creative projects and exchange visits. It has worked with schools across England and Wales, bringing speakers, visitors and organising  Zoom links with Palestine.

South Korean same-sex couples make push for marriage equality

Seoul (AFP) – Eleven gay and lesbian couples will attempt to register their marriages in South Korea on Friday, expecting to launch a legal process they hope will get the country to recognise marriage equality.

Issued on: 10/10/2024 

A group of same-sex couples are launching a bid to force South Korea to legalise same sex marriage © Jung Yeon-je / AFP

The couples expect the local authorities will decline to register their marriages because South Korea does not currently recognise same-sex unions.

They plan to file a lawsuit if they cannot register and, eventually, to force the constitutional court to give a ruling.

One of the women planning to register, Kim Sae-yeon, described at a news conference on Thursday how a verdict in favour of marriage equality would be much more than symbolic for her family.

She said she has no legal relationship with her daughter, who was born to her partner through IVF.

"I worry that, in an emergency, I may not be recognised as my daughter's legal guardian," Kim said.

"Most of all, I fear that if something happened to my wife, I might lose my daughter too."

Such lawsuits are rare in South Korea and the couples expect their petition could take five years to wind through the courts.

Hwang Yun-ha, who will seek to register her marriage to her wife, said they just want "to become a normal couple like any other married couple".

Public support for marriage equality has grown in South Korea over the years, up from 17 percent in 2001 to around 40 percent last year, according to Gallup polls.

"Discrimination has no place when two people love each other and want to make a family," said Hwang's mother Han Eun-jeong.

Activists scored a legal victory in July when a court ruled that it was discriminatory for state health insurers to treat same-sex couples differently from heterosexual common law couples, who are allowed joint coverage.

Former lawmaker Jang Hye-young, who introduced the country's first marriage equality bill in May 2023, said that things were also changing in parliament, even if the law did not pass.

"The biggest issue in South Korean politics has been the silence long accepted when it comes to LGBTQ discrimination," Jang told AFP.

Around a quarter of South Korea's population identifies as Christian and there has been vocal opposition to any recognition of same-sex marriage from such groups, purportedly on religious grounds.

© 2024 AFP

Hurricane Kirk remnants reach France, leaving at least one dead

After leaving power cuts and uprooted trees in its wake throughout Western Europe, the remnants of Hurricane Kirk reached southern France, producing torrential rain that killed one amateur sailor in the French port city of Sète and prompted authorities to put all French departments on orange alert.

Issued on: 10/10/2024 -

A couple try to shelter under an umbrella on the Pont des Arts bridge as remnants of hurricane Kirk causes heavy rainfall over central Paris, on October 9, 2024.

 © Kiran Ridley, AFP

The remnants of Hurricane Kirk swept into western Europe Wednesday, tearing up trees in Portugal and Spain before dumping heavy rains on France that left at least one dead.

A storm swell in the Mediterranean off the port city of Sete in southern France overturned three boats, killing one amateur sailor and putting another in the hospital in critical condition, said Herault department authorities.

Some 64,000 people in the south of France were also left without power, network supplier Enedis told AFP, while several departments reported roads cut off by floodwaters.

Following a crisis response meeting in Paris, Energy and Ecological Transition Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher told journalists the government was mobilising "all state services" and urged citizens to be careful.

"These episodes will have a tendency to recur. We're living at a time when climate change is making itself felt in concrete ways in our daily lives," she said.

Authorities put the Seine-et-Marne department near Paris on red alert for flooding as the rain swelled the Grand Morin river, a tributary of the Seine, which runs through the French capital.

Another 29 of the country's departments were placed on orange alert, with heavy rains and high winds expected.

There were 35,000 households that lost electricity in the worst-hit department of Pyrenees-Atlantiques, with a clutch of other departments in the southwest and central east of the country also affected, Enedis said.

Weather forecasters had predicted the storm would dump a month's worth of rain on a swathe of the country, including Paris.

Portugal power cuts

Portugal's civil protection authority reported more than 1,300 incidents overnight Tuesday to Wednesday, three-quarters of which involved fallen trees in the north of the country.

Porto, the main northern city, was hit hardest, with 400 trees uprooted. Cars were also damaged and rail services interrupted near Barcelos, also in the north.

The storm also cut power to more than 300,000 households, said the country's electricity supplier.

Weather and civil protection officials, having predicted winds of up to 120 kilometres per hour (75 mph) and heavy rain, put the coast on a yellow alert, as waves reached up to seven metres (23 feet) high.

Spanish weather officials issued an orange alert for the north and northwest of the country, warning of winds of up to 140 kilometres per hour in the Asturias region.

Galicia, in the northwest, reported some roads blocked by mud slides and fallen trees in urban areas.

(AFP)

Storm Kirk tears through Spain, Portugal, heads for France

Issued on: 10/10/2024 -

01:03 Video by FRANCE 24

The remnants of Hurricane Kirk swept into western Europe Wednesday, tearing up trees in Portugal and Spain, before high winds and heavy rains hit France.

EU talks deportation hubs to stem migration  REFUGEES & ASTLUM SEEKERS

Luxembourg (AFP) – European countries are to discuss "innovative" ways to increase deportations of irregular migrants and rejected asylum seekers on Thursday, including controversial plans to set up dedicated return centres in non-EU nations.

Issued on: 10/10/2024 - 

Italian police stand guard inside a recently built migrant processing centre in the Albanian port of Shengjin © Adnan Beci / AFP

Far-right gains in several European countries have helped put migration issues atop the agenda as home affairs ministers from the bloc's 27 states meet in Luxembourg ahead of a gathering of EU leaders later this month.

Whether the bloc should explore the "feasibility of innovative solutions in the field of returns, notably the return hub concept", will be the topic on the table at a ministerial working lunch, according to a background note to the official agenda.

The meeting comes only a few months after the European Union adopted a sweeping reform of its asylum policies.

The long-negotiated package, which will come into force in June 2026, hardens border procedures and requires countries to take in asylum seekers from "frontline" states like Italy or Greece or provide money and resources.

But more than half of the EU's member countries have said it does not go far enough.

In May, 15 of them urged the European Commission to "think outside the box", calling for the creation of centres outside the EU, where rejected asylum seekers could be sent pending deportation -- the plan to be discussed on Thursday.

"Pressure is on accelerating deportations," Jacob Kirkegaard, an analyst at Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, told AFP.

A growing number of governments are eager to show they are trying to "get rejected migrants off the streets one way or another", he added.
'Hotspots'

There are no detailed plans of how return hubs could work in practice.

A diplomatic source said one potential option entailed asking EU membership candidates -- over which the bloc holds some leverage to ensure acceptable standards -- to host such centres.

But sending migrants to third countries is fraught with ethical and legal questions -- something that might stop the idea from ever becoming reality.

Another diplomatic source cautioned that legal and fundamental rights assessments were needed to verify the feasibility of any such project.

Last year, less than 20 percent of the almost 500,000 people who were ordered to leave the bloc were effectively returned to their country of origin, according to Eurostat, the EU statistical office.

Repatriations are notoriously difficult -- they are costly and require the cooperation of the countries migrants need returning to.

According to border agency Frontex, the top three nationalities of migrants who irregularly crossed into the EU so far this year are Syria, Mali and Afghanistan -- countries with whom Brussels has no or at best difficult relations.

Besides return hubs, Austria and the Netherlands have suggested legal changes to allow for the sanctioning of rejected asylum applicants who are ordered to leave but fail to do so -- something that experts say could pave the way for detentions.

And Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, which currently holds the presidency of the EU Council tasked with driving the body's work, on Tuesday called for the creation of "hotspots" to process incoming migrants outside the bloc's borders.

Some point at a deal Italy has struck with Albania to hold and process migrants there as a possible way forward.

But other agreements the EU sealed with Tunisia, Libya and others providing aid and investments in return for help with curbing arrivals have proved hugely contentious and have faced legal challenges for exposing migrants to mistreatment.

Only last week two NGOs filed a lawsuit against Frontex, alleging the support it provided to the Libyan coastguard to locate migrant boats breached EU rules.
'Political show'

Sophie Pornschlegel, of Europe Jacques Delors, another Brussels think tank, said capitals were keen on putting up a "political show, because of the enormous pressure from far-right parties".

Often riding anti-immigrant sentiment, hard-right parties performed strongly in June European elections, and have come out top in recent national and regional votes in the Netherlands, Austria and Germany.

France's government tilted to the right after a snap vote this summer, and new Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau is known for his hardline stance on migration.

"The migration issue is back", said Eric Maurice of the European Policy Centre.

Irregular border crossings fell by 39 percent to almost 140,000 in the first eight months of 2024, compared to the same period last year, according to Frontex.

EU countries plus Norway and Switzerland received 85,000 asylum applications in May, down by a third compared to a peak reached last autumn, according to the European Union Agency for Asylum.

© 2024 AFP