Dear Ms Braverman…

This is a letter to Suella Braverman written by a 10-year-old Care4Calais supporter called Elyse.

After hearing about the UK Government’s treatment of refugees she was so upset that she went off to do her own research, and then wrote to the Home Secretary to say how she felt.

Her mum shared the letter with us, and we loved how its simple human empathy – a quality its addressee and her colleagues seem to have forgotten.

We’re sharing it here with her permission.Thank you Elysse. You are an inspiration

Dear Ms Braverman,

My name is Elyse Martin and I am 10 years old. I am writing to complain about the asylum system in the UK.

I think that it is appalling that after all refugees have been through in their own country, their journey to safety and now here, we ask them to relive it all over again during the asylum seeking process.

How would you feel going through that?

Think about the pressure we are putting on these innocent lives, the worry they might  be sent either home or to Rwanda.

How would you feel?

The refugees we are talking about have no jobs, very little rights or money (£5.83 per day). It is so upsetting.

How would you feel?

On the UNHCR website I found out that in total, 45,755 people have come over in small boats and 41,180 of them claimed asylum. Yet, only 340 had received a decision by the end of the year and lots of these people were told they would be sent to another country to live before you had even looked at their documents!

How is this fair?

I have looked at the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights and it says:

We all have the right to life and to live in freedom and safety.

We all have the right to belong to a country.

Nobody has the right to put us in prison without a good reason, to keep us there or to send us away from our country.

I think we should include them in our asylum system.

We are all born free and equal. We all have our own thoughts and ideas, and we should all be treated in the same way. These rights belong to everyone, whatever our differences.

Nobody can take these rights and freedoms away from us, they belong to everybody.

I hope, as you are a clever woman in a very high position, that you can understand my feelings about this and will address my concerns as soon as you can.

Yours sincerely,

Elyse

To get involved with Care4Calais, please see care4calais.org/get-involved/